The Dental Marketer

This Episode is Sponsored by: Dandy | The Fully Digital, US-based Dental Lab
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For a completely FREE 3Shape Trios 3 scanner & $250 in lab credit click here: https://www.meetdandy.com/affiliate/tdm !

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Guest: Angelica SetoPractice Name: Seto Family DentistryCheck out Angelica's Media:‍

Instagram: @seto_family_dentistry

TikTok: @setofamilydentistry

Facebook

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Other Mentions and Links:

Atomic Habits - James Clear

Why We Sleep - Matthew Walker

Aulani Disney Resort

Wells Fargo

Disney+

CEREC - Chairside Economical Restoration of Esthetic Ceramic

TDM Instagram: @thedentalmarketer

Yelp

Isolite

Amy Murray - The Dental Practice Management Agency

DAT - Dental Admission Test

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Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer

Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍

Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society

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My Key Takeaways:

• Having income from an acquisition allowed her to go 100% fee for service on her new startup.
• Even though business consultants are expensive, a good one will bring you even more income than their cost!
• Don’t be afraid to ask for help in the beginning. You don’t have to wear all the hats in your practice.
• If you are firing a team member, it should be for the good of the team. Don’t think of this as a personal attack!
• Leave room to have fun in morning huddles. Chatting and building team culture can be just as important as the day’s plan.
• Don’t beat around the bush when letting a team member go. Start with “I’m letting you go” and then follow up with the reasons.

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p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.

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Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

Michael: Na Angelica, how's it going? I'm doing well. How are I'm doing pretty good. Thanks for asking if you don't want me asking, where are you located?

Angelica: my practice is located in Denver,

Michael: Colorado. Oh, man. how is it like that?

Angelica: It's uh, pretty cold, but it was nice to escape the winter of last week on vacation. . It dropped down to negative four degrees while we

Michael: were gone. Right. So it's, is it snowing right now over there? It's

Angelica: not snowing right now. but we do get snow on and off again, during the Winter Monks. Hey,

Michael: real quick, how long have you been open for your practice?

Oh,

Angelica: this practice I opened in August of 20.

Michael: Oh, okay. So it's been about, cuz I. I thought for some reason you might've just opened and you took a vacation. I'm like, man, you're doing fantastic. You get it, you get life like . Where'd you go on vacation?

Angelica: We went to Hawaii.

Michael: Nice. Then what'd you guys do over there?

Angelica: we went to the Disney resort called Elani in Oahu. And we spent time with our daughter who's 15 months old. her name's Nora and my in-laws, my brother-in-law. So it was just a nice family

Michael: vacation. , how was that opening up a practice and then having a child? Oh,

Angelica: that was tough, . Cause my husband and I actually had trouble getting pregnant, so we, had to do I V F mm-hmm.

So when I was building my practice, I was going through egg retrieval and all the hor hormone injections. So that was wild just trying to, Stay nor somewhat normal while building a practice and, and being on all those hormones.

Michael: Yeah. Did you ever feel like. Maybe I'm gonna take a pause right now with one or the other, you know what I mean, or no?

Angelica: So actually I owned two practices. I purchased a practice I had been working at, since June of 2019, and I purchased that practice. In January of 2020, I was running two practices and then the shutdown happened. I was trying to get pregnant, and it was too much. I just hit a breaking point December.

of, 2021. I had just had my daughter. I had a pretty traumatic delivery and I, I couldn't do it anymore. And so I sold my practice within 24 hours, my second practice. and it life has been good since it, it's all about balance. ,

Michael: yeah. No, yeah. What, can we dive into that a little bit? Like so you had two practice.

And you just sold one or you sold both of them? I sold one. The second one. Why'd you sell that one?

Angelica: I acquired that practice. the dentist I acquired, well the dentist passed away unexpectedly. it was very, tragic event. And, was working with a couple of his friends colleagues of ours who.

trying to help his, wife or widow, uh, get rid of the practice. Mm-hmm. . And so they purchased the practice for me, because I couldn't get another loan after getting a startup loan. and they're, older dentists and so they helped me quite a bit. I learned a lot from them. they were great mentors.

And they practiced further down south. So I purchased the practice and anytime I had questions, I would email or call them, and they would help me out quite a bit. and it was great because the practice was producing quite a bit and it was helping to pay the bills for my fee for service startup.

so I was funneling money from one practice into another to make ends meet, and that's really why I was able to start out 100% fee for service. I've never accepted insurance at my startup practice. and it was because I was fortunate enough to have met. These people, who helped me purchase a secondary practice while I was building and who taught me quite a bit about the business of dentistry and, some clinical, and gave me quite a few clinical tips as well.

Cause I was a fairly new dentist and owning two practices at once was, was a lot to bite off so

Michael: soon. so the, the fee for service startup was the one in 20. Yes. Okay. And then like couple months or a year later you acquired the second practice?

Angelica: no. So the January, January before, so January of 2020 is when I purchased the secondary practice.

my startup opened in August of 2020. Oh, okay. So just eight months later, I was actually supposed to open, much earlier around the time I purchased a secondary practice, I was supposed to open my, my startup, but as you know, covid hit everything shut down. It was really difficult to get materials during that time.

and it delayed my opening quite a bit, which was unfortunate because I had bills that were starting to come in for my. Startup and I wasn't even able to practice or open my doors because of the shutdown. Mm-hmm. . Uh, And so having that secondary practice really, helped me out during that time.

Michael: So, real quick, how much was your, the loan process when it came to your startup?

Was that what, what bank did you go with? I went with Wells Fargo. Okay. How much was a loan for?

Angelica: it was four 500.

Michael: 500. Okay. What was the terms on that, do you remember?

Angelica: I had to start, and so that was, I had to start paying, there was a certain time after construction started that I had to start paying that loan back and because of Covid that time was, longer than I was planning for it to be, and that's why I had to start paying the loan back

Michael: early.

Gotcha. Okay. So 500. . And then did you get another loan for the acquisition or

Angelica: So, the dentist who passed away, his, his one of his best friends, the power of attorney for the practice. He, bought the practice for me and I was just making payments toward, for like, to him personally. So we had a personal, like, personally financed loan.

Michael: How did, can I ask, how much was the.

Angelica: I bought it for 220,000.

Michael: Okay, so he bought it. He was a partner or

Angelica: he just stepped in as a power of attorney? when the car accident happened, to help his wife get rid of the practice, because we knew pretty early on that, the dentist who ended up passing away wasn't going to practice again.

Michael: Yeah. Okay, man. So then he ended up purchasing it for you and then you just made payments. Was there like a, a schedule or was it just like on a handshake, like, Hey, we're gonna, oh, I got you.

Angelica: It was cut a little bit of both. Uh, He was very laid back. He purchased it. Everything was in my name. he put a lot of trust into me, and I barely knew him.

He's one of the nicest people that I now know very

Michael: well. Man. after this, gimme his. No, I'm, I wanna be friends with him. . Ok. He's great. No, that's good. That's, that's, that's interesting. Okay. So then that happened, you decided to go fee for service right? From that point on, I'm assuming it wasn't an easy startup process.

Angelica: No, it was not. It was a very slow burn in the beginning. But that allowed me to work at both locations. I was working full-time, so five days a week, and splitting my time between both practices. so I was producing at a. , you know, my secondary practice, which was producing really well, I was running three columns.

It was a very busy in-network, partially Medicaid practice. Mm-hmm. . So I was running around like crazy at that practice. We were just, our schedule was packed and then I'd come to my, my fever service startup and it was very slow. . Yeah. so I would alternate days, at both

Michael: Gotcha. So how much were you producing in the second practice or the one that you.

The one

Angelica: I acquired. Oh. when I acquired it, the first year was right at a million.

Michael: Okay. And so you would use that to help you with the startup for fee for service? Yes. Gotcha. Okay. And then that's when you were like, this is too much. When you started going through, birth,

Angelica: so when I got pregnant, You know, hire and going through Covid, hiring new employees.

I had two associates at one time. it just became too stressful, managing that many people. I think my biggest downfall was one, COVID. and two, I didn't ask for help soon enough. I wish I would've asked for more support. instead of trying to handle everything on my. What

Michael: do you mean?

Like, gimme more detail on that.

Angelica: so I was doing all the interviewing and hiring and managing of both practices. and you know, I, I love dentistry and I, I feel like I'm a great dentist, but I, I am not a very, I'm not the best, I wasn't the best businesswoman and I. , wear my heart on my sleeve. And so, you know, I was interviewing these people and I felt like they would be a good fit, but I wasn't really going through the right motions to find the right people, the right, who would fit into my practice.

So I ended up hiring a practice or a business, consultant. And I, I love this woman. She has helped me out so much and has, Saved me more than once with hiring, filling voids taking so much off of my plate. I think, being a new mom and owning two practices, And just trying to do it, you know, keep I'm, I'm a workaholic.

I love, I stay at work late. I um, I'm going to the practices on the, over the weekends and it was just, it was too much. I was burning the candle at both ends. And so when Amy, my, my business consultant came into the picture, she really took so much off my plate. I didn't meet any, Candidates for any job position until they had gone through Amy first and she vetted them and she would have them take a personality test and I thought that was really cool.

She would do a disc assessment with every, candidate and see if they would mesh with me and with other members of my team before even introducing them to me or anyone else in. and that saved a lot of time and, and heartache for me. .

Michael: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Definitely. Well, who's the business consultant?

Angelica: her name's Amy Murray.

She works for, the Dental Practice Management Agency. They have a very long name. .

Michael: I know. Yeah. Dental Practice Management Agency. Why do you think you didn't ask for help at the beginning? Like is it cuz like you just didn't know what you didn't know or more like it's my baby's like I.

Angelica: I think it was more, You know, personally, I, I wanted to do it all and, and say that I did it myself. I'm a hard worker. I, I worked two jobs when I was an undergrad. I babysat when I was in dental school, and I've always been a hard worker. And, and so I felt like I, I should be able to make this work on my own. I think the reason I waited so long was because business consultants aren't cheap.

and I. Bad spending so much money, you know, spending all the money to, for a startup. all the equipment I was purchasing and materials, you know, I was start, money was dwindling and so I was like, I don't have any money to put towards a business consultant, but I wish I had done it sooner because I mean, she has doubled my, production for my secondary.

within a year. So, if I had just hired her on sooner, who knows where I would be now.

Michael: Okay. Gotcha. So right, right now you don't have the other practice though, right? The acquisition? No.

Angelica: No. Okay. So I just have my fee for

Michael: service practice. Gotcha. Okay. So then, I mean, hey, you're, you're a hard worker.

We know you're a hard worker, , so where did that come from to wanna say like, Hey, I did.

Angelica: well, so my father's an immigrant, from Mexico and he, he came into the States, and he had a degree. When he was living in, in Mexico, he had a degree there, but it, when he came to the states in his early twenties, he wasn't able to use that degree here.

And so he had to go to school again. he had to learn English. He only spoke Spanish. So growing up we spoke English primarily in our household. , so that my father could learn enough English to go to school and get a job. he worked as a cook in a kitchen while going to school and eventually became an optical engineer.

And he has, I think three patents under his name, now, and he has just accomplished so much and started out with nothing to his name, no money. He didn't speak English when he came here, and he just built this beautiful. Wife, like he is the walking, living American dream. And you know, I just, I witnessed that growing up and, you know, if he can do it, I should be able to do it cuz I've had a lot more support, than he had growing up and financially and just a lot more.

it was, I had a lot more opportunities than he did.

Michael: Mm-hmm. . Do you feel more pressure cuz of that?

Angelica: I think so. ?

Michael: Yeah. Why?

Angelica: I just wanna make him proud. I know that he's worked hard to give us, a life, a good life. worked hard to help put us through school and, I want to show him that I appreciate that and that I can put the work in.

and make

Michael: him proud. Do you think he's not proud? Oh

Angelica: no. My dad's very proud. .

Michael: Yeah. So, okay. Yeah, so he's proud. I mean, like, you know what? He's proud,

Angelica: but I just can't stop. I have to keep going. .

Michael: I get you. I get you. Yeah, no, I think

Angelica: it's the dentist and all of us, you know, we're also competitive because we've just always had to prove ourselves with, you know, first d a t scores and then taking the boards.

And then I feel like in dental school we're all fighting for, you know, those top positions. And so I feel like our entire. education and the start of our careers is just very competitive. So we're kind of bred to be like that too, in a, in a way. Mm-hmm. .

Michael: Yeah, that's true. Yeah. You wanna kind of like, continue, continue, continue, right

Angelica: to, yeah, you already achieved this level, like what's next?

Mm-hmm. and have to keep, I feel like I just have to keep going. .

Michael: Do you feel like that right now? Like, cuz I mean, technically you've had two practices. You sold one, right? Mm-hmm. now a startup. Mm-hmm. . What was the whole reason for your startup?

Angelica: so I was an associate for a little under three months, when I graduated and moved to Denver.

I didn't really like how things were being done at the practice that I was at, but I really had no say. I had to show up and do my work and leave. And there were other procedures, other, things I was interested in, but I couldn't do those things cause I wasn't an owner. and this person wasn't really open to part partnership and so I decided well, , you know, I, I know what I wanna do.

I know what type, what level of care I wanna provide my patients. so why not just go out on my own and make it happen that way I can make those big decisions.

Michael: What were the level of procedures you wanted to do that they didn't want

Angelica: you to do? So, I'm very interested with sleep and airway. I am an airway dentist and I love cosmetics, so I love doing big veneer cases.

And at this practice, I, I was only being given what the other dentist didn't want to do. And so I felt like I couldn't get those big procedures. I, you know, I never got the big veneer cases or cosmetic cases that.

Michael: Gotcha. Looking back, if you found a practice that would let you do this, or if they told you, yeah, you can do this, would you still have opened up your own practice?

Angelica: I think I, I still would have opened up my own practice. Eventually, probably not as fast. But I eventually would've wanted my own, my own practice.

Michael: For what reason? To just be like, this is my home, or this is for what?

Angelica: because it's something that I created and something that I worked hard to make.

And I've never been open to working for, I've never worked for a corporation. I don't really like that fast paced environment. I like to move at a slower pace, give patients more time with me, and yeah, and I like to buy the equipment. I, I'm a big tech junkie. I love my, my new equipment, so I wanna be able to buy what I want, when I want it and work with the people that I like working with.

And yeah, I don't, I just don't feel like you can do that as an associate.

Michael: Yeah. Too many like having to asks and things like that instead of just going to straight to it Right. Kind of thing. Gotcha. Okay. Okay, so then you opened up your practice, your startup. I asked that mainly because I don't know if you're like, I want more free time, or I want to spend time with, you know, your fam, or I don't know, which I'm sure you do, right?

Like everybody wants that, but Oh yeah. Do you feel, what are some things that have come unexpectedly for you in the startup process where you're like, oh man, like I missed just that paycheck and then going home and then that's it, kind of thing.

Angelica: Oh gosh. I mean, right now, right now. I have an amazing team.

I truly feel like they're my family. Like we all work together really well and do, would do anything for each other. But it, it took a long time to get there. And I definitely had some team members in the past who made me just want to quit dentistry altogether. just like get rid of everything.

. So I think finding the right team members and building that team, it takes a while. And but once you find the right people, it feels good. And, you know, this is why I went into dentistry. This is why I went into ownership, is to work alongside people who have the same passion that I do, and, they make coming to work enjoyable again.

Michael: Yeah. What were those team members doing, or why did they make you want to give up?

Angelica: They would either no call, no show um, oh really? They would call or they'd call the morning of and say, Hey, I can't make it in. I'm sick. Or I have this going on, and I'm pretty lenient with, with callins and people not coming.

As long as you give me notice. As long as it's not too frequent, but this was happening, happening very frequently. And so a lot of ti I bought an isolate because I just, I had to be prepared to work by myself, and it was very stressful turning rooms over breaking out the isolate and just being in the room one-on-one with the patient and having to, if I forgot something, I'd have to run outta the operatory.

It was just chaotic. , but it was difficult to find people and I know that a lot of my colleagues are still struggling with that. And it's stressful. So I think managing people and hiring employees is probably one of the hardest things for me right now. Mm-hmm. well was one of the hardest things for me.

Michael: How do you wish you would've dealt with it sooner? Even with the fear of like, oh my God, I can't find people.

Angelica: I wish I would've because it was difficult to find employees. So I felt like I let a lot of things go. I wish I would've set better boundaries earlier on.

because I was afraid to lose employees even though they were not so great employees. I was scared to lose them cause I didn't want to be by myself. And so I felt like I was bending over backwards to keep these people happy just so that I would have somebody helping me in the practice some employees would ask for different hours or they didn't wanna work certain days or they wanted to do a late start. And allowing some people to do that and not others is not fair. And I wish I would've just put my foot down and and said, no, these are the hours I hired you for these hours.

These are the hours I expect you to come in. Instead of saying, oh, I think we can make it work. And stressing out over trying to make it work for that one person. And that's just. an example of, of one instance.

Michael: Mm-hmm. . Okay. Was it easy to let them go?

Angelica: Oh you know, the first time I had to let someone go, I was sweating.

My heart was racing. It was uh, really difficult. But after, you know, being an owner of two practices and going through covid and the high turnover rate it has gotten easier to let people go. Don't no longer serve a purpose in my office or in my life. And I don't do it often anymore. I, I mean, I haven't let someone go in a very long time.

But when I do it, I know that. I'm doing it for the betterment of the team. You know, you don't wanna keep somebody on who is the cancer of the practice, right? And bring everyone else down. Also, you don't want to keep around somebody who. Is making you miserable, then you're bringing that home to your family and family is so important to me.

And so I wanted to make sure that my workplace is a happy place and I left happy, and that way I'm not coming home and bringing all the negative feelings home with me, cuz that's not fair to my family.

Michael: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. No, that's true. A hundred percent. How did you let them go? How did it improve from the moment you were like, Because I get you like Yeah.

Sometimes you're, you, you're negotiating in your head. You're like, that's not that bad anymore. You know what I mean? Like, I can, I can handle that, you know? But how

Angelica: the best advice someone gave me was you bring the person in and. , the first thing that comes out of my mouth is I'm letting you go for these reasons.

And then you list those reasons, but you don't beat around the, like I used to just beat around the bush a little bit in the beginning and it made things a little awkward, but I've found that if. , I'm letting you go. And here are the reasons. As the first thing out of my mouth, then they know already. And you give the reasons and it sets the tone.

You keep it short. So there's a beginning, middle, and end, and you don't what's the word? You don't dilly dolly, you know? Mm-hmm. just very straight into the point. That's what they. You know, they don't want to sit around and listen to how they were so great, but you have to let them go and that sort of mess, just, I have to let you go.

And these are the reasons why.

Michael: Wow. Okay. That's a, that takes some, you know what I mean? Like some guts right there to just be like, I'm gonna let you go and here's why. Cuz in my mind, hell, if you were to tell me that, you're like, Hey, I'm gonna let, I need you to do this, Michael. And I'm like, okay, but what if they get angry?

and they don't even let me have my time to explain why, you know what I mean? They're just like, what if I just tell them immediately? Was that any of your fears or no?

Angelica: Oh yeah. And, you know, I was just prepared if, if things got emotional I was just prepared to, or if there were any, if there was any, Arguing.

Then I was just prepared to say, you know, this conversation is over. If you have any additional questions, you can email me at my email address. But I need the keys and your sensors and I'll walk you out. We'll gather your things and I'll walk you out.

Michael: Was there ever any arguing or angry or No.

Or ?

Angelica: No just keeping it short and being very straightforward has been helpful. It doesn't really give time for people to get emotional. You know, the only negative thing I've had happen was, you know, after the fact after they were able to think about it. I got some mean messages from one person, but that's about it.

Michael: Like Text messages, you mean? Yeah. Oh, okay. Gotcha. You gotcha. Yeah, after that, after the fact that if it was a text message, I'd be like, I, you know what I mean? Yeah. It was, yeah. All said and done. As long as you're not, no wonder I let you go, kind of thing. Right. You know? Yeah. Just kind of, okay. But like that.

So if you could real quick, break it down for me. What's the beginning, middle, and end of this process for you? .

Angelica: So the beginning is, I'm going to let you go. The middle is these are the reasons why. And typically when I let somebody go, they have already been write-ups filed. And so I'll have those write-ups on the desk.

And then after I give him the reasons, I ask them, what questions do you have? Typically they don't have any questions. And then I ask them, so that's all the middle. The end is, okay, I need your keys, your sensor. Let's walk through the office and gather your things, and I'll walk you out the back door and that's the end.

Michael: I like that. Okay, nice. Awesome. So would it be okay right now if we kind of dived into your startup a little bit? The business side of it? Sure. Okay. So you said the build out was, or how much your loan was? 500, right? Yep. Mm-hmm. . Okay. And then how much was your build out?

Angelica: Oh, so. , my buildout. It's hard. I, I don't really have like the complete breakdown.

It's been, it's been a little bit, but I think my buildout was around three 80 or

Michael: so. Okay. Three 80. Mm-hmm. . How was that process? Was it pretty smooth? Not so smooth, really hard.

Angelica: You know, my contractor was great.

we had done all the planning for my build out in 2019. We had all the permits in place. and then Covid hit. My contractor was pretty busy cuz he is a popular contractor in this area. And so I felt like in the beginning it was kind of slow because he was working on so many different projects.

But then the city of Denver shut down and they weren't issuing any new permits. And so some of the oth these other projects were. Permanently put on hold and they really couldn't move forward with anything cuz the permits weren't in place. Whereas with my practice, my project everything was in place and ready to go.

And in my head I knew, you know, everything shut down, but my construction ramped up and I was like, oh no. Like before I was like, let's, let's speed it up, you know, this is moving really slow. And then when it started to speed up really fast, I was like, oh my gosh, like, let's slow down . Cause things were shut down right now.

So that was stressful. How fast everything started to move because we had already done a lot of the leg work. In preparation for the build. Another thing that was really difficult was materials. All the materials that I picked out from my practice. I think I picked out maybe 10 different tiles from my bathroom floor and five different sinks for my operatories because I would pick one outfit was aesthetically pleasing to me.

And then it was no longer available because manufacturing was down. Hmm. . And so, that was really stressful. Like everything in my practice, I feel like every single material had to be replaced so many different times because it, we just couldn't get our hands on the materials.

Michael: Wow, okay. So that's the part that was holding it back?

Yes. Okay. Okay. And then you officially opened when?

Angelica: August of 20.

Michael: Okay. And when you, in the process of like, about to open, because it was in March, right? March when it hit like really hard in the US Covid.

Angelica: Yes. I closed my prac, my secondary practice on March 17th, and I reopened on May 5th. Okay. So like I have those dates burned in two line

Michael: So any, any of that time were you ever kind of. A little scared or just be like, Hey, you know what, just kidding with the startup part. I don't know if I wanna do this anymore. Or were, were you just like, no, we're gonna do it. We're gonna go through all this and,

Angelica: oh, I had come so far. I was, I was ready to keep going and I wanted it to be finished.

I wanted to open and start practicing in my new practice.

Michael: Hmm. Okay. That's good. That's good. Really, really great mindset. So then, what type of practice do you have? I know you mentioned it was,

Angelica: So we do airway, we do, we're, I'm a general dentist. Um, So we do a lot of your basic restorations. But we really, my team and I really love working on cosmetic cases and airway.

Okay, cool. That's nice. My hygienist is uh, myofunctional therapist as

Michael: well. Oh, really? On purpose? Mm-hmm. , that's what you were looking for on.

Angelica: Well, she came in as a hygienist and she had a passion for airway and wanted to learn more. So I sent her to finish an airway training course.

So she became certified as a myofunctional

Michael: Nice. That's really nice. Okay, so then how many employees do you have?

Angelica: I have not including myself. Four employees.

Michael: Okay. And then they are, The roles.

Angelica: I have an office manager. I have a hygienist slash myofunctional therapist, and then my two dental assistants are both cross trained for front desk and being in the back with me.

Michael: Okay. And they all were part of the process of your business consultant hiring them?

Angelica: They were all hired by my business consultant, Amy.

Michael: Right? Yeah. Okay, nice. So that really did stream. Oh

Angelica: my gosh. We we love doing, I don't, you can't see my office, right? I took down the balloons, but it was just my birthday and they surprised me by decorating my office.

And we, and they're just very sweet and thoughtful and we all do that sort of stuff for each other. I've never worked with a team that has, that is so thoughtful.

Michael: Yeah, that's beautiful. That's really, really nice. Okay, so then total production and collection, what does that look like? So like last month?

Angelica: Last month? Well I was on vacation yeah. So then the month, but, but, but we still did, well we were at 70,000. Oh, for the

Michael: month. Okay. And then, so how many ops do you have?

Angelica: I know I have four working operatories. I started when I built my practice. I plumbed for four. I built out two. Because I knew it was gonna be a very slow start with my fee for service startup.

Just last week I had the final two operatories equipped.

Michael: Okay. And then how many days

Angelica: are you open? Four days. Monday through Thursday.

Michael: The hours are

Angelica: are what? 7:00 AM to 4:00 PM Okay. So it's

Michael: pretty

Angelica: good. Our morning huddle starts. We everyone is ready for the morning huddle at 6:45 AM.

Michael: Okay. What does your morning huddle consist of?

Angelica: So my office manager starts the morning huddle. And there's typically three people who speak during the morning huddle. My office manager, my hygienist, and then one of my dental assistants. And they each fill out a day sheet outlining new patients. So my office manager starts with the numbers for the month we're currently scheduled at.

you know, $50,000 of production for this month. Here are the opportunities for this week. We have openings today for an emergency here. We could do a bigger procedure in a couple of days, so think about that. We need to fill this hole. And then she goes over the production, what we're scheduled for, for the day.

And of course, you know, just going over where we can increase that production, how we can increase it. , then it moves on to my hygienist. My hygienist will say, we have, you know, today we had six new patients, which is great. So she goes through the new patients and we talk about how we're going to make that appointment special for them.

We have a relaxation menu, so they always get offered that, and we make sure that we have all of that stuff laid out and ready when they enter the operatory. We'll go over. Existing patients and if there are any medical alerts that we need to be aware of any outstanding treatment mm-hmm.

and then it'll go to one of my dental assistants. They'll go over lab cases that we have in if there are any emergencies, new patients in their column. Any outstanding treatment that could be scheduled that hasn't been scheduled. So that we can take advantage of getting that scheduled.

Michael: Okay. And that all roughly takes about 15 minutes.

Yep.

Angelica: Well, and uh, then if I have any questions, I'll, I'll ask some questions. If things were scheduled a little wonky, I'll ask why someone's coming in for a consult, whoever spoke to them on the phone. I'll ask, well, what was discussed? And then there's, it's fun. Is then we all kind of chit chat at the end and there's a lot of laughter.

Patients come in and they're like, it sounds like you're having so much fun back there. . Mm-hmm. . And sometimes we'll have like some we'll take turns buying coffee for each other. So, we have our Starbucks order taped up on the refrigerator. So like, if somebody wants to treat the team to coffee, they know what we all like.

And so if someone brought coffee in, we'll sit around and drink coffee for a few minutes. Eat bagels or donuts, whatever we have. So it's just fun because we really bond during that time.

Michael: Yeah, that's nice. I like that. That's really good. Like having the. Coffee thing,

Angelica: you know? Yeah. Like, cause it got to the point where people were like, oh, I wanna treat everyone to coffee.

What, what do y'all want? And then we, they'd have to wait for everyone to text back and we all pretty much order the same thing every time. So we decided to write it out and we all have a, like, a picture of it on our phone. So if we just wanna surprise the, you know, the office of coffee will, we'll do

Michael: that.

I like that. That's really, really nice. Okay. And then real quick, how many patients are you getting?

Angelica: We are getting about, I think our average is around 40.

Michael: Okay. 30 to 40, yeah. That's good. Yeah. And then what are you doing for advertising and marketing? So,

Angelica: my business coach really doesn't like me putting much money into marketing.

Uh, we actually get, a lot of our new patients come from internal referrals, which is a big one for us. Google and Yelp. We have you know, five stars on Google and Yelp. We have really great reviews from some of our best patients. , there's a local newspaper that I have an add out and I pay about 180 a month for that ad.

And really, we don't get many new patients from that, but I continue to support them because they're local. And we have some patients who work for the local newspaper and they come in and we chit chat. So I just keep that there just to support them. Other than that, I've done nothing up until last month.

I started Google Ads because I was noticing that my reviews weren't showing up. So I had people saying, oh, did you see my review? I wrote you a nice review, and I said, oh, I don't think I saw that. It's not popping up. And then they would show me on their phone that they wrote me a review. And it would show on their Google account, but it wasn't showing on our pro, on our business profile.

So I went through all, you know, I researched why, why would our reviews not be showing up? And I went through and, you know, there was nothing that would've made that happen. You know, we were a verified business. They just for some reason weren't posting our reviews. Mm-hmm. . And one of my colleagues said, well, why don't you pay for a Google ad and then you'll start seeing.

Those reviews pop up. I paid for a Google ad and that same day my review started showing, are you serious? It had been months like it had been maybe three months since we saw a review. . And so that was kind of crazy to me. You know, I don't know how I feel about it. It seems like extortion to a certain

Michael: Yeah.

dirty Google. What? Yeah.

Angelica: So, I mean, maybe it's not related in my mind. It seems like it is, but we are now getting reviews and we're paying for Google Ads.

Michael: How much are you paying for Google ads? You don't mind me

Angelica: I got a special, it's like a holiday special where you. $500 and you got two A, you got to post two ads.

So that's what we did. So we've only invested $500 in in that.

Michael: Yeah, man. But I didn't know that. I never knew that, that that's, yeah, I wouldn't, that sounds kind of, it sounds kinda like Yelp if you think about it. You know what I mean?

Angelica: Yes, exactly. Hmm. So, but I know a lot of my colleagues have been struggling with their reviews not showing up and I mean, maybe there is a correlation between the two.

Who knows?

Michael: Yeah. No. Okay. I get you. And then what system would you say is unique in your practice right now that you created or maybe you have adopted where you're like, it's either our handoff from front to back, or it's our new patient?

Angelica: So something that my business coach helped me put together was the new patient welcome, making them feel comfortable in the practice because I don't know if you've seen pictures of my practice, but it's very homey.

I didn't want it to be a sterile or very clinical setting. I wanted it to feel like I have a fireplace in my waiting room and like a stack of logs and I've decorated my office almost like a. . And so when you walk in, it doesn't have that dental office feel. And I think that's the biggest compliment that we get from patients is they just love how it has a relaxed feel.

It already puts them at ease when they walk in. But the one thing that we do that I really love is we give our new patients a tour of the practice. So when Reza, my hygienist, or. Margarita My dental assistants bring a patient back. As they're walking them back, they'll say, well, here's our restroom.

And they'll show them the restroom. And this is our really cool C B C T. It takes a 3D image of your face. And Dr. CTO will go into more detail on that here in a sec. But we'll, we'll be returning to this room to take an image later. Here is our sterilization room and as they're walking them back, you know, I have a very open concept design but everything is very clean looking, very aesthetically pleasing.

And so it's just nice as they're walking them back to show them where everything is and then they walk 'em into the operatory. And now the patient knows like, if I have to use the restroom, I don't have to ask anyone. I know where it is. It makes them more comfort.

Michael: I like that you give 'em like an office tour.

They make them, Hey, here's the rest of your home kind of thing. Yeah.

Angelica: You know what I mean? Exactly. Yeah. , I like that. You can place your things on, on this stand here and you can hang your coat here and let me take your purse for you and they'll hang that up for them. And they've already looked at our relaxation menu.

You, and so we'll have. You know, if they want essential oils an eye mask. We have Disney Plus we have TVs mounted above the all the chairs and we have Disney Plus on the screens. And so I'll ask them if they wanna watch something specific. We have noise canceling headphones. So yeah, we just trying to make them feel comfortable.

Michael: Yeah, that'd be nice. How cool would it be like to be the first Disney sponsor? Practice . It's my dream. It's everything I've ever wanted. , . Okay, cool. So then one of the last questions I wanna ask you is throughout this process, I guess, from the moment you sold your prac, your second practice, or your fir, your first one, your acquisition to, to now, today, what's been some of your biggest or your biggest struggle or fail or pitfall

Angelica: since selling my second practice?

Mm. You know, well, of, of course we've already talked about managing people and, and hiring employees. I'd say couple, there are two things that come to mind. Mm-hmm. for me. One is implementing new procedures, like when I started with airway, just getting that into the practice and setting up a system for that. It's really stressful. You know, training everyone on the, on airway, especially when you have a, when I had a higher rate of turnover training people to take those special images that I need intraoral photos and measurements, that was really stressful.

Retraining every single person who came into my office to do that. So implementing something new. And then we just invested in cic, so we have the prime scan, the prime mill, and the prime print. . And so going through all that training and making sure we were doing everything right anytime there's something new, it just gets a little bit more stressful.

And then I think it's all around people managing people, right? So the second thing would be patient management. As a new dentist, when I came out of dental school, I felt like I let people walk all over me. I was scared to stand up for what I. Was right. And, you know, my confidence level wasn't the best because I was so new.

So I think building that confidence, setting boundaries, even with patients not letting them because some people I feel like have been struggling with , you know, post covid, the post covid era. Mm-hmm. . Um, There are a lot of people struggling with personal issues and coming to the dentist. It's, it's no fun sometimes.

And so they show the worst parts of themselves when they're anxious or scared. some people can come off quite mean or rude to a team member or even to me sometimes, and not letting that happen standing up for myself. That has. The biggest struggle, but something that I've really mastered this the past couple of years is building that confidence and standing up for myself and setting those boundaries.

You get really good at setting boundaries when you have when you have children, because you'll do anything for your kid. Right. And it's sad because I was struggling and I didn't , I didn't treat myself very nicely. The things I was saying to myself weren't very good. And so I actually started going to therapy after around the time I sold my practice because I just, I needed help.

I was struggling personally and going to a therapist, she really helped me to set those boundaries. And she said, you wouldn't treat your kid this way. You're beating yourself up over something a patient told you or something negative a patient said about you. And you're just, you're saying all these mean hurtful things about yourself in your head.

You would never say that to your kid. And I'm like, you're right. I, I love my daughter. I would never treat her that way. And so then she was like, well, why would you treat yourself that way? And I just sat back, I was like, you're right. I need to be nicer to myself. I need to have more grace. Um, I need to set boundaries and don't let people get you down.

I mean, , you do dentistry for a reason. You went to dental school for a reason. You're highly qualified, you know what's best in the dental realm. So, you know, stand up for yourself

Michael: a little bit. Mm-hmm. , do you feel like you kind of slipped back into that sometimes?

Angelica: Very rarely now. But when I first started out, oh yeah, Someone would say, Make a comment like, oh, you're taking so long on this filling. And I'm like, oh my gosh, did another dentist do it like so much faster than I did? Was it more comfortable? Like, am I a bad dentist? ? Yeah. And I, my, I would just go into a downward spiral. But I don't let myself do that anymore.

Michael: Yeah, no, I get you a hundred percent. I remember one person told us, like, if you get on a train right to a Destin, And then you realize like the intercom guy or whatever is like, we're going here and you're like, crap, I'm supposed to be on the other train. Would you just say, I'm gonna go all the way to the very end of this destination, get there and then get off?

Or what would you do? I'm asking what would you.

Angelica: Yeah, I would change directions and, and reroute myself,

Michael: right? Like on the next exit, wherever it's I'm, get off, get on. Right? Yep. Same thing with train of thought. as soon as you feel like you're getting on that negative thought process, get off, right?

Like change that. Just, just cut it off immediately. And we have the power to do that with our thoughts, but sometimes I don't know what it is where we're just like, well, let's just see where this goes. in my mind. You know what I mean? If I keep going down this way, which it doesn't make sense in real life if we did that.

No . So why do we do that with our mind? Right? So he's like, get off on the next. I thought that was interesting. That is really interesting. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah. Anyways, and Angelika, thank you so much for being with us. It's been a pleasure. But before we say goodbye, can you tell our listeners where they can find you?

Angelica: Yes. So you can find [email protected]. My practice is in Denver, Colorado. We have a Facebook and Instagram page. My dental assistant just created a TikTok as well, all under cdo family dentistry.

Michael: Nice. Okay, so that's all gonna be in the show notes below, guys and Angelica, thank you so much for being with us.

It's been a pleasure and we'll hear from you soon. Thank

Angelica: you so much. Have a great day.

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Hey there, Michael Arias here, and on this week's Monday Morning Marketing episode, we're continuing the essential topic - patient retention. This episode is brought to you by the one and only Sandy Pardue, of Classic Practice, and our podcast Dental Drill Bits. Did you know that up to 50% of patients leave practices over the course of five years? That's a staggering number, but there are steps you can take to combat it. One of the simplest is to ask your patients how their last visit was and really listen to their answers. It's important to never give up on retaining patients, even if they've been inactive for years. With around 170,000 dentists in the US, it's crucial to stand apart by showing how much you appreciate your patients being there. Most importantly, don't forget to always keep an eye on your attrition numbers! It's hard to fix what we don't track, so these metrics are especially important for the health of your practice.

Dive into my conversation with Sandy Pardue to learn more on patient retention!

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You can reach out to Sandy Pardue here:

Classic Practice Website

Dental Gumbo Facebook Group

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Other Mentions and Links:

Dental Drill Bits Podcast

ADA - American Dental Association

4 Seasons Hotels and Resorts

The Ritz-Carlton

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If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Marketing, ask me on these platforms:

My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/

The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041

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Dandy | The Fully Digital, US-based Dental Lab
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For a completely FREE 3Shape Trios 3 scanner & $250 in lab credit click here: meetdandy.com/affiliate/tdm !

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Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

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Michael: Hey, what's up Sandy?

Sandy: Michael? Hey, I, I was just, uh, looking at our reviews on iTunes.

Michael: Nice. Yeah. Guys, don't forget, if you can press pause right now. Go leave us a review on iTunes. Let us know how we're. And then come back and listen in. Cuz in this episode we're gonna be talking about something super important.

I'm sure you're looking at the title Why Patients Lead.

Sandy: Yep, yep, yep. This is a deep topic, . Okay. This the deep topic and for the listeners, and they've heard us talk about patient retention, which is gross. You know, we've talked about that. And, and for the new listeners, I mean, they'll, you just have to know this number if you say like, okay.

Like 170,000 dentists. You hear these different reports, 166,000, 170,000. But we all know, cause you've worked in these practices that get at least 10 new patients a month. Right? Some of them are getting 20, 30, 40, 50, a hundred new patients a month. So I'm gonna say we know that at least 1.6 million people are changing dentists every single month in the United States of America Now.

That being said, I saw another interesting statistic then from the American Dental Association that said that 25% to 50% of patients in any given practice are lost over a five year period. Whoa. That's crazy. Okay. I believe that, actually believe that could be worse now than it than ever. Because of so much of their automation, we have less personal contact.

Mm-hmm. with people now because we're all living so fast and we count on text and that kind of thing. You need those personal, the personal contact for sure. But you know, when you look at people in general, and we already know that they don't love coming to the dentist. But why do they leave? And, and here's the thing.

Most practices are not tracking this, and that's scary to me. Mm-hmm. , so they don't have any idea how many people are not coming back. And then the whole recall process is terrible in most practices. So what you need to do, I like to keep an attrition monitor. An attrition monitor. Now this could be as simple as having an Excel.

Where your front office, every time they learn that somebody is left the practice, they put the name in and uh, their family members and why they're leaving. If they say they changed dentists because of insurance or they changed dentists and you don't know why, or maybe they moved out of town, maybe they died.

So you've got all this information, okay, about that patient, and you can start to see who's leading. And I think that's very interesting to track. But the fact is that most practices don't do that. They don't really look close into their recall process to see that, okay, maybe in the beginning of October they had 300 people that needed a cleaning.

They never go back in November and pull that same report and see that they still have 180 people that are due to come. In October, they did not come in. That's a huge problem, but why? Okay, why? Why is this happening? Number one, no one's watching. Number two, no one's following up. That is huge. And number three, nobody's actually tracking it, so, Those are the things that the practices need to implement versus, here's the thing, and I was explaining this to a friend of ours yesterday who was looking for a local dentist and he's been going to somebody and he is not having a success with some work that he, major work that he was having done and this particular practice he's been going to, I see a lot of TV ads and things and I'm, so that tells me, and I happen to know they're getting about 150 new patients a month and they've been getting 150 new patients a month for 10.

So where are the people going? They haven't had to hire more hygienist, right? This is telling me that people are coming in and they're not staying. So practices that are listening, you need to be paying attention to this. But one thing you can do, this'll help you get some of them back and find out while they're leaving.

Now you guys, you've heard me talk a lot about the reactivation program that I, I love, and that's like sending. Postcards with return service address on there. So you get back the, to see who moved without ever having to call them. You, they call you, you get back about 20% without a phone call. It's a great project to do, but uh, you could also do a fall insurance letter.

That's a great thing to do right now. These are all activities to get people, but you've gotta communicate and you've gotta find. Why they're leaving. Okay. When you do this type of activity that I'm about to describe, you'll learn a lot about your practice. So what you wanna do is. Somebody that's a good communicator in your practice.

If it's been around and they know some of these patients, that's even better. You wanna get them on the phone, they start calling and you let 'em know we're updating our patient records and we notice you haven't been in for a while. And then zip it up, let them talk now. And uh, they see what they say.

Well, yeah, I know I need to get in. Or they say, well, I've changed Dennis, or I'm never coming back there. And that's when you. That pointed question. If I asked you a question, how was your last visit here? And then listen and see what you can learn. See what you can learn. Now, if somebody immediately says, put me in your inactive files, okay, , and sometimes they do that and sometimes they might just hang up, but you can't be scared of them.

You just keep doing, and that's where your scheduler is gonna try to discover any problems, because here's the. Patients can act crazy, but most of them are not gonna be crazy. And then sometimes when we meet these practices that are constantly firing patients, they are firing people less than, right? Well, I promise you that many people aren't crazy when you've got the practice two doors down, that never fires anybody.

That tells you that the people inside the practice are the ones running them off. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm.

Michael: Yeah, that does, that makes a lot of sense. And I like that. So we're asking them almost like as a post-op kind of thing, right. Once they're home or something, we ask them, how was your last visit here?

Or once they're in the practice, we're like, Hey, the visit before this, how was that? Yeah.

Sandy: Or, or say it like, can I ask you a question? I'll always like to say that first. Mm-hmm. and, and with a high pitch at the end. Can I ask you a question? And wait, how was your last visit here? That just opens up a conversation and that's when they come out with all kinds of things.

Like they left me in that chair and nobody tam to check on me. I was so thirsty. I was . You know, people get upset about things, right? They get quoted the wrong fees, the fee changes. Nobody told them in advance. Thought they were gonna see Susan, but uh, April was the hygienist. You know, they get, there's all these reasons because people are really sensitive about their mouths.

Okay. I'm just gonna tell you, people are super sensitive about their mouths. They are. And so, and people are just, they expect good customer service, especially people. West High expectations, more successful people. You know, they're used to going to the Four Seasons or the Ritz Carlton, and you want these kind of patients.

You know why they have money and they have rich friends, and so you wanna cater to these people. You don't wanna make them mad, and so you've gotta make sure we talk a lot about the tone of the office. Well, you've gotta make sure that your team is supporting you and your view. And they're happy to be there and they're wearing smiles cuz all of these things contribute to patients leaving.

They have a lot to do with your attrition. So you've got your team supporting you and complimenting you. A practice should be growing, not shrinking. So every year you should be growing and need, you need to hire more people. It's because you're retaining and growing these people that say they're never coming back.

You need to let them know the person that's calling, well, I'm sorry. We're not gonna be seeing you here again. We sure did enjoy having you as a patient. You know, a lot of times people when they hear something like that, they may be in between of leaving the practice. Maybe they were going to leave and then they got this phone call and they heard something like, And they, they never found that other dentist, so they will go ahead and appoint.

You can, you should never give up on your patients. I had somebody I saw in Dentaltown recently where he said he was gonna inactivate everybody that hadn't been in 18 months. Well, my gut got real tight. Okay. I'm just like, ugh. Because I know how hard it is to get those new patients and 18 months goes by really fast.

Mm-hmm. , I went 15 months without getting my teeth cleaned. Last time I did Sandy Cardew, I did , and so it just made everything. I'm glad my dentist didn't inactivate me. That's insane. Of course, I know how to take care of my. And, you know, I have a little scaler at home, so I believe me, I'm, I'm okay. But you, you know, people leave most of the time cause of the service they received or they felt like it wasn't fair or they didn't like they were treat the way they were treated.

That's what they always remember how they were treated. So that one phone call to follow up on these people that hadn't been. Instead of saying, hi, this is Sandy from Dr. Gutes, I was calling to set up an appointment. You know you're gonna be more personable with them. Letting them know, with missed seeing you, doctor asked me to call.

And you do it in such a kind voice. You don't, it's not just, I'm following them, schedule an appointment to you or send a text like I got yesterday. It's time for your cleaning. I didn't even say what dental office it was from . I was like, who is. Was it from my husband or me? I didn't, you know, and then I saw the text, and by now I've gotten about 25, 30 other texts and I forgot all about it until I was just talking about it here, ,

Michael: until right now.

I was just talking about, yeah, exactly. So then the, the three points keep, no one's watching, no one's following up, no one's tracking. No one's watching is we have to keep an attrition monitor. Right? Yeah. And that. What is that in our practice management

Sandy: software or No, you need to create your own Excel document,

Michael: and that is you're literally looking at who needs to be reactivated.

You're following up with the

Sandy: calls and stuff. The attrition monitor are the people that have left the practice. Those are the people. You're gonna only enter the people that are not coming back, so, You have pulled a report from your dental software, you see who hasn't been in for a long time. Go back three years, go back five years, you have a smaller practice, go back five years.

Then what happens is as you're making these calls, then you find out someone's not coming back. They're entered on that sheet. So it could be that they moved out of town. They changed dentists. They changed dentists because of insurance. I wanna put that in a separate category. So let's see, what did I say?

Change dentists, say Joseph of insurance and moved out of town and deceased. So, and then I like to send a letter to every one of them. If they're deceased, they get a sympathy, the family gets a sympathy. So some type of communication goes to them. Even if they changed Dennis, it's because of insurance. I want them to know that they're welcome to come back to the practice.

And so I'm calling these people, it's like I'm, I'm calling all these people that haven't been in, and I'm not calling them for a cleaning. I'm calling them because doctor asked me to call. Cuz we miss seeing them in the practice and I'm continuing this conversation letting them know how much we've enjoyed seeing them on a regular basis.

You know, ideally we're gonna reactivate them. If they say, oh, well you know what, I'm not coming back. Or, you know, my grandson is a dentist. Now, you know, or you are gonna tell you all these things. Or if you don't really know the reason why, it's okay to say, well, in order to complete our clinical records, may I ask why you wish to become inactive for the reason, and then they'll tell.

And then you make sure that you put that in, in the computer file. And if it's like a, it's, it's an upset. You know, a lot of times when you're talk to these people, you realize they're upset about something, some misunderstanding or, or bad communication somewhere. You've gotta get that handled. You've gotta report it to the doctor and get it handled cuz they're gonna go around and tell everybody.

Michael: Mm-hmm. . Okay. Okay. And then that's how you keep it, the monitoring, right? The attrition you have to follow up with. every

Sandy: week. To me it should be going ongoing. Like every day she's making a few calls and she's putting on the list, and then doctor as or the manager says, oh, can I see our attrition list? How are we doing?

Oh my goodness, look at this. We learned out of those calls that she made in a week that we lost 25 patients. It's just data. Okay? Running a business, you've gotta have data. Stats are everything. I love them. They, they give you a picture of everything going on, and so that. If you have a lot of people leaving the practice, you need to know.

And if you're not keeping up with it, you don't really know it, or you just know a number and you don't know who it was. So I like to communicate to the people that leave because they do come back. I've seen that first in, and they'll come back.

Michael: Gotcha. So then what do we do in this scenario when they're like, oh, you know what?

Yeah, I didn't like that. Uh, I didn't like that this person did that. Or did something happen? That's why I left. I, I'm finding another person. Right. Is. Are we trying to win them back or is it more like, oh my

Sandy: goodness, always, because if you don't, they're going to go talk around town for the next 10 years about you.

It's always better to have friends. It's always better to have really good relationships in life. Um, you know, it's never good to have somebody that's not happy with your service. And, you know, people, like, if you think about, you know, why, like, why would I stay at my dental office? Well, you know, I kinda like 'em.

I like how I feel when I go in there. Everybody's really friendly and I feel comfortable because I'd been there for a long time. And I feel like that work has lasted, that, that dental work. I mean, it, that's what people say, things like that. Right? Or, you know, they love it when they get like, oh, you know, I get my birthday cards from my dentist.

He's the first one that sends me a birthday card every single month. And people like that, they like it. Or, or you can hear 'em talking like, oh, my dentist, this is, this is what my husband's friend told me yesterday. I like this, Dennis. He's got a lot of good UpToDate technology. Hmm. He said, but I, I just don't like what he's doing with my den.

And I'm like, okay. So this is a guy that my husband has known for about 50 years that he worked with about 50 years ago. And every year they have a phone conversation. And that was yesterday. And I overheard some of this conversation. So he has an upper denture and he w, he was in an accident years ago and he lost some of his teeth.

So he is trying to, he want some implants, he's trying to do some work with to his mouth and he doesn't like what's happening. So he calls us and starts telling us about all this You. And that's what they do. He said, you know what, one thing I do like too is they gave me his, an emergency number after I had my surgery there.

And so that was the thing that impressed him. So he was impressed that the technology, he was impressed that he got that doctor said, look, if you have any problems, give me, um, you know, give me a call at this number. And so you're giving them kind of like you're impressing them and they have like a reason to, to stay.

And they're, they're looking if they found your practice and they're gonna stay. If you have, number one, a good care system, number two, you are communicating with them for that recall process, right? You're reaching out, you're in the calling, you're texting, you're sending cards, whatever it is you're doing, you're not being idle.

And I'm telling. The way they feel when they come in there, in that atmosphere and the technology and how easy it is to get an appointment. Those are the things that they are gonna like. Oh, and, and look, we had a friend that told us this at dinner one night. It's like every time I go to the dentist, I'm telling you, I, it's like he's mad and he's just assistant, he's like throwing the instruments down and I don't know what's going on.

Look, those are the little things that make a difference in the practice. Okay? So you can't, you can't do that. You cannot do that. And, and the way the team are interacting with each other. Yeah. They also, the things that's gonna have them stay to your practice is because, you know, if you come across. That you're rushed being impatient or you know, you seem like you're mad at your employees, they're mad at them, or you're not telling them what's going on with their mouth.

The last hygienist I saw was so good and she, she knew I was in the dental industry, but I think she probably does this with all the patients. So she was like telling me constantly, you know, what she was gonna be doing and um, yeah. And if they feel like. Overcharging or focusing on money, that'll be a turnoff for sure.

I think that if the practice is giving them more reasons to stay, you're, they're gonna be fine. Being aware of who's coming, leaving. Okay. Who's staying? You've gotta, you gotta take care of your patients. .

Michael: Yeah, I like that. Like it's, as long as we don't see it, like you said, idly by. Right. Like, give them more reasons to stay than to leave.

Right. I mean, maybe mistakes will happen. The more can compensate for that, right? Yeah. Um, and then monitor them. Any final words for this

Sandy: episode? The only other thing I wanna add, Michael, is I would like for everybody to start watching that attrition number and know how many patients they're retaining.

That is the most important statistic that you can keep. You're always looking for new patients. Let's close the back door. Let's keep some of those patients as you currently have.

Michael: Gotcha. Awesome. So guys, if you want to talk about this episode, come on the podcast or submit any questions. Then you can do so by joining the Facebook group Dental Gumbo.

And at the same time, don't forget to leave us a review on iTunes. It helps us out a ton. So please go ahead and do that. And thank you guys so much for tuning in, and we'll talk to you in the next

Sandy: episode. Yeah, Rebe, have fun. Reactivating those patients.

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Guest: Katherine Eitel BeltBusiness Name: LionSpeakCheck out Katherine's Media:‍

LionSpeak Communication Training Options

LionSpeak Calibration Retreat

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My Key Takeaways:

• Communication is essential to building a strong team and patient relationships.
• Don't forget to invest in team culture! It's not all about how much you're paying employees. They want purpose, support, and acknowledgment as well.
• Always lead with what your practice DOES offer rather than what it DOESN'T. This is especially true when handling those tricky questions involving insurance.
• Don't be afraid of the price question. If a potential patient is asking about price, it means they are looking to buy!
• When on the phone with potential patients, be sure to establish a relationship before asking for details.
• If you aren't the cheapest practice in town, you will have to sell the value of your practice rather than the price point.

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Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

Michael: Katherine, how's it.

Katherine: It's going great. So glad to be with you this morning. No,

Michael: thank you for being on. We truly, truly appreciate it. I know we're not far from each other. You're experiencing We just had a ton of rain, huh?

Katherine: We did, but it's made everything, uh, gorgeous and green and the snowcap mountains. And I heard we're gonna have a super bloom because of the rain on the

Michael: flowers. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's gonna be beautiful here in southern California. , but Awesome, Catherine. So can you tell us a little bit about your past, your present?

How'd you get to where you are?

Katherine: Yeah, so I come from dentistry. I started in college as a chairside dental assistant and eventually worked my way up to the front office area in the administration area of a practice and managed a large practice. eventually my career led me into practice management consulting for several decades, and then about 10 years ago.

I narrowed my focus to communication skills, coaching only, and primarily still within dentistry though, we do some corporate work and some work, uh, in, I would call it discretionary healthcare fields, but primarily dentistry. And, we like to describe our company. My company is Lion Speak and the overarching umbrella is communications coaching.

But under that umbrella, . We basically deliver that in three different sectors. So one sector we describe as patient facing or customer facing communications. So we talk and teach a lot on telephone skills and converting new patient phone calls, especially difficult ones. And then also case presentation, financial discussion with patients.

We have a lot of practices transition off of insurance plans and all the communication that's needed for that. Our second lane is described. Team facing communications. So, team culture, leadership. We turn a lot of managers on how to have something we call courageous conversations in a really productive way.

I'm writing a book on that right now, and we're getting ready, to release an on-demand video training series on that in April. . And then our third lane is described as audience facing communication. So we have a train the speaker and a train the trainer program there. and that's for anybody who wants to speak from the stage or even for practice owners that have large practices that may need to address their company or a board or anything like that, uh, on a regular basis.

Then we help them with their presentation skills. So, Where I've come from and, and where we are today.

Michael: Okay, nice. So let's rewind a little bit. You said you started as a chairside dental assistant, Uhhuh, and then you worked your way up to the. , why, why didn't you just stick to, you know what I mean? Like, okay, you know, I'm gonna do more clinical and stuff like that.

Yeah,

Katherine: well, I think, I think I got there a, the way a lot of administrators got there, I was sort of thrown into it. Uh, our, the administrator office manager that we had was in a car accident and actually didn't come back to the practice for over a year. So we were all just sort of pitching in, you know, pinch hitting for our team and it stuck, I guess I was.

Had some talent or was good at it and good on the phone, good with patients. And so I ended up, they ended up hiring another assistant and I ended up staying up front, and eventually moving on to manage a practice. and so I love both. I loved them equally. I loved chairside, with patients. I loved dentistry and providing it, but I also loved, the management of a team and, the systems, you know, management that was required from an administrator's position.

Okay. Wonderful.

Michael: Yeah. And then why did you narrow your focus to just communications?

Katherine: Ah, interesting question. So I think something happens when you hit your fifties . I think you're looking at your, you know, yardstick of your life and one half's looking a little shorter than the other half. Mm-hmm. . and I think, you I looked at my business, it was a very successful prac, uh, dental practice consulting business.

but there was a sliver that I enjoyed more than the rest. it's not that I don't understand how to set goals and track metrics or read a p and l. Uh, obviously I own my own business and, and helped many, but, or that I don't understand insurance coding and things like that. But that was never, it never lit me up.

what did light me up was helping dental professionals step into their potential by communicating at a much higher level. And so it was a bit of a jump off the cliff. I mean, I had people say, you know, I don't think, I don't think dentists or really small businesses are gonna pay for communications coaching only outside.

Practice management and I wasn't sure they would either, but uh, turns out 10 years later, here we are and turns out they will. So, I think I have a knack for it. It was definitely, I wanted to spend the rest of my career working on the topics that I most enjoy teaching, and also with clients that I most enjoy working with.

So it was a bit of a narrowing of my focus.

Michael: That's nice. I like that. Yeah, you're like inching down, you know what I mean? And it's good. Yeah. Inching down. Exactly. Right. I like it. So out of the, the three lanes that you mentioned, which do you see people returning and kind of saying like, we need this. I would assume it's team because, you know, teams are changing all the time, but like, where do you see where it's never ending?

All

Katherine: three. all three. Okay. So patient facing, obviously we have new people coming on board. We have, you know, older, personnel that's been with us a long time or been in the industry a long time that sometimes needs a refresher. so we see. ongoing there. We have clients returning year after year, after year.

Mm-hmm. , but certainly for team facing. We do something called, um, what in our leadership coaching we do, something called a calibration retreat. And many of our clients have us back year after year to facilitate that retreat. It's called a calibration retreat because it calibrates it's intention is to calibrate the team with the owner's future vision.

At that moment, how they see the future and what they're trying to create from that vantage point. and also the standards, the cultural standards that they, that are important to them. And so our job is to make sure that the owner's crystal clear about that for themselves first. Mm-hmm. , and then articulates that very clearly to the team.

And that we are able to facilitate a discussion at least once a year about, inviting people, which is a very d. Idea than demanding, inviting people to, cross the threshold into helping us achieve this vision and to align with these cultural standards. So there is no doubt right now given the shortage of employment that we're seeing sort of at a crisis level, we had clients that we've worked in different, maybe different areas that have come back, maybe post Covid.

They were like, well, you know, culture, you know, it's important, but I don't know if I wanna, mm-hmm. And all of a sudden they're calling and going, okay, I get it. I can't, I can't keep people, I mean, they're going down the street for a few dollars more an hour because, , they feel there's, that the cultures are the same.

Yeah. Or one is better than the other. And so I get now that it's more than just what I pay. Yeah. I have to create a work environment where people have clarity, where they have, they feel a part of something bigger and they feel supported. So, helping. Owners and managers and leadership create that environment is what we're all about.

So you can imagine there's just like booming business in that lane. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, as, as practices have scaled with multi-location, lots of doctors, There's a point, sort of kind of a crossover point about five practices in, if their intention is to grow, and scale at about that juncture, we find that they need to create a middle layer of management and often of training, internal training.

And so in our third lane, we're doing a very robust business right now in helping. Managers or, or dental personnel that gets, advanced or promoted into those, uh, training or management positions to learn how to coach their people. They often are really good at their job. It'd be a, someone gets promoted cuz they're a great hygienist or a great administrator, but when we promote them into a leadership position or a management position, even a team lead, they often fail because the skills you need to.

Really great hygienist and team player are a little different than what you need to grow and coach your people. So we're doing a lot of work in that area to help these new managers learn those skills. So it's hard for me to pick a lane cuz we're busy in all of them. Yeah,

Michael: no, that's good though. That's good.

And I like how you mentioned on the other one where it's like you want to feel, you want your team to feel bigger than it. they want, they wanna feel a part of something bigger than, you know what I mean? What it is. I know a couple of hygienists, they're hygienists, Catherine Hygienists and dental assistants who left for like, oh, in and out, has way better structure and organization and I feel like I'm, I'm going somewhere with them, you know, or another, you know, it's so different industry, but they're doing that.

So, I wanna ask you, I wanna dive into two specific ones. Okay. Ones that we, uh, discuss all the time. Here is one of 'em. Let's, let's dive into that. One is telephone skills and converting difficult New patient phone. . Okay. How can we, what are some pointers, instructions that you can give us for this?

Katherine: Well, we're known as the unscripted communications coaching company because I dislike scripts very much. I don't think they work. I get why we invented them, very popular in the seventies and eighties, even into the nineties. Scripting was really popular. . And I remember my boss at one time hiring a consultant, and it was overall a really great experience, but I remember the day he plopped down a three ring binder full of scripts for everything we were supposed to do in the dental practice.

And I remember reading some of those and thinking these were the Hokies things I ever read. Like I couldn't, yeah, I couldn't imagine th saying it that way through my personality and sounding mm-hmm. like normal and so, . I get why scripting came about though, because as a businesswoman, I definitely want to have consistency of service and consistency of brand and messaging in my company.

Like I wouldn't want you to call and talk to Kelly and have a completely different experience and get completely different information than you might if you talked to Stacy, right? Mm-hmm. . I do. I do. I do think that the idea of scripting was to give us consistency for branding, for messaging, for all of that, and so I get.

and I do think it's important, but I'm the kind of gal that says, why do I have to choose between consistency of message in my business and authenticity and connectivity with my patients. and my customers. Mm-hmm. . And so likewise, I don't want you to call and talk to Kelly and get a robotic. , like she's a robot.

And then it's the same exact experience when you talk to Stacy. Mm-hmm. . So I want, I want their personalities to come through. I want you as a customer to think, I, I spoke to a human being who heard me and had a, developed a relationship with me and was present in this moment, not reading from a memorized script.

So I'm the kind of girl who says, I don't wanna choose, I want both. And I think you can have both. And you do. With frameworks. Frameworks similar to scripting in that we require everyone to agree to that framework and we hold them accountable. We test them, we teach them, we train them, and we hold them accountable through ongoing coaching to that framework.

But within the framework, they get to be who they are as long as they hit the points of the framework. We say if they're funny, we want 'em to be. . If they're kind and sweet and gracious, that's how they're wired, then let's be a big version of that. We teasingly say if they're direct, they just need to be careful.

yes. But, but they get to be who they are and, I like that. I think patients respond well to that. It's how we train everyone, that we train on communication. If we're training a speaker on the stage to be a better speaker, we don't want them to sound like Catherine. , we want them to sound like the best version of them, their personality to come shining big through that stage performance.

But we do want them to get the points across to the audience that they've agreed to speak on. You know, so they're, again, there's a framework, but within their framework we get to be who we are. So that's first. tips on telephone skills. So our framework is a simple four step Process for.

almost every single new patient phone call that you could imagine. And there's really a top five. There's the patient that calls and asks the price of something, which is challenging. There's the patient that calls and asks for a checkup or a cleaning, you know, they're not really, they have no real urgent need.

they just wanna stay current. Right? And so they call asking, usually the question is a checkup or a cleaning. The third one is, they have an emergency, they have some level of urgency of a toothache, or they have a broken tooth or something doesn't feel quite right. Or they have, you know, they want something whitened before their wedding.

There's some sense of urgency. Mm-hmm. and some more immediate need. there is also a couple of other questions that come up. They're, they're not actually. A need, but they're the first question that gets asked. One of those is, are you on my plan? Now, that's not actually why they're calling. It's usually something else.

It always is something else, but it's the first question that they ask, and it's what administrators are faced with. Answering, and that's easy to answer if you are a provider on the plan. It's a little more challenging if you're not, and lots and lots of practices struggle with that question. So those are the kinds of questions that we coach on.

and so my t my quick tips, I mean, of course we, we take a lot longer than this interview to, to train people to be experts at this, but high level tips would be this. the first thing you have to accomplish is get in relationship with this caller. So what tends to happen is they'll say, hi, I was calling, I've got a a bit of a toothache, and I was wondering if the doctor could see me today.

and what we hear we do, we do thousands of mystery shopper calls a year for our clients. And I'd love to talk about how we do that a little differently, in a, in a bit. But we, but we, we listen to a ton of calls every year and more often than you might think. It's, it's actually very frequent and very, uh, often that we hear someone will answer that question with a another question of, what insurance do you?

So here they've said, I've got a tooth that's bothering me. I'd like to know if I could be seen today. And they say, okay, well do you have insurance? What insurance do you have? So what happens with that response? It's not coming from a mean person. It's coming from a person who's got three lines on hold and two people are checking out and they got a lot going on.

Mm-hmm. . And they're trying to be efficient, but what, how it sounds to a patient is all you care about is getting paid. and so what we first teach. Before you ever answer any question, say, well, I'm really glad you called. I mean, again, in your own words, but I'm really glad you called us. Welcome to our practice.

My name is Catherine, and what was your name, right? Let's get on a first name basis. . So the first thing I think is how can I get their name? How can I welcome them? And then I will usually, if they don't offer, I was referred by this person, or I found you on the internet, or however. So if they say, I was, my neighbor said I should call you.

I say, oh, well who's your neighbor? that's so awesome of her to refer you. And how long have you guys. Next to each other. You know, just I, if, if someone says, you know, I just moved to the area and my someone at work said I should call you. I say, well, where'd you move from? How long have you been here?

How do you like it so far? I mean, there's a thousand questions you could ask. That's the no scripting part. Mm-hmm. , ask whatever feels natural to you and to the conversation, but don't skip the principle of walking through the door and getting in relationship with that person. So one way to get in relationship is to walk through any open door They.

Now that's gonna be really annoying to a patient that's in pain. So if a patient that is in pain and they express that, or even any high urgency, . We don't wanna say, well gosh, how long have you worked there? You know, and it's annoying. So what we wanna connect with is empathy. We wanna say, before we ever answer their question, we wanna say, well, I'm, I'm really sorry to hear that you've been in some discomfort.

I'd love to learn a little bit more about that and how we can get you seen quickly and get you feeling better soon. So I just want you to know, I, I get it and I'm, and I'm really sorry to hear that, you know, just some empathy that says, I heard you and I actually care about it. it's less than 30 seconds.

It's not a long time, but do not skip this step. So that would be my first tip. Second tip is get in control of the phone call. And I'll tell you, Michael, if your listeners took only one thing away from this, Discussion about telephone skills. Mm-hmm. and even maybe communications in general. If they took this next point away, they'd have the keys to the kingdom if they would remember that.

Whoever, in any conversation, Like in this interview, in any conversation, the person that's asking the questions is actually controlling the direction of the conversation. So in our exchange today, you're asking the majority of the questions. You're steering what we're gonna talk about. You're steering the direction of our conversation, which is as it should be, it's your podcast.

But when people call a dental, it's usually the patient that's holding that baton of control because they say, are you on my plan? How much do you charge for a crown? can I get my teeth cleaned? You know, can I be seen today? so they've got the control and instead of thinking, my job is to answer all their question.

An administrator would be better served to say, my job is to gently reach through that phone, connect with them personally, gently grab that baton of control and bring it back over here where I can steer and control the conversation. That's the biggest mistake most people make in our mystery calls is they don't get control of the call early.

And how you do it is you answer their question with another question. So I might say, if they said, you know, how much do you charge? whitening. I might say. Well, I'm so glad you called. We do whitening. A lot of whitening, really good at it. So welcome to our practice. Uh, my name's Catherine and what was your name, right?

I connect with them somehow. Then one, once I felt like I've connected, then I say, so I'm happy to answer your question about the whitening. I just wanna make sure I give you the right information, and schedule the right appointment. So, would you mind if I ask you a few more questions or a couple of.

now who's got the baton of control, they feel like they're gonna get their question answered. So they're not resistant in any way. But I have not answered their question. I've actually just reached through the phone and brought the control over to me. Mm-hmm. , and now I get to steer this with a line of questioning that will help me determine, really the only two things that an administrator ever needs to determine on a new patient call.

One is, which of the two appointments we have to offer is best a comp. or a limited exam, which of those is the best for this patient? And it is often different than what they asked for. Lots of people asked for a cleaning, but what they really want is to have a tooth checked. Lots of people asked to have a tooth checked, and what they would be more than willing to do is have all their teeth checked.

So, I mean, that's not always the case, but it often is the case. So when someone says, I was wondering if I could schedule a cleaning, I think in my mind, well, we'll see. We'll see. Depends on how you answer my questions. Mm-hmm. , I'm not just gonna schedule you for a new patient exam and cleaning until I've taken you through a line of questioning and my, all my questioning is about urgency.

That's, it's all about urgency because the only thing that drives them, or should drive them to a limited exam that I'm gonna shove into the middle of a full schedule should be urgency. And if it isn't urgent, then I'm gonna try to direct them and steer them to a comprehensive exam. that's the one thing I have to determine.

The second thing I have to determine with my line of questioning is, what else do they care about? What are other hot buttons? is it the discomfort? do they also have some money concerns or financial concerns? Do they have, maybe they're concerned about getting some, you know, disappointment but missing too much work.

maybe they have an upcoming event. They want the work to be done before, so I'm trying to find out what else do they care about so that when I step into to my step number three in the framework, I can give back to them. The right appointment and why it's perfect for them. Options on times and dates, and then I'm also gonna promote the practice.

back through the filter of what they said they cared about. So if I discerned that they cared about money, then I'm going to maybe mention, I'm so glad you found us because you mentioned that you were a little bit concerned about the cost of this treatment and, we have lots of patients that have expressed that concern and we are really exceptionally good at helping patients with a variety of.

Financial options to afford the care that they need and want. So once you come in, we'll find out exactly what you need, and then the two of us will sit down and we'll look at a variety of options. And we almost always are able to help patients find something, that helps them afford the care that they want comfortably.

So I look forward to that com. You know, so it's mm-hmm. , my, my feeling is that it's our. to promote the pr. It's not the patient's job to sell themselves on us. It's our job to sell them on us. And so once in step two, I've discovered what really matters to them and which appointment would be appropriate.

Then in step three, I'm actually giving that to them, but I'm, but I'm stepping into actively promoting this practice through the filter of what I've discerned they care about. So, and then in step four, take care of the details. That's where we get insurance details. That's where we give them directions and that's where we reconfirm the appointment or get whatever, you know, whatever the details are.

But one of the big mistakes, Michael, that administrators make without training, and I'm, I've made all of these mistakes, one of the mistakes we often make is we let the computer screen for a new patient account guide our. And the computer screen for a new patient account wants to know address and phone and email and insurance information.

None of those help us with those two questions. What appointment is appropriate and what else do they care about that I can promote the practice to? So those questions, in my opinion, should be later in the call. Once we schedule an appointment, then all those things matter. But what does it matter what their address is or their email is?

if I haven't even sold them on the practice and we don't have them scheduled for an appointment. So I, I wanna, my questions on step number two are geared toward discovering the level of urgency and what else do they care? What are their hot buttons so that I can manage that well in step three. So those are some tips that I think, if people could really focus on restructuring where they guide and how they guide a patient, they'd do so much better, in those phone calls.

Michael: Wow. Okay. So these are the four major steps for this framework. And you mentioned you do mystery shopper calls, Uhhuh for your clients. How does that work?

Like what were, how do you do. .

Katherine: It's really kind of a scary proposition for most administrators if they're honest. . it's scary for anyone, you know, I'm a speaker and trainer and coach and, I've been invited to do some pretty big keynotes here in the next year or so. Mm-hmm. and, uh, they're bigger audiences than I'm used to addressing normally.

And so I reached out for some additional coaching for that keynote and the first thing my coach said is, I want you, One of your next upcoming speeches, I want you to record it and I want you to watch it and self evaluate your, you know, your performance. And then I will do the same and we'll come together and talk about it.

And it was painful. It was painful to listen to myself, to watch myself. It's very hard. But as a professional, . I wanna continue to grow. I wanna grow my income. I wanna grow my value, I wanna grow my performance. And so to do that, I've gotta have the courage to listen and watch myself. And so I would say to administrators or anyone, in the dental field, if you want to advance your career, if you wanna be paid top dollar, I mean, imagine being able to lay down at your next review, your next performance review, four or five mystery shopper calls that were perfectly score.

and you've got tens across the board. I mean, those are the kinds of talents that, managers and leaders and owners are wanting. to pay for. So I like that. Um, one of the things I'll say about Mystery Shepherd calls is that we have some competition that I think does it very poorly.

And because they have done it very poorly, it has turned a lot of people off to the idea as a whole. And I think we're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I think it's just been done poorly. So for example, We don't do any sneak attacks. If we're gonna do mystery sharper calls and we agree to do them and a client hires us, it's with the understanding that we will train first.

We will help people to get better first, and we will show them the scorecard. We will train them against the scorecard so that they have some input, they have can, can ask their questions, get whatever. We're not trying to catch people doing. We're trying to help them get better and so no sneak attacks.

The other thing is we don't use, we use normal people for the calls, asking normal questions. We're not trying again to trick people. We're trying to say, can we get you and help get you significantly better with the normal caller? So asking the normal questions that that patients ask. So, you know, we're not dragging people off the street to do this.

We. , regular moms and dads or even have a couple of retired dentists that make calls for us, but they're asking normal questions and, and I think if we get good with those, then we've, you know, we've, we've scaled the mountain. so those are some of the things. The others, we never play these calls before, anybody without their permission.

Hmm. So sometimes. Somebody says, I want my team to hear this call. I want 'em to hear how much noise they were making in the background while I was trying to handle this call and how that sounds on the phone. So sometimes they say, please do play it, but unless we get their permission, well, first of all, unless we get their written permission, we never even make the calls we want.

Mm-hmm. , the individual's written permission over the next year to do these and to sit down with them and to go over the results and help them get better. with one exception. Of course, whoever hired us to do these, they get to listen to it. But other than that, we wouldn't play it before a department or a team or anyone else, unless we had that person's permission.

Again, we're not interested in embarrassing or catching someone. We wanna build you up and make you say, that was one of the best things I ever did and it, and it helped my career. it's, it's important I think that we treat people the way we would wanna be treated. So if you're interested in advancing your career or you're interested in helping your people advance their careers, and convert more callers on the phone, I think teaching them well and then getting them a coach that can be their support person to, you know, hold them accountable to, to what we've agreed to is, is super, is super important.

Yeah.

Michael: What about Catherine, the type of, patients that. I a hundred percent agree. Like we, we do need to get control of the, I love that how you said, like, and that's a huge principle. Like what, okay, the one asking the questions is the person, you know what I mean? And then at the same time, you wanna show that empathy.

Like, sure, who doesn't want, who doesn't love that? Who doesn't like you get it? You, you get that? I'm in pain, right? But what about those patient. Because I remember working in the front office and we would get a lot of the times where they're like, well, what does that matter? Like, it's almost like they were really short with me, where it's like, just, do you take it or do you not?

That's all I need. Do you take it or do you not? And I'm, I kinda

Katherine: wanna you insurance on

Michael: insurance when, whether it comes with insurance or whether they're like, do you have an appointment right now, or no? Yes or no? Like, they were very short. So how do we, how do we deal with that? Like I feel like when that happened, everything went out the window that I

Katherine: learned, you know?

Well, it doesn't really, So, you know, if I were, I travel a lot because I speak a lot. Mm-hmm. . so if I, let's say I, I'm waiting for a plane. I bite down on something. Maybe I have a little popcorn or something. I bite down. I think maybe, Ooh, I think I, maybe I chipped that tooth, right? I'm on the Jet Way board in the plane.

I call in office. If I say hi, look, my name's Catherine. I tell Belt, I live in Temecula. I'm actually boarding a plane. I just think I bit down on something. I think I might have chipped part of my tooth. It's not hurting. but I would like to get it checked when I return on Monday. and I can come anytime next week.

I don't have insurance. I'll be paying cash. I just like to get something if I could, early afternoon next week, I can come any. , you pr pretty much have skipped over the four step process because I've given you every, I've given you. , my urgency where I am on the scale of urgency. It's not very urgent.

I've already answered questions about how, how I'll be pain, what I expect when I can come, so you can, it would be silly to try to go back to step one and try to walk down this floor. Mm-hmm. , it's like I've catapulted. So it's really, you have to use your head about the framework. The framework is more for someone calls you have limited or no information.

I wanna know how much you charge for a crown. if you answer that, it's like you're throwing some, you know, it's like you close your eyes and shoot the arrow and hope that you come anywhere near the target. But when someone, someone gives you enough information up front that the target's now clear, just shoot the target.

Right. Yeah. Just, just take 'em there. Now I'll give you one exception and that is the question about insurance. And it's similar to the question about price. I contend nobody is sitting around on their sofas at night scratching their heads, wondering what the price of crowns are these days. That's not why they're calling.

Yeah, they're calling because, and asking this question because there's, it's sort of like the Wizard of Oz. There's something behind the. , right? There's, there's this little thing behind the curtain of this big scary question that's actually really important. And so rather than address the big scary question, I wanna kind of be good enough to peel back that curtain and say, well, what's what's behind there?

Because the truth is, unless you are the cheapest in town, if you are the cheapest in town and somebody is, somebody is, if you are, that question's not. , right? Mm-hmm. , if you're the cheapest crown in town, cheapest Invisalign. Cheapest whitening. Cheapest implant. you can answer that question they're not gonna find it any less.

But if you're not the cheapest in town, then we won't win on answering that question. We will have to win in some other way. We'll have to win on value. And to do that, we've gotta get behind why are they calling, why are they asking this question in the first place? And if we can get behind that, and that's why I say, Honor the question.

Say that I'm, I'm so glad you called us. I'd love to talk to you about that. I wanna make sure I give you the right information. So would you mind if I ask you a couple of questions and then of course, I'm gonna start with why. Why is it that you think you need, first of all, is this for you? And if it is, or whoever it's for.

why do you think you need a crown? are you experiencing some discomfort? If they say yes, I'm gonna explore that, cuz I'm still trying to figure out am I gonna schedule them for a, an immediate exam mm-hmm. , you know, a limited exam or am I gonna get them into a comprehensive situation? I'm trying to decide now on the price question we teach to.

avoid that question upfront and do use these techniques of questioning and then offer them some appointments. And another tip I'll give right here, stop asking, do you perform mornings or afternoons or do you prefer a day of the week? Stop it. The reason is, if you ask Catherine, do you prefer mornings or afternoons?

Catherine's gonna say mornings because I would rather come in eight o'clock, get my appointment done, have my day to go back to work, and, and be productive. But if you had a one o'clock in the afternoon open tomorrow that you wanted to fill, and you asked me, do you perform mornings or afternoons? I say eight o'clock, you now, it doesn't even make any sense to offer me the one.

but that's what you really wanna fill. But if you said to Catherine, you know what I, Catherine, I have a, an appointment doc, uh, doctor has some, an opportunity to see you for that either tomorrow at one or, next Thursday at 10. Which of those would work best for your schedule? I might pick the one tomorrow if it was available.

So you've scored big with me. Now what I know is that three outta four people will go where you lead them. if you lead them. In other words, if you give me a choice, three outta four people will pick one of those choices. You score big on three people. If you just don't ask 'em morning or afternoon, just take 'em.

Give them your hardest to fill times and see what happens. One out of four, Michael, mm-hmm. will not go where you lead them. They are assertive enough personalities that unless you can give them an eight o'clock on a Monday, they're not coming there. And so if you offer me one in 10. . Then that assertive person's gonna say, well, actually, the only time I can come is eight o'clock on a Monday morning.

Can you see me? Right? And so what have you lost with that person? You've lost nothing. You'll direct them to your next available early morning, which might be a while, but you've scored big on the other three that wouldn't have picked the one o'clock, but took it because you offer. , do you see?

Mm-hmm. . So free yourself up. Stop that habit of, of doing that, and just offer them, direct them where you want to go, where, where you want them to go. so back to my question of the shopper and the insurance on the shopper, I am going to try to guide them and a lot of them will never ask that question a second time, and they will come in, but some will, some will say, well, I, I'm not ready to schedule cuz you never answer my question about how much it costs.

So I contend administrators need to sit down with their manager or. and they need to ask, they need to say, I'm feeling very skilled to avert that question at least once, maybe twice. But if they push me a second or third time and say, I need the, I need to know how much it is, I need to know from you which way you want me to go, because whether I, whether they quote it or refuse to quote it, they're going to lose some people.

if you quote it and you're not the cheapest, you're gonna lose some. If you refuse to quote it, you're gonna lose some. So I think it's a great trade to an owner or manager for an administrator to say, I'm not gonna answer it on the first go round. I'm gonna use this technique. I'm gonna try to get them in here where we can see them eyeball to eyeball and we can quote the fees.

Then I'm gonna do my very best. And if for those. Circle back around and force me, how do you want me to respond? And really, it's a, it's just a choice. my preference is to, uh, quote range if you're pushed into the corner to quote as wide a range as is reasonable or truthful. But not to do it right away, not to do it on the first go round, you know, to have some skills to try to avoid that question.

We're not trying to avoid the question. We're trying to get them there to see and only quote what is real. We're also trying to get them in so that they have an experience of what our fees afford them. We can't give them that experience of what our fees afford them over the. completely. So if we can get them in, we have a chance of them falling in love with us, falling in love with our office, our doctor, our hygienist, our team, our technology, all of that.

But we, it's harder on the phone. So, so those are some tips for that, for insurance. you know, it's easy if you're on the plan, but if you're not, my suggestion very quickly would be don't tell them what you're not. , tell them what you are. So instead of saying, I'm sorry, we're not a provider on the plan, you're gonna lose a hundred percent of those people, wouldn't you?

Mm-hmm. , you're gonna lose a hundred percent. But if you say, I'm so glad you called. And we work with a lot of patients who have, blue Cross Insurance, we are considered what is known as an unrestricted or, you could say, I've heard people say, uh, non-preferred. I don't, I don't like that term. I think non-preferred sounds like the insurance company doesn't prefer you.

Mm-hmm. . But my favorite term of all is either unrestricted or non-contracted. So if someone says, you know, I was wondering if you accepted my Blue Cross Insurance, then I would say, well, I'm so glad you called. we help a lot of patients with that insurance.

We're considered what's called a non-contracted provider. Here's how your insurance would work in our practice. And we help them understand. So what we're doing is we're saying, here's what we are instead of what we're. Here's what we can do instead of what? What can't be done, here's how you can use it instead of how you can't use it,

So it's the other side of the coin. I'm never asking people to say something untrue or something that is a lie. It's a bait and switch, and I don't believe in it. I don't believe in saying, yeah, you can use your insurance. Come on in. And then revealing once they're there that we actually aren't a provider on their plan.

I think we need to be truthful, but again, . I often will say, you know, I'm curious why you're looking for a provider on the plan. Is there some particular reason that you're wanting to be seen by a dentist? And if I can find that reason, I can sell my practice back to that reason. And often I can get them in even when we're not providers often, but if we do not reach to that phone line and convince them that they shouldn't make a decision till they meet our doctor.

They're, they're gonna go someplace else. Cuz in their mind, all dental practices are kind of the same. They all went to dental school, they all do a crown. They, you know, it's all the same. So unless we can kind of enlighten them that it isn't the same, then we're playing the wrong game. We're playing the wrong game.

Michael: Yeah. really like that. Uh, especially, and I, I kind of see now that you're talking to me, This involves a lot of consistency, like training, right? Like, it's not just like a here's a thing and then get it, get it together. Because I remember when I think we had like somebody talk to us about print office training on how to handle new patients phone calls.

And I did the same thing, but then when, when that happened, when someone's like, oh, I just need like the plane and, um, and metaphor, right? I, I forgot everything and I, I just went back to my old habits and then I just went like, okay, well, uh, let me just check real quick and then, and I was like, why I, I, I failed.

I gave up. You know? So I feel like that that's a thing that can happen quite often.

Katherine: yeah. We wanna support people with a system that they feel like they can be who they are, but they have some guidance. I know how to handle this question. I mean, there's only a handful of common questions if we're going to get four or five.

In some practices, it's many more than that a day. , are you on my plan questions or how much, you know, if you're, you're, you're really, promoting different ways of marketing practices. So I mean, I feel like we're always marketing. We're, there's never a time, we're not marketing, right. We're, we're always putting forth an image of who we are.

And so you can't not market, but you cannot. Market on purpose. You can market accidentally, and sometimes not the way you meant to. And so you know it, so maybe all you have is a website and you're, maybe you're not, you don't have a social media campaign. You're not doing direct mail, you're not, you don't have a billboard, you whatever.

but regardless, they're gonna find you some way, they're gonna find you through referrals, the, the relationships you've nurtured. That's a marketing activity. So however they come to you, we have to have people on the phone that are skilled at the common questions those people would ask. And I find the more we do external marketing, the more we are doing direct mail, the sort of a cold call, the more we are doing social media outreaches and things like that, the more we're doing those kinds of things, the more we generate shopper questions and.

a lot of administrators because they struggle with the question, they're not very successful with them. And anything you're not very successful with, you're going to avoid and not like, we wanna get 'em way more successful.

So they actually go, oh, goodie a shopper question. A price question. Because a price question says I'm interested, it's actually a really great question. It's basically a screaming neon sign saying, I'm in the market. I'm, I'm interested, but I have a, uh, this little roadblock of price. And often they don't know what else to ask.

often, those price shoppers wouldn't choose the cheapest if they knew it meant. Quality. Nobody stands behind the work. The place is dirty, the service is terrible. the experience is terrible. It's unskilled people, all of that. If they knew it, they'd say, well, I'd rather pay a little more and get a different experience. But it's up to us to make sure that they understand the experience with us. So I think that's the key, is getting your people trained, not just handing them a phone and a pat on the back and saying, good luck. Yeah. And that's how a lot of administrators are trained.

No, I

Michael: agree a hundred percent. Wow. Catherine, thank you so much for being with us. We had, I wanted to ask you more stuff, more questions, but this was so jam packed. We definitely gotta invite you back on again, but, oh, I'd

Katherine: love to be back on so much to talk about. I mean, communication runs the world, right?

It, it just, everything happens through communication. So there's lots to talk about.

Michael: that's true. Yeah. Communication. I really appreciate it though the, a lot of these principles that you, you mentioned here, especially when it comes to new patients and And diving into that, where can our listeners find you if they need to reach out to you?

Katherine: Well, they can reach out, through our website, obviously, which is lion speak, l i o n s p e a k.net. the.com is owned by Lions Peak Winery, so if you want wine, we say go there, . But if you want communications training, come to lion speak.net. And, if you go to, patient service skills, the tab there.

There'll be a dropdown menu and it'll show you, a lot of the programs we have, uh, an audio download. It's kind of a do-it-yourself, telephone training program, so you can buy that audio download. It comes with a workbook, and your people can listen to it and learn how to do all of this much better.

So it's a very affordable, very easy sort of do it yourself. if you, Some ongoing help. We have an annual program that includes that training, but it also includes virtual time with a live trainer, and the Mystery Shepherd calls throughout the year and, you know, more handholding and more, hands on, training for your team.

So, lots of different options. we do some onsite visits, uh, if we wanna combine some topics for teams. And, so you can learn a lot, a lot about us there.

Michael: Awesome. So guys, that's gonna be in the show notes below, so definitely check that out. And Catherine, thank you so much for being with us. It was a pleasure, and we'll hear from you soon.

Thank you.

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In this week's Monday Morning Marketing episode, I'm joined with dental marketing expert Christa Nes-Iadicola, who shares four key tips for a great patient experience: consistency, simplicity, cohesiveness, and connection. Consistency means patients know what to expect when they visit and you deliver! Simplicity ensures that the whole process is low friction, with easy scheduling and no need to re-ask questions. Cohesiveness makes sure your team is on the same page, answering commonly asked questions in a uniform fashion. Lastly, connection is the unique experience aspect, calling your patients by name and taking detailed chart notes. She also emphasizes approaching patients with servitude, not entitlement, and sending personal letters to patients who leave.

Drop in on my conversation with Christa for valuable insights on improving your patients' experience!

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You can reach out to Christa Nes-Iadicola here:

Email: [email protected]

Website

Facebook

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Other Mentions and Links:

Denta Dental

HIPAA - The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act

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Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

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Michael: Hey Krista, so talk to us about patient retention. How can we utilize this, or what advice or suggestions can you give us? That will help us with this.

Christa: Yes, Michael? So I think when you talk about patient retention, it really comes down to,

one thing, and that's a great patient experience.

And to have a great patient experience, I think you really need to dial in for. Key points.

and the first one is consistency. You have to have your systems and protocol in place. Um, the patient needs to know what to expect for that appointment, and then you need to deliver that. So once that is done, that's the first step in trust.

After you repeat that process in every area of your practice, the patients begin to trust you. So, um, when you think about systems and protocol that you need to have in place to have good patient retention, There really are a lot that go into it, but if you look at just a few, look at your policies, look at your cancellation policy.

Look at your confirmation policy. Do your patients know what they are or are they calling to cancel their appointment? And the staff is. Annoyed that they're canceling their appointment within two short timeframe, but they never were aware of your policy. That creates friction between the staff and the patient, obviously.

So the patients need to know exactly what to expect on every level. So this is prepping them for their appointments. If it's a first appointment, even if it's a return appointment, they want to know what to expect. And once you're hitting those x. Expectations, um, then the patient starts to trust you. I think you also have to think about your policies when it comes to follow up.

So when you're following up with patients that cancel, are we just letting them fall through the cracks and then picking it up at another time when they're not necessarily thinking about that appointment anymore? Or is there a good protocol in place that we've became consistent on within the staff?

obviously when you're looking at patient retention, your attrition rate will start to go up as soon as those patients hit a certain month mark, and they're not reappointing. So look up at how you're reappointing. Are you reappointing? And what is your follow-up system look like? Most offices these days use um, automation, which is great, but when are you going to get a personal touch and.

in that process with the patient. So is what I find with the offices that I work with is that a lot of staff will have limiting beliefs, in this area specifically. They'll say, well, I'm looking at their history and it shows that we've texted them this many times. I'm not going to reach out and annoy them.

But the simplest form of communication and even texting, still using the automation, but just saying, hi, this is Krista from this dentist office, is a way that your patients do start to respond. Um, and at times you may have to, yes, pick up the phone and contact them directly, but patients are just like us busy, so they're appreciative of that.

So I think. , there's a a big hold up with the staff that I see that are in charge of doing this process. It's just not being done because they simply don't think it needs to be, or they feel like they're annoying patients when they do that. So the second one, that I think is a key factor, especially in today's world.

Like I said, patients are busy is simplicity. So is it easy to schedule in your practice? do you send online forms? But in that initial phone call you're asking further address, . No. So I see a lot of redundancies like that. Or are you having them fill out your med history form, which obviously is necessary and they're entering all their insurance information.

But then when they come in, that's the first question that you're asking them. Do you have a copy of your insurance card? Makes the patient feel like, well, why did I spend all that time doing it for you? So we really need to get the simplicity in the office and look at, again, look at all of your. , are they simple for the patient or are they about us?

So are they about making our jobs easier or are they simple for the patient? And I believe that, um, when you really take a step back and look at the patient experience and look at the staff process, that it all can be intertwined and be easy for the patient and still work for the staff. but it does take some work to get it there.

So, um, a huge one that I see, and I was actually in an office just this morning and this happened was, insurance, right? Insurance is confusing for patients. A lot of times patients will have a medical insurance card and it won't have the dental on it, and they'll say, well, I didn't get it until card, which is true.

And you know, people that work in a dentist's office, staff members do know that to be true and. , I can think of the top three in my area that are notorious dental insurances for not giving a dental card. Right? And I, I would say Delta is one of those among any area, and we all know and have the capability to log into that Delta website, type in a social and a birthdate when that patient is standing in front of you.

and pull their benefits up within, I won't even say minutes, within a minute. So that's something that's totally at our reach that I see offices passing back to the patient, well, you need to talk to your hr. You need to find out who's your dental insurance, or We can't file, or we can't see you, or whatever.

The thing that they're saying is, when really if you would just type that number into Delta or do a employer search on your, practice management software, they all have it, right? The the answer is right there in front of us. So if we put in a little bit of effort for that patient is what happens is it kind of clears out all of the backend side of things.

You're not having to follow up with that patient, make sure they did call back, then verify the benefits, and then send the claim. making that effort for the patient coming up with an. and then your backend process is cleared. So in this case, the patient, he did find out who his insurance was through and he was just saying, oh, I just have a member id.

I don't have a card. Is that okay? I said, yes, we can help. I messaged him back. I just said, I'll just text you back and make sure everything's good. And he said, wow. Thank you so much. Your staff is awesome. I am so happy because this was such a stressful morning when I didn't have the insurance and I was trying to find the information.

So, as we know, dental insurance doesn't make things easy for us either. They don't make it for the patients easy as well. So I think that's an. Major area where the staff members are always more well-versed than the patients that you really can help them. And that kind of thing goes a long way. Um, so if we approach talking to our patients with an attitude of servitude rather than entitlement, you should have brought me that card.

That was your responsibility. You knew you were coming for an appointment, whatever their reasoning may be. If we approach it with an attitude of how can I help? , then that patient obviously is going to have a better experience. So the next one that I see is cohesiveness. And this kind of plays into the other ones as well, um, into consistency.

But the patients will ask the same question multiple times. We all know that. So they're going to ask the same question when they call and talk to the front desk as they may ask the clinician when they sit down for their appointment. So is that answer always the. or are we contradicting each other within that answer?

So if one staff member answers this question and. another answers it differently. Um, it can often turn into a he said, she said situation, right? And then depending on your office culture, depends on how that's gonna play out. Are you gonna start having staff members throw each other under the bus or, um, what's that gonna look like?

Are you gonna just always speak? Calling saying, oh, well, we have to get our office manager involved and they can figure it out. Um, so what does that look like? Is there a cohesive feel in the office? and is there a positive. Office culture on how the staff are interacting with each other as well as the patients, how the doctors are interacting with the staff and the patients.

Is there a cohesive kind of culture that the patients then know to come and expect and can be true at your office? . so if you really have all of these three things dialed in, your patients will start to trust you because they'll have no reason not to. Right? Um, so then I think there's one last piece that if you add in, it just takes your office to the next level.

And that is the piece of connection and care. So you have trust without this, but then when you add it in, you really start to get those loyal patients that you then have no problems, retain. . when you think about that, there's really a lot that you can do with it and you can really cater it to your office and the core cultures that your office has to offer.

Um, but the first thing is make it each visit personalized. And it, it sounds silly to say out loud, but I'll tell you the number of offices that I walk into and hear the front desk speak to the patients and. Hi, what's your name? Is Unreal. So there's no better way to make a patient feel like a number than saying, hi, what's your name?

So when you, again, look at your practice management software, they all have a place for a patient photo. So your check-in person, your greeting person, . patients typically come in on the hour, half an hour, somewhat staggered, but there's no reason that even if you have 15 patients coming in on the hour, they can't look at those patients and use some sort of deductive reasoning to see their name.

Or I don't even care if the patient sits down in the waiting room after they've greeted them, and then they figure out whose name it is and check them in. Right. So there's really. To me, no excuse for that. And there's a number of strategies that you can use on that as well. But that is the first.

Point. typically in the patient experience when they're coming into the office that you really wanna set the stage because you have been expecting them, right? If they canceled their appointment, you would've been mad at them, so now they're here, so be happy with them, right? So if we look at it like that, um, I think it starts to change, but, uh, it's also knowing how to speak to your patients, right?

So anytime you're asking your patients, Do something. Obviously you're going to have those certain protocols that you have in place and anytime you're asking the patient to do something, they may not want to say. You only schedule your um, major procedures in the morning. . So add in the value of why that's important, not for you, for the patient, and then talk to them in that way.

So say, Michael, uh, I know that you prefer later in the afternoon, but for this procedure, the doctor does it first thing in the morning. We don't double book at this time so you can have his full attention and we can get you in out here as soon as possible. Well, now you understand why that's necessary before you just understand that that doesn't work for your.

right? So it's knowing how to add the value to the patient with what your. asking them to do. and then there's a lot that you can do to make the experience personal. Obviously adding in your chart notes, something that you spoke about the last time, and then following up on it the next time, that makes the patient feel that you do remember them.

Um, and usually if you have the chart notes down, you can kind of trigger the memory on that. Um, one that I see a lot too is, uh, and I think this is very important for the. Is to prep the doctors that day with larger practices. Like, Hey, you, you have done an exam on this patient before You just met them one time.

They're a little overdue, so it was eight months ago, so I'm not sure if you're going to remember them, but don't go in and reintroduce yourself. Right? Nothing worse than that. So, , make them aware, of the patients that they're not meeting . And the best way to do that again, is to have those structures and protocol in place, but then have that connection point and reference it from last time.

So then once you kind of, and, and all of these things are harder to do of course, if you don't have your systems and protocol in place. But once you do, then you can really start to. Personalize it. You can do a lot of it with automation as well. Um, you're gonna put a personal touch on it, but even in your software, if you are talking to patients and they're expecting a baby, or they're getting married or graduating or retirement, there's a lot that you can do with that in the form of cards, emails following up the next time, and really just kind of connecting with that patient on the level of, Hey, well, Only, you know, we're really relationship in this way, but we really do care for you.

Um, so I think that is major. And again, even if you approach contacting patients when they're overdue or due for treatment in a way of care, , and this is a team effort, and you relate it back to their chart notes. While I see the last time that you came in, doctor was concerned about this area, so he asked me to give you a call to follow up on that because we, we wanted to make sure we got that taken care of for you.

So I think it's really about being intentional in the way you do things and realizing that. Um, it's a team effort. It's all going together. You need to be keeping good notes. You need to be referencing each other's notes, and you need to be follow up in that way, even stating, Hey, no, you canceled your appointment cuz you were sick or you feeling better?

How's it going? Can we get you scheduled back in? referencing all those notes is it's just going to make the patient feel like they're not a number. they really. Care. So I think that is really key as well, on, um, retaining the patients. And then of course, if you do have a patient that decides to leave, make sure that you, you make them aware that you will miss them, right?

Mm-hmm. so. And then a letter that you're saying, Hey, thank you for time with us. If anything in your future were to change, we would always love to have you back and extend that invitation and open the door. So if they were not happy with their new office, they can come back to your office, um, but without feeling embarrassed or, or like they shouldn't have left in the first place.

Michael: Yeah. No, that's wonderful. if you could real quick, let us know, would this be really helpful in the morning huddles or like in a team meeting to make sure, like, let's make sure we're all cohesive here with, with our patients.

Christa: Yeah, definitely. Um, you know, go over certain points in the morning huddles.

There's a lot that you can do. And again, it's a team effort and it's just about being intentional. you may have a patient coming in and their spouse hasn't been in, in quite some time. Well, it's okay, you know, make sure you're not breaking any HIPAA laws obviously, but ask about that. and say their spouse is gonna go home and say, Hey, I was just at the dentist's office and they were asking about you because you, you haven't made an appointment in a while.

So there's a lot that you can do internally too to kind of get those patients back on the books. But the morning huddle is the perfect place to kind of, um, prep for this, or even if, if a patient had a rough appointment the last time to really make sure that you make this experience. better, So be aware of those things and then if you do have a patient that has a long wait time or something, um, figure out a way that you can kind of remedy it so they can get back to that consistent experience and realize that that one time was the outlier.

Michael: Awesome. Krista, I appreciate your time and if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find her in the Dental Marketer Society Facebook group or where can they reach out to you

Christa: directly? Yeah, they can email me at info krista ness llc dot.

Michael: Awesome. So guys, that's gonna be in the show notes below, so definitely reach out to her.

Krista, thank you for being with me on this Monday morning marketing episode.

Christa: Thanks, Michael.

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Guest: Sana YusufPractice Name: Sana Dental Studio & SpaCheck out Sana's Media:‍

Instagram: @sanayusufdmd

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Other Mentions and Links:

Unreasonable Hospitality

Excite Realty Group

Tricare Insurance

Volkswagen

Humana

Michael Dinsio - Next Level Consultants

Heartland Dental

Morpheus Machine

Transdental Marketing

MVP Mailhouse

Art of Dental Marketing

Renew Digital

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Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer

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My Key Takeaways:

• Balancing work and home life can be tough. Making time for YOU is just as important as both!
• If you are saying yes to everything, you are also saying no to many other opportunities. Keep this in mind when agreeing to obligations!
• Cosmetic and spa offerings can be a big draw for your practice. Try keeping up with what patients want in addition to a dental experience.
• In the US Army, Sana learned to take a conservative approach to procedures. Sometimes if a procedure isn't needed immediately, patients appreciate you working with their schedule and feelings.
• Do not count on team members to stick with you forever! It is important to respect their choices and have a backup plan if another opportunity arises for them.

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Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

Michael: Sauna. How's it going? Good, how are you? I'm doing pretty good. Thanks for asking. If you don't mind me asking, where are you located?

Sana: So we are in like north suburbs of Tampa. So Wesley Chapels, specifically Wesley Chapel, Florida.

Oh,

Michael: nice. Okay. So the weather right now over there is pretty

Sana: Yeah, I was gonna say, let's see, let's check 81 degrees. It's great. .

Michael: Oh man, that's winter right there for you guys. So in summer, how does summer look?

Sana: It's like very hot, but I'm also not like a native Floridian, so for me, I'm like, oh, this feels great.

Like, I don't know, I was made for the desert, so

I

Michael: like it. It's made for the desert. No, that's good. That's good. I, I hear Tampa Bay, it's really beautiful. So It is, yeah.

Sana: I, my husband and I talk about it all the time, like it feels like we're on vacation. Mm-hmm. every day, and I'm like, wait, we live here.

This is kinda cool. . So like, if we go to the beach, it's not like we have to like, pack up and like go to our hotel. We're like, okay, now we just have to drive to our house. So this is cool. Yeah. So it's nice. It, it definitely is a nice, nice place to

Michael: be. Nice. Awesome. Okay, so son, tell us a little bit about your past, your present.

How did you get to where you are today?

Sana: Okay. I was like, how, how far back are we going? I was July 10th, 1991. I was born, no, I'm just kidding. , you were born

Michael: July 10th, 1991.

Sana: I was, yeah. I'm a. I'm

Michael: 30. I'm 31.

Sana: I'm 31. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Millennial as it gets, that's

Michael: millennial as it gets. Okay, cool. So then talk to us about, I dunno, you can go as far back as you want, but like, okay.

I

Sana: won't go that far back. It's kind of boring. Like, you know, tons of like generational traumas and like all that, like stuff that you're trying to like break through and like, whatever. So we won't go through all that stuff that's like for therapy, but like professional. Right. Okay. So I, um, graduated high school oh nine and I went straight into like, um, Seven year dental program at Detroit Mercy. So, , I did three years undergrad and then you go like automatically into dental school as long as you like D a T scores, science, gpa, all that stuff. Mm-hmm. . So, I kind of decided, I was like, Hey, like I don't wanna live in Detroit for seven years of my life.

I was born in Detroit, so that's cool. But I grew up in like suburbs of Chicago, so like I don't wanna live in Detroit. So I kind of decided, hey, I'm gonna get my bachelor's in three years so that way I can apply to any dental school I want and then I can move back home to Chicago. So that was like always the goal.

Mm-hmm. . So I took, I remember one summer I took 21 credit hours of summer school at three different community colleges,

Michael: and I was pregnant.

Sana: And you were pregnant? And I was pregnant, yes. Surprise, surprise team mom. Anyways, everybody knows that, but it's fine. Who? Whoever didn't know it now knows it.

Yeah. So I had a son when I was 19, but um, yeah, so like the summer that I was pregnant with him, I took 21 summer, like 21 credit hours of summer school. Mm-hmm. at three different community colleges. Cause I was like, no, I have to like, I have to graduate in three years. Like that's just my goal now. So I took all the like sociology and psycho, all the like required for your degree, but like not science courses all in summer.

So graduated when I was 20 from college. That was cool. That was 2012 and then started dental school immediately. And so I did get into school back in Chicago. I went to Midwestern University in Downers Grove. So I did four years there. I decided to join the Army after I got outta our dental school. So I did the H P S P scholarship.

Um, I commissioned when I was still an undergrad, so was in the army, got out. got outta dental school, became active duty in the Army. So that was four years. 2016 is when I graduated dental school. So 2016 to 2020 I was in, in the Army. I was stationed at Fort Hill, Oklahoma. So that's my, my lawyer.

Okay. Yeah, . So I was stationed at Fort Sill, so I did four years active duty, which was fun, difficult, definitely, you know, you're kind of like trying to be a soldier, but also trying to be a dentist, trying to figure out how to be a soldier. Also, still trying to figure out how to be a dentist. So it was a lot of like figuring out for four years.

and then I decided after I did my four year commitment that we were, yeah. That I was gonna get out. and I wanted to kind of explore private practice and like just being like a civilian dentist. So immediately that happened right when Covid started. So it's like a whole thing where like, . I felt like the world was ending.

I mean, I'm sure everybody did when Covid ended, right? But I was getting out of the army where like everything is guaranteed benefits, guaranteed pay. Like, oh, I'm sitting at home because everything is shut down and I'm getting paid and I have like my Tricare medical benefits for my entire family and everything is great and dandy.

And I was like giving up all of that security to like jump into like the real world where I'm like, I have to pay $1,500 a month to have health insurance for my children. what? Do you guys need it? Are you okay? Like, can you not fall down? Don't get sick. How about that? Like just, just drink your orange juice, like Rick Juice, like let's save $1,500.

Like what is And. . I remember like, so when I was getting out of the army, my husband and I were both from Chicago, so we're like, okay, like let's, we were trying to like decide like, what do we wanna do? Like, do we move back to Chicago? Do we like pick somewhere new? Do we move to Texas? Like, what are we doing?

And like, just, we were like, okay, we're gonna move to Florida. So literally we're like, Hey, now where do we move in Florida? Do we go to Miami? We're like, no, that's like two party. Party. And like, we're trying to like have a family and like kids , I don't wanna be in South Beach. Like if I'm down there, I'm gonna wanna be at South Beach and like ha like at a party.

And I also my mom, and so I have kids so I can, that I, okay, we can't go to Miami. Miami is off the table. So, okay. How about Orlando? And I'm like, no. Like I hate traffic. And also like, it's very touristy. So like, okay, we're not moving to Orlando. And so we're like, all right, let's move Tampa. Like, Tampa's like up and coming.

Like I was like, it's like the Austin of Florida. Like that's like the way I had like term, I was like, it's the Austin of Florida. Yeah. Cause my like, best friend lives lives in Austin and so we like moved here and this is like before Tom Brady was here.

Michael: Cause I thought you were following Tom Brady, but nevermind.

Sana: Yeah. I was like, before selling Tampa, like we were here just like, so I didn't move here cause everybody's moving here. We literally picked it and we're like, we're gonna go there. So, yeah. So we moved here like June of 2020. So it's like, what the height of Covid, like the middle of Covid.

Mm-hmm. . And as I'm like moving, so my husband got, my husband's a high school teacher, so he like got a job. He was like ready to go. And then I had a job, like as an associate everything's shut down. And so like we're moving here in June and in April they're like, Hey, like by the way, we have to pull your contract.

Like, sorry, you can't work here. And we're like, what? I'm like, wait, hold on. Excuse me. like I just can't work here for like the month of April and May because I wasn't gonna be there anyways. Like it's fine. Yeah. And they're like, no, never like until we figure out what's happening with Covid. I was like, people still need dentists during Covid.

It's fine. I'll wear a mask. I need a job. You need a dentist? I'm coming. that didn't happen. That didn't happen. So they pulled my contract and I was like, in my head I was like, do I just like stay in the army? I was like, oh, so I should just stay in the army. Like that's like my logical thing.

I was like, pull my packet. Like I'm sit, captain Yiv is staying, guys, don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. I'm still here. Don't worry. Like not leaving. But my husband's like, no, I have a job in Florida. Like, we're moving. Like, it's fine. We'll figure it out. My husband's like very, like, we'll figure it out. And I'm like, no.

Like we must plan. Like I must have a plan for my plan for the backup plan. Like that's how I am. So we're like very opposite and he just is very like, go with it. So like in my head, like, we're moving here. I was like, we should like rent a place, get the lay of the land, like figure it out. Like, and my husband's like, no, I don't wanna move twice.

Like, we're just gonna, we should just buy a house when we get, we should just buy a house. And I'm like, dude, like it's covid. Like we have, we haven't, we can't fly there to look at house. We don't need to look at it. They can FaceTime us. is that? What happened?

Michael: Yes. ,

Sana: My husband was like, no, it's fine.

They can just FaceTime us. That's fine. So the realtor literally like FaceTimed us. We like saw this house. She sent us some videos and we're like, all right, like let, yeah, let's, okay, let's buy it. Sure. Cool. So like we bought this house site, zine, site unseen.

Michael: Is it better than what you expected or worse?

Sana: Yeah, I'm like so grateful. I'm like I said, a prayer. My husband actually, like, I was still like filing out, so I couldn't leave Oklahoma as soon as he could. Cause I still have to do like all my paperwork and whatever with the army. And we like got a call like, Hey, your furniture's gonna get delivered on Monday.

And we're like, wait, what? Like you guys said it was gonna take two weeks. So like we're all planning like two weeks. Like it'll be perfect timing. So, Once it goes into storage, like, I don't know, I'm sure like everybody who's listening who has done like a military move understands like, do not put your stuff in the storage if it is gonna get delivered straight to your house.

Like you accept it, you accept the shipment to your house and you drive 19 hours without stopping to Florida to get your household goods. Otherwise you'll see it in 90 days. Yeah, because once it's a storage, it's gone. So literally my husband and my son got in a car and drove from Oklahoma to Florida.

Saturday they left and then Monday our stuff got delivered and they were there to accept the shipment. So anyways, and my husband like calls me, he's like, wow, babe. The front hall's actually a lot bigger than it looked like in the video. And I'm like, I'm so glad that's unthankful .

Michael: Really? This is the one thing I wanted

Sana: It's like I'm so glad that it's like a welcoming the entryway. This is so good. Yeah, so it's so funny. But yeah, so we moved here 2020. Thankfully I like found an associate position. literally in May, we got here in June and like in May, I was just like submitting my Indeed application to like everybody and their mom.

And I was like, oh, like you would like somebody at this nursing home to check people's dentures. Of course, yes. Please take my application. Yes, I will come do that. That's what you need. I will do that. . It was, I literally, I think I submitted my, I think people are still responding to my Indeed applications like three years later.

we found a great position for you. I was like, not interested, not looking. Thank you. Stop. Stop. S t stop. Unsubscribe, . So yeah, I literally applied to everything that I could think of. So got a job that was cool. Started my first associate position like two weeks after I moved down here. And so at that point it was,

It's like culture shock. Like all of a sudden I'm like a dentist in private practice and it's very different than being a dentist in the military. And all of a sudden you're like, oh, like people have to pay for the things that I'm telling them. Like it's just not all free and included. Yeah. And then they don't trust me.

Like they think I'm just trying to make money off of them. And I'm like, no, like I'm telling you this because like, you need this, right? Like you need these fillings or you need this crown. And they're like, like, you just want me to pay for your Mercedes. I was like, dude, I drive a Volkswagen, but thank you.

Michael: But I would like a Mercedes. So

Sana: yes, those are expensive. Tell me about it. How do I ? So if you do this, actually you know what? You should let your tooth fall out. So then you need a, an extraction and then auto the input. And that'll help me pay.

Michael: That'll help pay. Yeah.

that was like a culture shock then,

Sana: It was very like sticker shock and like, honestly, okay, coming from the military, like that was my first experience as a dentist was like dental school where everything's like $5 and nobody cares how you do it because you're a student and you're just trying to learn. And then it's the military where it's like everything's free because they're all soldiers and we're like serving the soldier.

We're like getting the soldiers ready for going down range and like being deployable and whatever. and this is gonna sound really bad, but I'm gonna tell you guys the truth. I'm gonna say the truth. in the Army, I got paid exactly the same if I did a filling or I did a crown, or if I watched Game of Thrones in my office.

Like, if I told you you needed a filling, it's because you really needed it. I would've preferred to be watching something in my office, I'm getting paid to like sit here and like type some things and like eat my food and like watch Netflix on my phone. I got paid the exact same.

So like, yeah, for me, like that's kind of where I got my like treatment planning philosophies was like, oh, you absolutely need, like, you need this and so we're gonna do it. And I think that's, I mean, of course all dentists do that, right? Like, you need this, we're gonna do it. Some people are a little bit more aggressive on the treatment planning side.

Some people are a little bit more conservative. I'm very conservative. Like, I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt. Like let's watch if we can. And if I'm like, no, like we can't watch 86 things like you, you need fillings. Sorry. Mm-hmm. . But I think that was kind of. . The switch for me was like, I'm telling people they need these things because they really need them.

I wanna be watching tv. You need these fillings. I'm doing these fillings for you. So now I'm in the real world and people are like, well, you just want me to pay for your car. But I'm like, no, but you really just need these fillings. you're not paying for my car. I don't understand what's happening right now.

And so it was, it was like a very like, weird, like and it was like, also like covid. And everybody's like, well, can you put your mask? I was like, I have two masks on. Thank you. what do you want from me? I don't understand what I'm a yellow banana suit. I have three masks on. I don't, I don't get it.

Like, and you don't want this filling, and I don't want to do this filling. So I'm gonna get covid because I'm doing this filling on you. yeah, yeah. I have the short end of the stick here, guys. I don't want $26 and 15 cents from Humana for this filling, but you need it. So here we are. And like, yeah.

So that was like deep dive, like into like private practice. , and I mean, I technically worked for like a corporate office mm-hmm. , and it was a, it was a different type of like, corporate, it wasn't like corporate, corporate, it was just like, like more private practice feel, but still corporate. I don't know if that makes sense.

But Yeah. I mean, and there were some like really great things about it and some knots. So really great things about it. I did find myself, and maybe it's like my, innate leadership ability, I guess, if you wanna call it, or like my four years in the Army where I was like forced to be a leader.

So now I'm always just like thinking of like, how can we do things better? How can we do this more productive, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever. So I'm over here like, just turning this dude's practice around basically like a mini like owner. Like, okay, like guys, like, we need to like really hone in on our ordering.

Like, why are we ordering 86 different types of composite? We don't need that. Like, we use two things. So let's like stick to those two things. Mm-hmm. , like whatever, like, just like really streamlining things and like, Switched the whole practice around. Everybody's like, wow, we like patients, staff.

Everybody's like, we just love coming here. It's so great. And I'm like, oh, you're welcome guys. I'm And yeah, so then at that moment I was like, wait, I'm like doing this for somebody else. So like why don't I do this for me? And that's kind of like where like the whole like switch happened a little bit where I was like, well, I should, I could, I could do this for myself.

Okay. So I'm also like very like squirrel brained. So like all of this is gonna connect, I promise this will all connect. It's connect. Yeah. It's connected. Yeah. So I'm gonna pause that story for a second. I'm gonna tell another story and then I'm gonna connect the two stories. Okay. Okay. So whoever, maybe if somebody like from the Texas State Board can like message me on Instagram and tell me how this happened, feel free.

But when I was in the military, so I was in Oklahoma, which was right above Texas, and so I had my Texas license and my Oklahoma license. . I got my Texas license in 2017, just like for reference of timeframe. I got my Texas license and then all of a sudden I get a call from somebody and they were like, Hey, where from blah, blah, blah.

Like real estate company. Like are you interested in like opening up your own practice? And like, and so, you know, we'd love to help you like find some space, whatever. Actually I think I can just say it like, it's fine. Cuz they helped me. This is why I ended it was Excite Realty. a, a healthcare realty firm or whatever.

So they have an office in Texas. They have an office in Florida. So, calls me, this guy calls me, what was his name? Tristan, Tristan called me and I was like, no, Tristan, I'm in the Army. Like I am not looking to open my prac.

Like, I'm literally like active duty military. Like I'm not opening a practice. Like, thank you. And I'm like also not very like. , please don't call me. Stop calling me. I was like, yeah, like, not right now. Tristan, thanks for calling. Like have a great day, whatever. Okay. He's like, all right, sounds good. I guess he like kept me on his list.

Mm-hmm. , because he literally called me every October until 2021. Oh man. Yeah, he was like very persistent. Tristan was very persistent and so it's like 2017 all the way, 2021. So like at this point, so he calls me in 2021 and this time I was like, yo, I'm not even in Oklahoma anymore, bro. I don't even have my Texas license anymore.

Like, so I like, at this point I was like a little bit more assertive also, I had an eight month old baby, so I was like probably sleep deprived. just all the things like, yeah, you know what? So I just was like, Kristen, stop calling me. So this was the first time in like, what, five years that I said it to him, Hey Tristan, listen, I'm not in Oklahoma.

I'm not in Texas. I'm not gonna open a practice in Texas. Like I just, what? Can you take me off the call list? Like, thank you so much. He's like, oh doctor, real quick. Where are you? I was like, I live in Florida now. I live in Florida. And he was like, oh, we have a branch in Florida, bro. What? ?

Michael: Yeah. I

Sana: was like, Christine.

I was like, and so, okay, fine. You know what? I was like, literally, and I remember this, I literally remember this because I was so, I was like nursing my daughter, she was eight months old. I'm sitting in the car at the outlet mall, like, so I don't remember my mother-in-law, somebody was in the mall and I was like, I'm just gonna sit in the car nurse her, like, just leave me alone.

So, and I answered the phone to tell him, please stop calling me. And then he's like telling me like, well we have a, we have a location in Florida. And I'm like, Tristan, . Okay, what do I have to pay you? Like, let's just start there. Like what does this cost me? Like you keep telling me like, what does this cost me?

And so this is like at that junction where I'm like doing all this for this other guy, like building up his practice and I'm like, I should do this for myself. Then Tristan calls me and I'm like, well, okay, maybe I should like entertain it. Like, okay, Tristan, how much does it cost? And he is like, oh, you don't pay anything.

The landlord pays for it. I was like, this is Bri. Why did you start with that in 2017? Dude? open with that. Open with this doesn't cost you anything. Like maybe I would've been nicer for the last five years. Who would've thought? Yeah, so, okay, all right. I was like, all right, okay, let's give this the shot.

And this was like kind of when my startup journey like began, oh no, sorry, this is October of 2020. So this is, yeah, 20, 23 years. Three years there. Mm-hmm. 20 17, 20 20, yeah. October of 2020. So I was like, okay, fine. Entertain me. That's fine. Let's see. So I gave him like what my like. to do my list was like what?

Like what I want. Perfect practice, whatever. And like the place that I live is very like up and coming, so it's not like established. And there's a lot of like families coming in here. So like everybody from like California and New York. everybody that's like coming down here from there is like now moving to Wesley Chapel. So it's very like up and coming. So this is also where I live. And so I was like, Hey guys, like I want a practice like where I live.

Okay. Like in retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have done that, but that's a whole other story. But I was like, I want something like close to home, like two minutes from my house, I can go home for lunch. Like this is great. Like that's what I want. So it's very specific. Is

Michael: it right now two minutes from your house?

Sana: five minutes from my house. Yeah. Oh man. Yeah. Yeah. Like we can't be that.

so I gave him like this like list where I was like, this is like finding a unicorn, they won't be able to do this.

Mm-hmm. . And I took, I was like, look, I really like my position. I'm making good money. I'm happy in what I'm doing. The thought has crossed my mind if the stars in the moon align, like, yeah, maybe I'll do it. So off you go, do your homework. Bye. So obviously like this area's up and coming, there's no practice acquisitions because everybody is a millennial dentist, so they're not retiring.

Mm-hmm. , or they're like too young to be retiring. So there's no nothing to acquire around here. So it's all like, it has to be a startup. So we're looking, looking, looking. We found a few places like, you know, and so like the type of person I am, I'm always like prepared for like the other shoe to drop, right?

So I told Tristan, all right, yeah, dude, put me in touch with your Florida guy. Let's do it whatever. Florida dude contacts me and then give him his homework. And I'm like, he's not gonna find anything, but that's fine. So I'm just waiting, like at some point I was like, this entire process will end somewhere.

it won't ever complete because they won't find a location, we won't find the lease, the construction budget will be out of wac, like whatever, right? Like something's just not gonna align and then it won't happen. Mm-hmm. . So we started this search October of 2020 for reference. I signed my lease in July of 2021, October, 2020 to July of 2021.

So, and we started like Lois and stuff in March of 2021. . So it took me a while. Mm-hmm. for us to like really just like get things together. and again, like I said, the entire time I'm waiting for like the other shoe to drop. So, yeah. So we like found a place, it was this really awesome, like in an ortho building, and I was like, oh, this is perfect.

Like there's an orthodontist in this building, there's this like endo, there's perio, and then like, I can be here. Like this is cool. Like everybody I would refer to is like just right around me. Anyways, like that was the first LOI I put in, and that didn't go anywhere because the guy decided to like, keep it for himself.

I'm like, bro, why would you waste my time? Like, yeah, it's fine, whatever. So then we put in like an L LOI at another place, which I had a feeling like it wasn't gonna work at that place, but I just like rolled with the punches. I'm like, all right, yeah, whatever, whatever. So we put in our l o I and in there in my head, like I had already put in there that I wanna have like cosmetic procedures.

potentially Botox, fillers, whatever, that type of stuff. I wanna be able to do it at some point. Mm-hmm. . And they were like, yeah, no, you can't do that. Like, there's an ALTA in this plaza so you can't do cosmetic procedures. I'm like, what?

Michael: Isn't Alta like just like hair? Or let's

Sana: make up, I was like, I was like, because the, because they do free makeup if you buy $50 worth of makeup.

And that's considered called is. Is that what like, wait, I have no idea. He like, wouldn't give me any insight. I was like, bro, what? Like literally I was just like, what? I was so confused and so like, I tried like a little bit to negotiate this leave. Mm-hmm. and I was like, ok, fine. I can look past that. Like this is like on the second floor and Okay.

Like everybody knows how complicated dental plumbing is. Right? So the first floor, like whatever was below that space, was already like built out. Mm-hmm. . So we had told them like we would need to go through their ceiling. to do our plumbing, but we'll do it like after hours on the weekends. Like we will not disrupt business hours.

And the landlord's like, Nope, not allowed. We're like, can we like ask the the person else it? I was like, no. He was like, no, not allowed. We're like, all right, well here's your l o I. Here's your lease. Bye. Like, okay, this. So like at that point I'm like, see guys, like this is why I'm not committed to anything.

Like, cuz I knew what was gonna happen. Yeah. I already lost like two places at this point. I've spent like $5,000 on lease reviews to go nowhere. I'm like, well this is just really stupid. I'm like, this is a lot of money. And I was like, now I need to go work extra hours at my job. Like, this is dumb. Yeah. So then I found this.

and we're like, okay, so we're doing the lease review. And like the landlord here, same thing was like, there was just like so much back and forth. They have never like leased out to a dentist. So they just trusted nothing because we don't have, like, I don't have like a solid business plan. It's like me, my word document that I made with all my projected things that I'm like, I can accomplish all of these things because I believe in myself and here's my business plan and this is what most dentists do and this is what's projected.

And here you go, enjoy. Right? And they're like, yeah, no, that's like not real. Like this is all made up. And I'm like, you're right, it is. I made it all up. It was really great . And they're like, great. I made all that up. It's so great. I made it up on my kitchen table, so it's fine. Yeah. Um, yeah. And so that was very difficult for them to like, trust us.

Like, trust me. Mm-hmm. , they're like, you won't be able to pay your rent. I was like, I mean, your rent's a little high, so, Couldn't

Michael: negotiate that down a little bit. Negotiate, you're probably right.

Sana: Little high's a little high, but whatever. so, yeah. So we ended up negotiating that lease and it worked out and I signed my lease July of 2021 and that was it.

And then we signed the lease and we were here. Okay. So that's like one pause, that's like one story. We're gonna pause right there. Okay. Okay. So I have three kids by the way. Okay. So I, three kids. I have a 12 year old, I have a three-year-old and I have a nine month old. Yeah. So, yeah. So after my second, yes, so after I had my first two kids, I was like, yeah, like I'm not having, I'm not having any more kids.

Like I can't. Maybe t m i, but whatever, like real life here it is. Like I had fertility problems, so like mm-hmm. , having my daughter was very difficult. And like after going through that, my husband are like, okay. Yeah. Like, okay, we're good. Like we got one boy, we got one girl. Like, it's good. Like we're done.

Yeah. Okay. So like, that's fine. Right. Okay. Tell me why. Like August of 2021, I found out I was

Michael: as soon as you, when did you sign the, in July of 2021. And then in August. How were you, talk to me about that thought process when that happened. Like how were you thinking in the sense of like, why me, why now? Or were you like, this is great, this is fantastic.

Sana: No, I was like, so how do I get outta his lease

I was like, wait a minute. Ok. I was like, it's fine. Right? It's fine. We can get out of it. Like, dude, I signed a 15 year lease. it's a very long lease. Yeah. So, yeah, no, I was like, what? That can't be right. That's, that's not true. That's not true life. And it was, it was a very true life. And I remember when my, when I started with my consultant, he told me two things, do not make any big purchases and do not get pregnant.

Who is your consultant? Mike Ncio. Next level consultant. Okay. Yeah,

Michael: yeah, yeah. How do you like

Sana: working with them? Oh my god, he was amazing. Awesome. I think I referred like everybody to him and he is awesome. So everybody who's watching this should also go call Mike because he is literally amazing. And all of this would not be here if it wasn't for him.

because he got me through a lot of crap, like a lot like dude, I was like a hormonal person, right? Like my diapers are really

Michael: expensive. Diapers are, they still aren't really expensive. They're expensive. And

Sana: I just sleep trained My eight month old or how old is she? No, she's a year and a half. Oh God, no.

My son now is nine months old. Kidding. Everything confused. Like that's how discombobulated I am. But yeah, no, Mike really helped me through a lot of stuff. And so I called him and I was like, Hey Mike, I have to tell you something. And I remember this like, he was the, besides my husband, who also didn't believe me that I was pregnant.

Mike was the second person that I told that I was pregnant. And he also didn't believe me. He like thought I was joking. Yeah. And I was like, no, I'm not. Like I'm, I'm serious. I'm so serious. p my entire like buildout, I was also building a human inside my body. That was kind. Yeah. So, yes.

Michael: That's pretty intense. Mm. That's

Sana: okay. And so we opened in March of 2022. My son was born on four 20 of 2022.

Michael: Yeah.

Sana: Wait, did you catch his

Michael: birthday April? Oh, oh, okay. I was like, I thought just a month later, I don't get it, but No, yeah, yeah, I get it.

Sana: But yes, it was a month later, literally, so like I opened and it was, I was like literally nine months pregnant when I opened.

And then I had my son a week a month later, and then two weeks after I had him, you better believe I did 17 fillings on my first day back, man.

Michael: Yeah. So, okay. So you opened your practice, right? Yeah. And we can talk about, like, a little bit about the whole part of, uh, opening up. I actually wanted to go back a little bit and talk about that generational trauma, but we can do that another episode or something like that.

But when it comes to the opening up the practice and now you're, how many months or years open now?

Sana: so 11 months open now.

Michael: Okay. And has, how does the trajectory look? Has it been like

Sana: okay, so it was like this, okay, so we are like hyping up to like open, like open, and then it's like give birth, boom,

Okay, cool. So it's like, okay, so, so we're here like, oh, everything's really cool. People like this pregnant dentist. Like, okay, she's so cute. Oh my God, you're having a baby. Oh, practice. We're so proud of you have a baby. Literally like rapid decline. And then I came, so I came back from maternity leave, like I came back from maternity.

Okay. Just two weeks count as maternity leave. No, it doesn't. I came back from giving birth. Yeah, right. 10 days later. Okay. I was like, I'll be back from vacation guys. I'll be our B. Just, yeah. Don't let anything break when I, you know, until I get back. Literally. . So then when I got back I was only seeing patients like once a week because I was like, guys, I just had a baby.

Like I need to heal a little bit. So like

Michael: need to heal. You just gave life, you need to heal a little bit.

Sana: Also some stitches like, don't mind me, but like I, you know, one day a week. Yeah. So came back one day a week and then in, so that was like all of May. I was here for one day a week and then in June is when I came back, like came back from maternity leave.

So that was like three days a week. And then in May I'm just like trying to like build this back up like very slowly to like get ready for June. So we're like building back up. And then my hygienist, cause I hired a hygienist cause I hate h sorry, hygienist, but like, it's probably like for the benefit of my patients that everybody doesn't get a deep cleaning.

Cuz if I see them, that's what they would get. Oh. Because it's I don't have the hands of an angel. So. . I have a hygienist against all the things that everybody says for startups, you don't need it, do your own hygiene, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Anyways, I got a hygienist, so literally as I'm like recovering from birth giving, she gives me her notice cuz she's like, Hey.

Yeah, right. Freaking heartland. She was like, Hey Doc, like I need benefits and this Heartland office is gonna like give me medical insurance for my kid. And I was like, you know, like I respect that. Mm-hmm. and I like, can't be mad at you for it. So thank you for the couple of days that you gave me. Good luck.

I'll send you your W2 next year. And, uh, how many

Michael: employees at this time have you had?

Sana: okay. I feel like I have a lot of employees. Again, another topic for another day because against all startup things, I think I have like, I'm like, just like way overstaffed, but like in a good way. How many do you have right now?

Oh my God. Okay. Lemme count. I'm my office manager, Diana. I have my treatment coordinator who is like double serving as my assistant right now because long story short, my assistant quit last week, so that was kind of cool. Anyways, so my treatment coordinator Casie, so it's two.

Mm-hmm. . Then I have my hygienist, three, I have my life assistant. That's a whole other topic for another

Michael: life assistant you said? Yes. Okay. And she works at the practice?

Sana: Yeah, she does like things for me here and then she would like do things for me, like all the errands that I would need to do, like all like a bunch of like admin stuff that like, it's not like office manager stuff, it's just like more like me stuff, but like, I just like responding to emails and like she runs my social media and like just that kind of stuff.

Okay. But now since last week we've had a lot of changes, so now she's at the front desk, so she's. receptionist also now. Okay. She's like, my life is slash office receptionist. That's four. And then I have a nurse practitioner because I'm also a med spa. So that's a whole other topic. Yes. So five. And then my nurse practitioner has a medical assistant, so that's six.

Michael: Okay. So you have six employees in total. Why'd you decide to become a med spa? How did you like H? How's that coming along? The med spa

Sana: part? Oh my god. It's like a whole other story. Okay. Okay. So we'll back up. So when I was making this like concept, right? Mm-hmm. , people hate the dentist. People love the spa.

So I was like, oh yeah, like we'll make this like dental experience, very spa-like that was like the goal spa-like dental experience. So then I'm doing my branding and all this stuff, so I'm like, oh yeah, dental studio and spa. So like in my head when I'm like, it's a spa dental studio. There's aromatherapies, you get fuzzy blankets, you get noise canceling headphones.

Like all the millennial stuff, right? Like all the millennial things. Yeah. And that's what, that's what it was in my head. And then I started like doing all this, like marketing and stuff and people are like, so what's the spa? And I'm like, it's the fuzzy blanket. and this. Branded Chapstick,

Oh, you wanted a facial? Yeah. I don't have that. Sorry. Oh,

Michael: okay.

Sana: Oh, you want a massage? Yeah, we don't do those here. Sorry. that's how it started. I was like, okay, so people are respecting a spa, like, okay, sounds good. So like, eight months pregnant, opening a scratch startup, and people want a freaking spa.

So I'm like, what the heck? What? So I had like, I have four, I had four empty ops. Cause so my office has seven ops. I got equipment for three, and then I had four empty ones. I was like, all right, we're gonna rent one of these out to an esthetician. There you go. Wesley Chapel, here's your facial. Come and get one.

There you go. Yeah. , I rented it, I rented out a room to an esthetician and then, so that was whatever, like, I'm, I wasn't like really in charge of anything. Like she did her own thing. It was just like rented space. And I was like, oh, thanks for like the $500 for my super expensive rent. Yeah. Put that

Michael: towards that as one.

Wait real quick. Put a timeout. How much is

Sana: rent? Oh my God. Stop. We really wanna know. It's like $8,000.

Michael: How many, how many ops do you have? Seven. Are they all plumbed and, oh, okay.

Sana: But that's just my rent. Like I'm just paying this guy to pay his mortgage.

Michael: Was there any free rent? Six months. What was your tie?

Sana: Allowance?

Oh my god. What was it? 72,000. Not a lot of thousands. Not

Michael: enough . Not a lot of thousands. I'm looking to be a millionaire. Not a thousandaire. What is wrong with that man? Like, what is

Sana: this? I was like, dude, I was like, I'm signing a 15 year lease, 15 years. I was like, the baby that's in my stomach will be 15 years old.

Oh yeah. Like he'll be getting his license. That's how long this lease is. Okay, thank you.

Michael: So here's showing 2000. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So un paused back to the, the spot.

Sana: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So then I got the esthetician and then people were getting facials and that was cool. And then I was like, oh, I wanna do Botox and fillers and like I had taken a course for it, but I'm the type of person, like I'm a perfectionist, like, I don't wanna do it.

but I know people want Botox and fillers. I kind of nervous, so I got a nurse practitioner. I was like, ah, like one day a week, just like, come, like, Botox these people up. Mm-hmm. , we started doing that. And then I guess like all the laser reps in the United States, just, I, I don't, I don't understand, like, do they have like a, oh, this person advertised that they do Botox.

Let's go attack them with our sales rep, Venus Literally they would like just, they would just show up. They would just show up at the front desk. this is before my therapist taught me that I have to put boundaries. Okay. So like, I've, I've done a lot of therapy in my life. Hang out again.

Michael: Pause you going, you going to therapy? Hell yeah. What, when did you start going?

Sana: So I was in therapy before When I went through like all the oh my god, there's like so much you don't know about me, but , , there's a lot. I just met you right now. just met me.

There's so much you don't know about me. But, so I went through like all this stuff, like in high school, like in college, whatever, like teen mom, like okay, like all this like traumatic, traumatic stuff, right? So like, just like a synopsis, like I'm a survivor of like domestic abuse and sexual assault, right?

So like that's like a lot of my traumas. And so I was going to therapy before, but I was like lying in therapy and like just F y I, if you lie in therapy, it doesn't work. So I was lying in therapy and it didn't work very well. So I stopped going to therapy and then I restarted therapy last year maybe.

Yeah, I started restarted therapy last year and now I have this really awesome therapist who's like a mom therapist. and she just like understands like working moms. Anyways,

Michael: my therapist what, real quick, what made you want to start therapy?

Sana: as you can tell, I have the brain of a squirrel and I have a lot of things I need to talk about.

And my husband doesn't understand anything about dentistry. He also doesn't understand anything about owning a business. He also is not a mom. And I just like, I basically talk to patients. I talk to my staff, I talk to my kids, I talk to my husband and that's it. I was like, I need an outlet.

Like also I have all of these like negative coping mechanisms and I have zero boundaries, so I literally gotta get my together. negative coping mechanism is basically like, , I'll just like let people just do whatever and I like, don't, I just like, I'm like, OK, sounds good. Like I'm very like PE people pleaser. Even if I'm like, no, like I don't wanna do that. Like, or I'm like always just like preparing for the worst. So like, I'll be like in this like really great like celebratory moment and I'm like, I need to prepare for like the apocalypse.

And it's like, dude, we're literally just eating Taco Bell. Can you relax? Yeah. And well, no I can't, I can't celebrate this Mexican pizza comeback right now. . I'm afraid that the Mexican pizza will also then be taken off the menu. So the

Michael: Mexican pizza combo, , it didn't get taken off. Didn't it again? Or, I dunno.

It's

Sana: not taken off. Okay. Then it came back and now. , I'm supposed to celebrate this comeback of the Mexican pizza, but in my head I know that they will take it away again.

Michael: Okay, . So those are the negative coping mechanisms. What I mean, ok, I

Sana: get you, I get you Like very, more like dramatic, like other types of things, but that's just like me trying to again, like deflect and make something a joke, like that's another negative coping mechanism.

I just make all this serious stinky stuff a joke all the time and I'm like, it's, it's fine. It's ok. It's ok. I like, you know, like that meme where it's like everything's on fire around

Michael: other guy. Like, it's fine. This is fine. This is fine.

Sana: It's, it's fine. Yeah. That's like me as a person.

Michael: Okay. Okay. Okay. So un pause, fast, fast forward back

Sana: to the, the med spa and the laser reps and having no boundaries.

Like, I would be like, oh yeah, if somebody wants to like, come talk to me, like, yeah, just let them know. Whatever. Right? So I'm like getting pulled out of the operatory. They're like, oh, doc, so and so wants to talk to you, so and so called for you. And I'm like, oh, cool. Ok. And I'm like, wait, I can't talk to all these people.

Like I just, I can't do it. And I'm also really bad at saying no. So somehow these guys come in, then they convince me with all their sales preppiness that I need a Morpheus machine. And I'm like, yeah, you're right. I wanna get rid of my double G. So, you're right. Let's get a amorphous, it's fine. Let's do it.

Okay. That's a lot of thousands of dollars. Okay. Sounds good. Did you get it? Yeah, I, I got it.

Michael: Man, their sales preppiness is good. Huh?

Sana: Or my boundaries are lacking. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Michael: Like that's true. You could have just been so looking at IT app, but what have you improved that or what, what's going on with

Sana: that?

Yeah. No, I've improved it. I stopped buying stuff. I've been cut off, so I'm not buying things anymore. Mm-hmm. , but I've also. . I was just, I just was looking like, where is, how is society going? Like what's like on the up and on, the up and up and it's med spas that is on the up and up, right?

Mm-hmm. , everybody wants to be in aesthetics and cosmetics and this and that and whatever. And so I'm like, all right, well people are expecting a spa, so we're gonna make it a freaking spa and we're gonna become a med spa. Like, that's it. We're doing it. I don't wanna be like, oh yeah, come get your facial.

Like, no, you can go down to the salon suite down there. Go get your facial over there. Mm-hmm. , we have lasers here. We have a medical director that's this, this person is the medical director. Like we do medical things here. So it just like was a really quick, like all of a sudden it started as Botox and fillers.

Then all these reps are coming in and they're like telling me about all this like, cool stuff. And I'm like, wait, like why aren't we incorporating this? Like that just like makes natural sense, right? And then my practitioner, she used to work at another med spa, she had all that experience and I was, I was like asking her, I was like, well, what could we do to like build this side of the office?

So July of 2022, the med spa officially opened and that was it. And we started like booking data and now we're like, I mean we're doing really great. I'm so grateful for it, but it's hard. Like basically, what I've been doing is like, that's why I'm like, I don't know what the numbers are. I feel like they're kind of skewed, like we are trying to market a new dental office and a med spa, but they're totally different business models and totally different businesses, under one brand, if that makes

Michael: sense.

Yeah, like an umbrella kind of thing, right? Like a, yeah, exactly. So it's been hard,

Sana: but it's like, it's good. It's like a good, hard,

Michael: the spa and the like the lasers and stuff like that alone. How much would you say. you're making with that

Sana: profit? Like I would say like if we're looking at like what the production is for the month, that's probably like 20%. And like the dental still pays, like dental pays the bills. Okay.

Michael: And so then production and collections for last month was what? 1

Sana: 0 4. Let's see. 1 0 4. And then let me pull up my calculator. Let's calculate every

Michael: month. Has it been going higher and higher or have you had some months that has been like, oh my gosh, we did fantastic and another months you're like, oh, we dipped.

Sana: I mean it's been like consistently going up. Mm-hmm. . So I just did the math. So, and as this is, this is again, like, this is the hard part about like running a report. Like did everybody post the things under the correct provider? Like that's question number one. Mm-hmm. . So given, if they did, it shows that the Med Spa produced 22% of last month's.

production. So 22%?

Michael: Yes. Like about what you said. Okay. Awesome. And then new patients right now, how many are you getting? Last

Sana: month we got but that's just dental new patients. So like how many med spa new patients did I get last month also? So like that's how I have to look at practice, like, I mean new patient acquisition because now in that budget that I've spent, I am acquiring dental patients and med spa patients.

So if you look at it like, oh my God, you spent that much money and you got 44 patients, that's terrible. Yeah, I agree. It's like very terrible. But then when I look at like how many med spa patients did I get with that money and dental patients, then it kind of like balances out to normal.

Michael: Hmm. I guess what are you doing for marketing and advertising then?

Sana: So right now we are doing like Facebook ads. I have transcendental running my Facebook ads. I'm in like a bunch of like local publications. So there's like three magazines or two magazines and a newspaper that I'm in. I have a little ad, and then I am for the, one of the magazines. I'm an expert contributor.

So for like the, they'd already had a dentist expert contributor. So I'm the med spa expert contributor. But basically I just like give them articles like three times a year about whatever I wanna write about. Mm-hmm. . And so LA like I did the New year new you article. It was kind of cool. I wonder if I have a copy of it.

and I just talked about like what our office does and like, what's a dental office and a med box. Everybody's like, is this a scam? And I'm like, no.

Michael: They ask you that. Is this a

Sana: scam? People will see like our Botox ad on Facebook, and they literally will be like, is this a scam? And I'm like, not a scam.

You're talking to a real person. It's me. I'm feeding my children dinner as I respond to this Facebook message So, a, not as scary. Very real. Thank you. So, and then, but people come and they're like, oh my God. Like, I think a lot of what we've been getting recently is word of mouth because Oh, our staff, like, we are all, we all work so well together.

we all, like, the patients can sense it. They come in here and they're like, wow, this feels like comfortable. I feel like I'm in, I'm at home. Kind of like, they're not like uncomfortable, like in this like, medical setting, just like mm-hmm. . I mean, we do it, it's a medical setting. Everything is nice and sterile and clean, but like the people that they're interacting with and the way that we vibe off of each other and the conversations we as staff are having, and then we like include the patients.

Like it's really just by word of mouth. and so we throw events here too, like at the office. So like, we're literally doing somebody's birthday party next month. Oh, cool. Yeah. So it's like a little like Botox party for their birthday. And they're inviting like. What 15 of their friends were getting like charcuterie, Prosecco, we're gonna have like balloons, cake, all that stuff.

And she's throwing her party here at a dental office. That's cool though.

Michael: That's nice. Like that should be promoted like a bajillion, you know what I mean? Like make a bunch of content out of it and stuff like that. Yeah. Well we

Sana: interested content. So you were asking like what else we do for promotions, like for marketing?

Mm-hmm. . So we literally just did two days of content creation, like yesterday and today. And so we do that, like, we do like just a bunch of content stuff and then like edit and do all that stuff and then have that like for three months at a time. So like yesterday, the team, like, we all got our makeup done professionally and we were just like, it was just like a fun like team building type of day.

So like everybody got their makeup done. We were all like, we all have purple scrubs. We all wore pink dresses. We took like fancy pictures, we took funny pictures, we made funny reels like just.

Michael: That. Yeah, that's good. Awesome. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And then, so I know you mentioned a couple companies, XITE, Michael Ncio, right.

Next to Level practice, you mentioned Transcendental. Right. what have been some of the worst companies you've worked with since the moment you decided to do your startup to now

just companies that didn't, vibe with you, I guess, or like, you know what I mean? You're like, you know what, let's just stop kind of thing.

Sana: Yeah. Honestly, I don't think anybody, I'm serious. Everybody that I've started with, I have stuck with and I referred like potential clients too.

So like, for example, um, M V P Mail House, I used them for my mailers when I first opened, and I like, love them. So have sent tons of people there. Transcendental. I've referred a few people there. I didn't start with transcendental, like they, I didn't start with them from day one, but, since I've started with them, I have like nothing but great things to say.

They're awesome. Um, who'd you start with from day one? Um, so, and I'm still working with them. Art of Dental Marketing, Sean Hamel. Okay. Okay. Okay. Uhhuh. . Yeah. Yeah, so they like, so they did my webs and like, so they never did Facebook ads for me. So, so like what Transcendental is doing is nothing that they've ever done for me.

It's just like something I decided to add on. But, um, so Arta Dental Marketing does, like, they made my website and so they like manage like my website and all that stuff and everybody always comments on how great my website is. So thank you to Stephanie who designed it cuz she's the bomb.com, but yeah, so that's my website. And then I'm trying to think like, I don't, I don't know like what other vendors. do people normally use I use B of A for banking, which is fine. They were, yeah, I did the, the startup practice thing. okay. That was good for equipment. They were great. Yeah. Yeah. I used, I, oh, I used Renew Digital for my C B C T and my p mm-hmm.

That was awesome. Okay. That's good. Yeah. So I feel like I've happy with all the people I've chosen so far.

Michael: Okay. Yeah. Awesome. So the, one of the last questions I want to ask you is, how is all of this affecting your personal life? Oh my

Sana: God. Okay. Hello. I've added therapy. I'm kidding. ,

Michael: when you just talked about therapy, Michael.

Oh, I wasn't joyful with the Taco Bell, Mexican pizza. Come on,

Sana: let's talk about that. So, no, I'm, but honestly, it, it's hard. Like, you know, I have a husband, I have three kids. I have a teacup Yorkie who needs more attention than my husband and three kids all together, like, It's a lot, you know, and I have, and I tell my husbands all the time, like, I need to find something for me.

Like, and I have not done that yet. you know, my husband, he plays soccer, for example. Mm-hmm. , he likes to watch sports and fantasy football and whatever that type, whatever that March madness. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Well, he likes that stuff. So that's like what he does for himself. He is like, with his friends, like doing that.

He goes and plays soccer and like, that's great. And I, and I'm happy for him that he has that, but I'm like, dude, what do I have? I literally clean teeth, not, I don't clean teeth. I do a bunch of fillings and crowns and other stuff. Argue with people about their dental insurance that they picked. It's not my fault.

I don't wanna tell you about that. Tell them how they're not paying for my Mercedes. That it's literally a Volkswagen. And also they need the filling. and then I come home and then I argue with my 12 year old because he is going through preteen stuff, so That's cool. Yeah. And I argue my three year old who doesn't want to go to bed,

And then my eight, my, well, he's actually, oh my God, he's 10 months now. Sweetest little boy ever. But yeah, so him and I just, we just hang out. He, he doesn't argue with me thankfully. But, you know, so I'm like, I just, I'm like at work or I'm at home and then like, that's it. Or I'm talking to my therapist, so I'm like, I need something for me. So I think that's been some, that's been the one thing that I have really been missing since this whole journey started is like that time for myself and that thing for me, like, I really wanna start working out again. That's like one of my goals, but that's because I enjoyed doing it and I just haven't, I don't have time.

Like, where's the time? , I finished all the clinical stuff and it's like, oh, gotta run payroll. Hey guys, sorry, told about to run payroll. So would you like your check like paper or do you want it direct deposited on Monday? I forgot to run payroll. So it's like those types of things, like if I'm not doing like clinical stuff, I'm doing all this admin stuff and if I'm doing admin stuff, I'm doing mom stuff and then like, where's the like me stuff, you know?

So I think that's the one thing that has kind of affected my personal life is like I just don't have time to do anything that I wanna do. And I, and you know, you open a business thinking like work life balance, this is great, but I think as a startup, like that's probably not a realistic expectation, especially like when your significant other is not in the same field or like a part of the practice, in some sort of like administrative capacity, you know?

my husband's a high school teacher and he loves what he does and he. Does not have time to do anything here because he has 160 students that he has to teach and grade and plan for, and he comes home. And then we have three kids. If I'm here late at night running payroll and putting up Indeed ads, cause I have to hire an assistant, guess what?

He's at home with the kids so he can't be here to help me. You know? And so that's kind of the, the thing, it's, it's a very like fine line I guess. You

Michael: kind of do, you kind of feel sounded like what about me?

Sana: Yes. Kind of thing. Yeah. This is becoming like a serious therapy session and I'm there for it because it would be good to have it twice.

I mean, this week I had to skip it cuz we had content day yesterday. So , it feels like at that point where I do need my therapy session and I'm kind of happy so. I do wonder what about me? What about me? If you

Michael: skipped it for your content day. Yeah. I mean, uh, that and stuff like that happens, right? I think like you kind of have to, was that, what did you say that was like a lack of boundary right there?

Or, or you were just prioritizing?

The skipping. Oh, the skipping or something else?

Sana: Well, no, that was, so I have my boundaries now because of my therapist, but her and I talked about it and I was like, Hey, love you, but next week I have to like just film a bunch of stuff. So I can't meet for therapy next week, but we'll meet the next week.

So it was me just like prioritizing something and maybe, maybe the content was for me, like doing this content creation thing, like was for me. Right. So it's like, and this is the other thing, this is like a good takeaway for everybody. When you say yes to something, you are saying no to something else. And so what is that thing that you're saying no to?

And are you okay with that? And. , you have to remember that when you say yes, cuz you could be thinking like, hey, like, and this is the way she explained it to me, laser reps. Mm-hmm. . I took this call from this guy. It does not harm me that I took this five or 10 minute phone call. So I said yes to the phone call.

Just being a nice person, okay? Mm-hmm. . But what did I say no to? I said no to maybe five to 10 minutes of talking to my mom, five to 10 minutes of listening to music in the car, or a podcast in the car that I was excited about because I was talking on the phone, in the car that five to 10 minutes of talking to him did not harm me or do anything like detrimental to my life, right?

I said yes, just to be nice and did not set that boundary. But by doing that I said no to something else. Maybe would've served me better. Like maybe I had a really long day and I really just wanted to talk to my mom or my sister, or I wanted to like decompress and listen to some like bone thugs and harmony.

Like, I don't know, Anyway, so I have learned boundaries and I'm very proud of it. And I think Michelle would also be very proud of me. That's your

Michael: therapist's name? Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah, you're right a lot of the times and it's the things that require our immediate attention where we make a snap decision where we're like, crap, we should have done these days the scar says resource we have is the time to think.

I feel. So if we are not like given that time to like, I, should I say yes to this? Should I say no? I feel like we're just afraid to say no sometimes.

Sana Yusuf DRAFT: Yeah,

Sana: no, that's a hundred percent me. I'm like, I'm like just yes, yes, yes, dear. Yes, yes, yes, yes. To my son, I say no a lot, but everything else is like, yes, yes, absolutely.

No, you cannot buy PlayStation, whatever you want to buy on PlayStation for game, for whatever game you're playing. No. Yeah. But yes, let's go downstairs and eat dinner together. Yes, . Yeah. So, but I've gotten better at it. And I think that's another thing, like as a business owner, you have to set those boundaries.

And I'm learning that like. , you have to set boundaries. You have to prioritize the things that are important to you because guess what? Like if I take the time to like make this indeed at and put it up right now, I'm not gonna have an insistent tomorrow. I'm so screwed. Right?

So like, why not go home, put my kids to bed, sit down on the couch with like a nice cup of tea and then be okay, now I can put this indeed add up. Like why do I have to do it right now at this exact moment? Like, I can go right now and enjoy the time with my kids while they're awake. And those are the things that I'm learning.

Cause I'm more of like the let's just do it now. And like, why? Like why put it off? Like just do it now and be done with it. And I'm learning now, like sometimes you have to like pause. I'm going to not do this right now and I'm gonna come back to this in a little bit and I'm gonna go do something else that I need to do.

Or that's a bigger priority. And it's okay to like sometimes leave a task undone. , you know, not all. Like I obviously I'm not gonna make, Hey guys, I just, uh, drilled this filling in your tooth, but I'm gonna go prioritize my cup of coffee. I'll be right back. We're just gonna leave the whole way there. So yeah, like, not like that.

We're, yeah, we're always there. Almost there, but not yet. you know, obviously not like that patient, patient care is always first, but, I think there's certain things that I could probably do better as a mom, as a business owner when it comes to like, prioritizing and boundaries. And I think that would really impact like my personal life. Also the work-life balance that I like so desperately need. you know, I just think about like, yeah, I wanna go on this trip. And I'm like, that sounds like super exhausting. I don't wanna do that anymore. Like, because then that means I have to close the office, like, who's gonna answer the phones? Who's gonna do this?

Like, what is the production we're losing? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Also, like, traveling with kids is not fun. So I don't do that. So,

Michael: Stay home. Yeah. Okay. I get you. I get you. Sauna, it is been a pleasure talk to you. I appreciate your time. But before we say goodbye, can you tell our listeners where they can find you?

Sana: yes. So I mean, if you wanna come to Wesley Chapel, Florida, you can find me here. I have signed a 15 year lease. I'm not going anywhere, . but if you're not in Florida, you can find me on Instagram. My, um, Instagram handle is my first name, last name, so Yusuf, d m d. my office page is on a dental studio and spa, always like open book.

Feel free to message me, ask me all the questions. if you felt triggered by anything that I said, feel free to reach out. I can talk you through it. can, we can work through it together. If you have questions about anything that I talked about, again, feel free to message me. . I think there's a lot that we could have talked about and a lot that we have left to talk about.

I'm inviting myself back for another episode, so, okay. ,

Michael: I feel like you left the tented doors open too, so I was like, oh yeah, we, we'll probably we'll probably talk about that, but all that will be in the show notes below, guys, so definitely reach out to Sauna and thank you for being with me on this episode.

I appreciate it. I'll talk to you

Sana: soon. Yes, definitely. Bye guys.

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This Episode is Sponsored by: Dandy | The Fully Digital, US-based Dental Lab
‍
For a completely FREE 3Shape Trios 3 scanner & $250 in lab credit click here: https://www.meetdandy.com/affiliate/tdm !

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In this episode, Dr. Tom Orent, gives us a behind the scenes view of his 20, 20, 20, new patient exam process. Dr. Orent notes that there are 3 main rules when talking to a asymptomatic patient and discussing treatment:

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1. Don't take too much of their time.
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2. Don't take too much of their money.
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3. Don't hurt them.

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It's important to remember that new patients will most likely be sensitive to all three of these points when undergoing treatment or treatment planning. Dr. Orent recommends a more gentle approach when immediate attention isn't required. He takes his patients through phases rather than overloading new patients with worries of payments, time, and pain. Phase one of Tom's 20, 20, 20, process involves the lower ticket items that the patient needs, and eases into later phases with more comprehensive treatment.

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Listen in for more tips from Dr. Tom Orent on higher treatment conversion rates, happier patients, and profitability.

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You can reach out to Tom Orent here:

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Tom's 4-Step System to Safely Withdraw From PPOs

PPO Exit Facebook Group

Dr. Tom Orent's message for you:

"If you would like to REDUCE your DEPENDENCE on PPOs, you can download my FREE SPECIAL REPORT, “A 4-Step System Dentists use to Safely and Predictably Withdraw from PPOs and INCREASE Net Profit” go to www.PPOfoe.com

If you're sick and tired of being jerked around by network insurance plans, being told what you can and can't do for your patients, and losing hundreds of thousands of dollars per year...

My team and I have set aside some time this week to speak with you. A 60-Minute complimentary Breakthrough Call. By the end of that call, if we believe we can help you, we can certainly talk about what that might look like. If not, we may steer you toward what we feel may serve you better.

Regardless, I guarantee this will be the best 60 Minutes you have ever worked on your practice. You'll have some fun along the way and get massive value from the call.

If you are a General Dentist producing between 1/2 and 2 million per year, and the owner of your practice, to schedule your FREE Breakthrough Call, go to https://freedomsummitcoaching.com/?UNQSRC=MATDMPOD

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Other Mentions and Links:

‍Gordon Christensen

Pete Dawson

John Kois

Frank Spear

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If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Marketing, ask me on these platforms:

My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/

The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041

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Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

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Michael: Hey Tom. So talk to us about patient retention. How can we utilize this, or what advice or suggestions can you give us that will help us with this? .

Tom: looking at new patient retention, uh, it, it's critical, but before we get into how to do it, let's talk about why you'd wanna do it.

Mm-hmm. , why is it so important? Why is it critical? Let's say a healthy new patient flow for a GP is 25 or 35, let's say per month. So I dunno, about 400 patients, new patients a year, The average lifetime value of a new patient in a, in a general practice is over $6,200. So that's a lot of money.

Lifetime value for each one who comes in and. . if you could only increase new patient retention, let's say just by 20%, that's 80 more patients a year who are with your practice times, however many years are gonna be there. That one year. Those 80 patients, the average lifetime value multiplied out, you're looking at just shy of 500,000.

That's a half million dollars increase in the value of the practice over a few years. So we're gonna talk about something that I call the twenty twenty twenty new patient exam. Uh, before I get into detail on how to. , let me tell you who this is not for, cuz it's really important that I make this clear even before I tell you who it's not for, we're talking about the most common kind of patient, the asymptomatic, no symptoms comes into the office.

I think everything is just fine. I'm just here for a cleaning and a checkup. if the patient has an emergency, if the patient has a broken tooth, if the patient says I need a mile reconstruction, that's a different. what we're talking about today is retaining the vast majority of the highest likelihood of the patient coming in, and those are the people who say, yeah, I think I'm just fine.

All right, so who, this is not for, if you have the gift that Gordon Christensen or Pete Dawson or John COIs or Frank Spear or, or any of those guys where they can just meet a new patient who has no symptoms, thought everything was fine, sees that they really do need massive work, and within, you know, a short period of time on that first.

You're able to get across to the patient, the relationship, the trust, and get them to say yes to let's say, you know, 20, 30, 40,000. Case, then this is not for you. Now, I would say that the vast majority of us, I certainly am not in the category of being able to do that with an asymptomatic patient who walked in and said, yeah, I'm great.

I'm fine. I don't need anything. all right, so this is for everybody else. what you wanna do is you wanna make sure that you're not scaring away. The new patient by telling 'em everything that they need immediately when they told you already that they think everything is fine, that they don't have any symptoms.

and by the way, I mentioned Pete Dawson. I loved Pete. Uh, he wrote the forward of one of my books, and so I went through all of his courses and, and I learned everything. And clinically, it was amazing. . The problem is I came back into my office after two years of those courses and, and I was much better clinically, but when I tried to do what he said as far as case presentation went, and, you know, going through the whole thing with a brand new patient.

not too long into this, Isabel, my office manager takes me aside and she hands me this big legal pad with a bunch of names on it, and I said, what's that? She said, uh, do you recognize these names? I said, no. I said, who are these? . She said, exactly. She said, those are all the new patients who came in once you presented massive cases and they ran out the back door.

and she handed me this thing. I was like, whoa. I had no idea. So she didn't know how to fix it. I didn't know how to fix it, but I knew I had a problem. Mm-hmm. . And the problem was I was using great clinical skills, but when I came to the presentation, I was trying to do the, Dawson Pinky presentation and say, this is everything you need.

There was no trust, there was no relationship. . So over the years I did a lot of trial and error and I figured out a way to get by this, and I came up with three rules. So four your docs out there. If you're writing anything down at all, write down these three rules. This is for the asymptomatic brand new patient when you meet them.

Number one is don't take much of their time, so a treatment plan that requires them to come back 5, 6, 8, 10 times over the next several months. , it's already gonna be too much Friction don't take much of their money. So if the out-of-pocket is, you know, under a thousand dollars, that's fine. But if the out and if five, six, $700, that's all good.

But if the out-of-pockets gonna be 4, 5, 6, 8, 10,000 or $15,000, again, you're putting in stress in a relationship that doesn't need to be there yet, and you can retain that patient. If you don't do that at that point, I'm gonna tell you how to do that right now. Number three is don't hurt. Now you may be thinking, Tom, why would I wanna hurt a pa?

Well, you don't wanna hurt anybody, but you especially can't hurt a new patient. Cuz if you do, they're gone. So those are the three rules. what you do is you develop what I would call a phase one treatment plan, but you don't mention to the patient that it's a phase one treatment plan initially. this is where the rubber meets the road.

All you're doing is developing your phase one. If we were back in dental school, they wouldn't have you treatment plan an asymptomatic patient from beginning to end or any patient symptoms or otherwise. They wouldn't have you treatment plan the entire patient. You would do our first phase and then get that under control, whatever.

So kind of back to the roots a little bit. Now, what could be in that phase where phase one plan that won't take more than a few visits, won't take much of their money and won't hurt them, won't take much of their time. . All right. You could do whatever's needed, but you could do perio phase one, deep scaling and root planning.

Let's say you found some pit fisher and groove composites that were needed. You could do those. Let's say the patient requested whitening. Okay, that's fine as well. this is some examples, but it's low cost, low impact, nothing major. Not gonna scare 'em, not gonna take much of their time or money.

So that's a phase one. . Now, let's say you're looking in their mouth and you see that their posterior teeth have all these wide open margins on th 30 year old amalgams, and you pro probably have recurrent carries and frack, whatever. Mm-hmm. . How can you not tell them that? How can you just do a plan and tell them everything's great other than this?

Well, you can't, that wouldn't be ethical at all. So I had to bridge that gap and figure out a way to present something to them that would be easy, but at the same time would be ethical and, just be honest. So the way that I did that and the way that I recommend doing. Let's say you're just about done with your phase one plans.

you've actually presented it and she said, yeah, that's fine. Just a couple visits and not much money. So she is, that's fine. Then I would say, Mrs. Jones, I see that you have a number of old Mercury silver fillings in the back teeth and they look like they were done quite some time ago.

Is that right? And she would say, well, yeah, they were those redundant as a kid. Now, you know, she's thinking that you're gonna say that you need all this work in the back and, you know, crowns. And she's thinking, oh my God, not this. I hope I don't need all this work. don't even know this guy. These teeth feel fine.

Nobody ever told me I need anything back here. I let her think what she wants to think. But I finish up this sentence with, I made a note in my record, and by the way, I did make a note in my record. Mm-hmm. , so I case noted this. I said, I made a note in my record that in the not too distant future, I'd like to have you back for a more complete and thorough evaluation of those back teeth, just so that we don't miss anything important.

Would that be okay? And of course she's gonna say, yes, she's, you know that, that's all fine. She's not gonna say no to that. And so now she's happy. Cuz at this point all I've done is that little phase one plant and I. After we finish this first phase that we've just discussed, I'd like to have you back for more complete and thorough evaluation.

So now I've told her that this is a first phase, that I've not done a comprehensive exam, that I've not at all addressed all of the back things that we're looking at with all those big silver fillings, but that I do, and I might even mention to her, I do see some areas where, the filling itself isn't as tight against the tooth as it used to be, and it's letting things leak in there.

So that is something I'd like to take a look at, just so that we don't miss anything really important. Then I go through that first phase. She accepts it. You're gonna get really high acceptance of that. Again, to be clear, this is not a patient who came in with. a fracture, an abscess, um, or telling you that they need a massive amount of work, those patients know they need it.

I would move forward with whatever you think is appropriate at that time with that patient. Mm-hmm. , but because there's no relationship and there's no trust without relationship. and because the patient came in presenting saying, I have no problems. I think I just need a cleaning and a checkup. And that's your classic bread and butter patient who does need a bunch of work.

so we don't wanna scare 'em away. 95% of my new asymptomatic patients were really happy and they stayed with me and they came back and then we did the next phase evaluations. not only credible, because you're telling the truth, um, but it's something where when they come back, it's already a seed in their mind that they know that there's other stuff to do and they're happy that you didn't talk about it before.

you and I talked a little bit before we started that, um, really, I mean, the big 800 pound gorilla in the room is insurance. I mean, we're not gonna get into insurance today, maybe another time, but, but the big 800 pound gorilla is insurance. Why? Because. The vast majority of gps in the United States are mired in PPOs, and I was, I mean, I had that in my practice.

My dad had it in his. and it was what was killing me. and it took me about two years to develop a system, a strategy to get out of those PPOs. But I did it. So I went a hundred percent fee for service. And then when my dad was dying of cancer, he asked me to take over his practice and help my mom out financially, cuz all he had was debt.

He had nothing put away as in zero, no life insurance, nothing. Mm-hmm . It took my wife and me about two and a half years in that practice, the Worcester practice to get 13 out of his 15 plans gone and make it a very profitable practice as well. . And so I had mentioned, uh, earlier that, uh, what, what, what I have available for your listener is it's a, uh, free special report.

It's called a four Step System that dentists use to safely and predictably withdraw from PPOs and increase net profit. So if your folks would like that, they can get it right where you see over my shoulder. , www dot ppo fo and foe is F oe, so ppo fo.com. And that's, um, that's about it. I, I, I hope that covered it Well, not for

Michael: you.

No. Yeah, that was fantastic, Tom. I appreciate it. And then we'll, play all that in the show notes below, but real quick, I wanna rewind a little bit to where we talk about, don't take too much of their. The three steps don't take too much of their money. So there's three

Tom: rules. Yeah, there's three rules.

Rule number one is don't take too much of their time. And what I mean by time is the number of visits. Imagine that you're the new patient, you don't have any symptoms. You presented to a doctor and you said, I'm just here for a checkup or a regular physical, whatever, they tell you you need to come back for a series of additional tests and treatments and and time outta work and whatever.

When you thought that there was nothing wrong and even. Maybe you just moved from another town and your previous dentist, who you were with for 20 years who you loved to death told you you were in good shape. again, to just to be clear, and I know I've said this a couple times, but it's important. This is not the patient who has a fractured tooth abscess emergency needs, uh, or massive reconstruction, and they know it and they present that to you that I need this all fixed.

This is the patient who thinks everything is just fine. And that's a lot of the patients we see today. So that was rule number one, is not a lot of time number. don't take much of their money, and I don't have an exact number, but I used to keep it well under a thousand dollars, so it might be three, four, $500 maximum.

And then they have some insurance that kicks in, you know, for part of it. Uh, but, but not much out of their pocket. Number three is don't hurt 'em. And, um, again, not to be facetious, we don't wanna hurt anybody, but, but especially with a brand new patient. I mean, if you inject them for the first time and you're doing a small filling or whatever it is you happen to be doing, or your, your perio phase.

and you hurt them, they're not coming back. I mean, there's a lot of dentists out there who'd be happy to, you know, treat them and do it, uh, in a very comfortable manner. So you just have to be extra, extra kind and careful to make sure that none of that happens and you'll retain a very high level of your, uh, very high percentage of your new patients.

It's wonderful, man. I

Michael: like the, how you broke that down with the phases too, how you kind of do it all in a slow type of growth, right? But you're building that, but you said you're building that relationship, that trust, but you. Establish the foundation with the relationship first. Right. And I feel like sometimes we just wanna hurry up and, And get

Tom: that in there. Well, the, the funny thing is when my office manager in the Framingham office, Isabel, when she handed me that, that, um, notepad, it was a legal pad. Mm-hmm. . And it had pages and scrolled of handwritten names. I was like, what is this? She said, exactly.

You don't know who these people are, do you? She said, I said, no. I said, Isabel, what's your point? Get, get to the point she, . Every one of those on those three or four pages is a new patient who you did the long form, you know, full exam and comprehensive treatment planning and so forth. All asymptomatic patients, all patients who came in saying, I, I think I'm fine.

I just need a cleaning and a checkup. And you told them they need 10 50 and 2030, what? Whatever you saw, and you were probably right, but you blew them all out the back door and, and again, at that point, We didn't have a solution, so I knew I had a problem, but I didn't have a solution and it took me a couple years to develop what I call the twenty twenty twenty new patient exam for maximum new patient retention, and that's what we just discussed.

Michael: Nice. Awesome. Tom, I appreciate your time and if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find 'em on the Dental Marketer Society Facebook group, or where can they reach out to you directly?

Tom: First of all, there's pfo.com, which has my information when they download that.

That'll have all my, my contact information in there, that special report. The other thing they could do is go to my Facebook group. The FA Facebook group is PPO O Exit. So it's a Facebook group and it's called PPO O Exit.

Michael: Nice. So guys, make sure you downloaded the special report. Go on the show notes below.

Everything's gonna be in the show notes below. Click on the links. And Tom, thank you for being with me on this Monday morning Marketing.

Tom: Michael, thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity.

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This Episode is Sponsored by: Dandy | The Fully Digital, US-based Dental Lab
‍
For a completely FREE 3Shape Trios 3 scanner & $250 in lab credit click here: https://www.meetdandy.com/affiliate/tdm !

‍

‍

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Guest: Zhanna KonovalenkoBusiness Name: ZK Coaching LLCCheck out Zhanna's Media:‍

LinkedIn

Sign Up for Zhanna's Mailing List!

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Other Mentions and Links:

Master Your Emotions - Book

Dale Carnegie

Napoleon Hill

Tony Robbins

Martha Beck

Life Coach School

Life Coach School Podcast

‍

Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer

Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍

Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society

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My Key Takeaways:

• Taking action from a negative emotion will often result in a negative outcome!
• Look at the reasons BEHIND your money goals. Math is simple, but drama around money can be complex.
• If discipline is the only way to meet your goals, you may find yourself burning out!
• Tying your self worth directly to your work performance is a fast-track to negativity.
• Marketing your practice is about how you can help people, not how you can get more patients.
• Niching down your services when marketing will go a long way!

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Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]

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p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.

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Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

Michael: Dr. K, how's it going? ?

Zhanna: Hi Michael, I'm doing amazing. How are you?

Michael: I'm doing pretty good. Thanks for asking. If you don't mind me asking right now, where are you located?

Zhanna: Uh, I'm in northern California on the peninsula. Uhhuh, and um, foster City.

Michael: Okay, nice, nice. Awesome. So let's dive into it. Tell us a little bit about your past, your present. How'd you get to where you are? .

Zhanna: Sure. It's, uh, it's a long, it's a long story . Mm-hmm. , but I try to make it short. So I am I'm a board certified orthodontist, but I'm also a dental coach. That is my main focus on my passion, is my coaching practice where I help busy doctors create a thriving work and life balance so they can succeed, uh, without burning out and the way I got there.

So I'm a doctor and a coach. I am actually something that's called a foreign trained dentist. So I was born and raised, not in the United States. I was born and raised in the Ukraine. Uh, a country that sadly many people know more about now with what's going on there. and, uh, so I grew up there.

my father is a dentist, so I come from a family of doctors. and when I was about 15, you know, I decided to go to dental school. back home, it was actually in, in Moscow, in the Ukraine, but I've always had. Two passions. I've always wanted to study abroad. I don't even know why , we didn't even have internet back then in the nineties, but I've always wanted to study abroad and I always had passion for, behavioral psychology, motivation.

What makes people successful? Midway through dental school in Russia, I decide to move to Europe. So I turned 18 and on my own I moved to Prague, Czech Republic. That's where I finished my dental school. Five years in in Charles University in Prague. moved back to Russia opened a general dentistry practice with my father, who still practices there.

Worked there for about a year and decided that I wanted to move to the United States. So 13 years ago I moved to the us learned the language went back to dental school. Your listeners who are foreign trained dentists would understand this track. If you are trained in another country, uh, other than the US as a dentist, when you move here, you have to get recertified, meaning you have to go back to dental school for a shorter number of years.

It was two years for me. I went to University of Pacific here in California in San Francisco. And after that I decided to specialize in Orthodon. So I went to the residency on the East coast in Philadelphia, temple, and became an orthodontist. And after that I decided, nah, it's too cold. Moving back, , moved across the country again and have been practicing in Northern California since, since I graduated.

Okay, nice. That's a little bit how I became a dentist or orthodontist. And like I uh, mentioned to you, my passion has always been. , what makes successful people? Successful. I've always been, listening to tapes when I was like, since I was in my teens and early twenties, you know, classics, Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, Martha Beck and Tawny Robbins, you know, mm-hmm.

people like that. I've always had it in my, in my ears, that helped me reach to where I am in my career. and when I was practicing as an orthodontist in California, I was in a very busy practice. where I saw close to 100 patients a day. And as you can imagine, it's, you know, you have to manage your mind really well to be successful and still have that work-life balance.

Mm-hmm. . And that's where I stumble across life coaching. Like it's becoming more knowing now what coaching is, but still people are like, Hmm, my coach, what is it exactly? So I discovered life coaching. I hired my coach. She really helped me. have that entrepreneurial mindset rather than an employee mindset where I was able to take control over, just my life balance really.

And then I decided to get certified. I spent a year becoming certified as a life coach through, it's called the Life Coach School. There's different type of schools, but that's where I got certified in 2018. And Fast forward opened my coaching practice mostly because people around me noticed that something has shifted in me.

Mm-hmm. and my colleagues start reaching out, like, how are you so chill? You saw so many patients today. So I started coaching my friends who were also dentists. And then, when the pandemic hit, I just decided to go, full speed into coaching and started my business. It's called ZK Coaching. And uh, that's has become my main focus and my main.

Michael: And you still have your ortho, like your practice, your

Zhanna: orthodontic practice? Yes. I'm still a board certified orthodontist. Correct. But most of my focus right now is in my coaching practice.

Michael: Gotcha. Okay. So if you don't mind me asking, how many times do you practice clinically in

Zhanna: like a month?

It varies. It really varies depending on the demand. So it's really different month to month.

Michael: Gotcha. Okay. So let's rewind a little bit. Why did you decide to become an orthodontist? Go that. .

Zhanna: Yeah. Such a good question. Why did I decide it? Because I had a teacher in dental school who believed in me, that I could Uhhuh,

Let's fit it this way. Orthodontics seemed interesting, seemed different, you know, in general dentistry, uh, or in dental school, you're not exposed very much to orthodontics. As a general dentist, you do pretty much all of the procedures except orthodon. like root canals, surgical extractions, things that endodontics, root canal specialists focus on you doing dental school, some of it.

So you get experience, extraction of wisdom teeth for example, or difficult extractions, so-called surgical extractions. You do the, in dental school, that's what oral surgeons do. You probably don't place implants, although it depends on the dental school. So you kind of get exposed to different pediatric dentists, right?

Working with kids. You do that in dental school, so, You get exposed to all of the specialists except for orthodontics, you don't really move teeth. as a dental student. And I just remember peeking, in an orthodontic, residency, program at my school at U O P and thinking, wow, this is so cool.

You know, there, it's just you can move teeth. Like what is happening right now from one side to another? That seemed like so futuristic. And I was like, I don't know, it's so competitive. Like, should I, should I not? And you know, one of my instructor, you know, basically was a life coach . Kind of type thing and said, yeah, you totally should, you know, like that little train I thought I could.

So I did. Yeah. I just decided that would be very interesting. And I was always also drawn into aesthetic and like complicated cases. And I also thought as a woman who Had envisioned a path of having a family. You know, in the future I thought that my work, work-life balance would be better with orthodontics versus, for example, surgery.

Although I'm sure there's oral surgeons who have work-life balance. But that's how I thought about it at that time. So that's why I decided to go the, the route of orthodontics. Okay,

Michael: nice. So then fast forward a little. and you decided to hire a coach. I mean, you've always been interested in like motivation, what makes successful people successful, like you said.

Yeah. But where was the moment where you were like, I need something. This can't continue to happen like this? What? What was that like?

Zhanna: Yeah. Let me see when it was, I think it was 2017, I think I was at the gym. I almost remember that. And I was running on the treadmill as many, many successful people, you know, work out to, not just be in shape, but like be in mental shape, right?

Mm-hmm. . And I just remember running on the treadmill and thinking, I am still thinking about my patients. Like I am still constantly reliving all these cases and like, Like, I just want a break. . Mm-hmm. , I don't have this break. Right. And, you know, I'm the kind of person who listens to podcasts when I work out, not so much music.

I think I was looking for something like efficiency, productivity, you know, I was always interested in, how, how to be like, Top organizer. Mm-hmm. . Um, and the podcast came out, the Life Coach School Podcast. So I started listening to her and I was just blown away by the principals that she was talking about, that had to do with mind management around life, really everything.

when I decided to hire her. And things that I had learned completely changed the way I looked at. Work and my goals and my personal life and, just where I was heading and how I was thinking about it, that really helped me be 100% present at work when I was at work and not take it home.

So I think that was kind of like a pivotal moment for me where I honestly just ended up hiring a life coach and I didn't look for it. It wasn't like a thing, at least for me that I knew about. But it was truly a pivotal moment in my life and career, obviously. Mm-hmm. since I became a life coach, that changed everything for me.

Yeah,

Michael: cuz that's super common, Jon, where like you're. , at night, you're thinking about work in the morning, you're thinking about work on your vacation, you're thinking about work. You know, it's just like life of an entrepreneur. So yeah. How did that change, especially when you're looking at goals, because if you, you're taking a flight right, to your vacation and you're like, you're thinking about new goals, you're, you're creative and you're like, oh man, I'm excited about this.

Is that a good thing or a bad?

Zhanna: I think it depends how you look at it, right? So if you're looking at it in a way that's disempowering you, that's probably not a good thing because whenever you take action from a negative emotion, you're not going to create a favorable outcome. Most of the time you really don't.

So the way it, the live designed it actually, which is great because in order for you to hit your goals, you have to like what you're doing. You have to enjoy the process. You know how they always. Not about the destination, it's the process. Mm-hmm. , it really is, meaning any lofty goals requires a lot of action over a prolonged period of time.

In order to do that, there's only two ways. One is through self-discipline, which we all know. One, it's hard. Second of all you, that's how you get burned out, right? You take a lot, a lot of action, and you're like forcing yourself. Verse is way number two. is when you enjoy the process, and then it's a pool, right?

You're pulling yourself towards your goal. So you may be thinking about it when your plane is taking off, but you're thinking about it in an inspiring and empowered way, and that will propel you to take more productive, massive action and feel good.

Michael: Gotcha. So can you gimme an example then, like on how we can utilize this?

So, I mean obviously a lot of us are like, I wanna have goals to like, you know, reach a million by the end of the year on collections or whatever. Right. Is that something like you would say, yeah, you should add that in your life, like goals coaching or is it more like be content with 800,000 and you have the freedom and.

you know what I mean? Kind of thing like

Zhanna: that. Yeah, yeah. I see what you're saying. Mm-hmm. , um, the way I approach it, and that's definitely a topic that I coach McClue a lot on, so I always tell them, especially when it comes to the revenue goals, the money goals, there is math and then there's drama. Math is simple. Drama is what I help you with as a life coach. Mm-hmm. , for example. Let's say you make a million dollars in revenue, as a general dentist a year, and you really want to make two for whatever reason. So we would first dive in. Why do you wanna make two? Totally fine. It kind of goes back to how you said, should you be content?

Like your reason, if you want to make 2 million just because Dr. Jones next door is making two, and you feel bad about yourself, this is probably not a strong enough reason for you to do what it takes to get to 2 million. Mm-hmm. . But if it's because you just want. That's a good enough reason, or you want to be able to impact more people in your community.

That's a good reason. Maybe it's because you want a different lifestyle for yourself or your or your family. Do you feel good about it? That's a good enough reason. So we'll start with the reason why you want it. If you like your reason, then the rest is just math. This is what I coach my clients on. Okay, you wanna make 2 million?

In a year, then tell me, we reverse engineer the result. How many weeks a year do you want to work? So let's say you wanna take two months off a year. Okay? 52 months minus eight is 44 weeks. You will be working that year. How many days a week do you wanna work? See, people don't think about that. How many weeks, uh, days of a week do you wanna work?

Okay, I wanna work four days. That's the typical for general dentist. Okay. So then, That means, I think it's something around 178 days if I do my math. Math right. And then you just divide 2 million by the number of days that you're gonna work. So then you have the production goal that you need to make per day.

I think it's gonna be something around $11,000, 11 and a half thousand dollars. And now when you look at that number, that helps you now narrow down, okay, how much should I. What kind of procedures should I focus on? Who will be my target market that I'm going to attract? How will I brand myself to attract that target market?

And what is the value that I'm producing that they will actually want? And then you just do the rest.

Michael: Gotcha. I mean, it sounds easy, Zina by like you've seen it, right? Like a lot of us aren't doing it like that, or something happens. What happens where it. Maybe we do the reverse engineering. We make it happen, but then I guess life happens, right?

Like, I don't know, oh my gosh, an unexpected pregnancy, or, oh my gosh, I'm getting something happen, a natural disaster. I don't know. Things like that, right? Mm-hmm. , is that what, where the burnout comes or where does that come?

Zhanna: Yeah. You know, I, the way I see it is, and the way I coach my clients is that something happens is the, Your brain talks to you or behaves to stop you from getting that goal.

See, I always explain to people in a very, Basic way that we have two types of brains. We have our primitive brain that just wants to keep us safe, right? Everyone says to protect us from pain, give us pleasure and keep us condensing energy. And then we have this higher brain that is capable of planning and, you know, setting goals.

So when you set your revenue goals and you do the math and you decide you know what you need to do that's here using your higher. . But then when you say life happens, like some circumstance happens, you get pregnant or, I dunno what other examples you gave me. You don't feel like it, or, staff members quit.

Your marketing person goes on, I don't know, something, right? Mm-hmm. , these things happen. Our brain, our primal brain kicks in and our primals brain's only job is to keep us from taking action. It does not want us to. because the safest thing to do is to stay like in bad undercovers, watch Netflix and eating

It's the safest way. Yeah, yeah. Right. Don't put yourselves into harm's ways. So you always go to your default unless you manage your brain. I mean, unless you manage the messages that are literally popping all these sentences every day in your brain. So when people say live happens, I always help them make it more specific, because live happens is very vague. Mm-hmm. . And when something is very vague. We can't solve for it. For it. There's no fixing, there's no solving. Life just happens. But when I coach clients and we narrow down exactly what happened, then there's always a solution. For example, you said pregnancy happens. . Okay, so I would ask my client, what do you make it mean?

What does that mean that you're pregnant? And there's always some sort of a story that their primal, like that scared brain is telling them, oh, I won't be able to work, or I will get tired, or maybe I'll be sick, or all these things. And I always like to say, okay, let's write a whole list of obstacles and then we're gonna turn them into.

That's what life coaching does. Unlike a consultant, it doesn't tell you what to do. It's not just about like steps or strategy, because those don't always work unless you have, unless your mind is there, right? Mm-hmm. Coaching helps you tap into your own resourcefulness so that you can figure out very quick and clear ways to solve solutions.

So, in case of a pregnancy, or let's say half of your staff quit . Mm-hmm. . Okay, so neutral circumstance. Let's figure out all of the obstacles right now. Let's say there's nobody tomorrow to like open the office, how we gonna solve it? But if you just say life happened, you can't solve for that. You see? See what I'm saying?

Mm-hmm. , when you're like really narrowed down, become extremely specific, anything can be solved. God.

Michael: So you like hyperfocus on the situation kind of thing, right.

Zhanna: Instead of you always have to, because brain just likes to throw hands up in the air and say it can't be done. Mm-hmm. . And you have to zoom back in and say, well, what exactly are we talking about here?

Gotcha. Kinda like going back to the basics.

Michael: So can you gimme. An example and also like a really good definition of what burnout is exactly. Sure. Cause you feel like sometimes we're like, I'm just burnout. But it's like, are you tired or are you like still, I feel like sometimes I can, you know, you can work all day and you feel still excited and happy, but that's not burnout, so, or is it?

I don't know.

Zhanna: Yeah. Good question. So a true, true burnout. , like a combination of mental and physical state where you are at a point where you literally cannot get out of bed, right? You are just so down. You have zero energy, you're completely exhausted, and you can barely move around like your environment, And it has three stages of the burnout, first stage. So it's not like you wake up and. Literally burned out like a match. Mm-hmm. , the stages are typically first you feel very low energy. You're very tired, you're constantly exhausted. You're having these perpetual thoughts like, oh, another day at the office, right?

Like mm-hmm. You're looking at the clock and you're thinking, oh my God, another hour, another patient. Right? Stuff like that. Then there's that second stage. You becoming, it's called depersonalization where you become very cynical, right? Where you like look at your schedule and let's say you say, oh, is my 4:00 PM here yet?

Like, you don't call people even by their names, right? You call them by a time, right? Or like, did that crown prep show up or are they running late? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. , you're deep like you are taking the person, like a person out, like you're grouping together, your patient, your person with.

the procedure that you're doing all the time slot, whether a schedule, and then the last stage is where you are just constantly unsatisfied with your own achievements. Like nothing you do is good. You're self critic. You know, we all have that inner voice that's self-critical. That's always like, oh, I should have said this, or My hair was wrong, or, I should have changed the angle on the video or something like that.

Yeah. That critic becomes so loud that you just can't stop. You're not happy with anything you do. It would look like, you know, oh, I should have cleaned the cement more around that crown that I prepped. Oh, my stitches were not great after that surgery or for orthodontist. I didn't finish with a great overbite.

I could have created a better orgen for that patient, but that's for every single person. So you. Extremely self-critical of yourself, of others, and that mental state becomes psychosomatic, meaning so many thoughts, negative thoughts, start affecting your body so that you physically have no energy and you cannot.

almost get out of bed. You can barely function. That is a true burnout and that is something where life coach cannot help you. You know, you have to see a psychologist, psychiatrist, you might need even medication therapy. If you're a non, if you're non-functional as an individual in a society, life coaching is not the best option for you.

You can work together, you know, with a therapist and a life coach. But that's something you wanna address first. What you were talking about. You know how people say, oh, I'm so burned out, you know, I'm feeling like I'm burning out. That's not true. Burnout, it's pre burnout, but nobody really calls it pre burnout.

So I usually tell people I'm a burnout coach. Mm-hmm. . And then when I do consultations with clients, that's when I determine are they in true burnout or are they, are they in pre burnout? , but if somebody can get on a call with me, they're probably not burned out. You know what I'm saying? Mm-hmm. , like they're functioning, they're walking.

They could press the button. . Yeah. So the Iron Am Burnout, uh, phrase that's been thrown out there regularly, is typically like a mental state which has several characteristics typically, uh, you. Pre burnout, when you do a lot of work, a lot more work to get somewhere. So in other words, you are not hit like you.

You have your goal, you want to make certain amount of money, or you want to produce 10 podcast episode a month because you wanna have this rating and you don't see that rating. So you start producing more and more and more. And so like you're taking so much action and it's not rendering the result that you want.

but all this action has an effect on your mentality and your physical body. So you are getting in this pre burnout state and those qualities that lead to that is typically perfectionism. So people who, hold themselves to unrealistic standards. Right. This we can be perfect. Yeah, it's impossible.

But perfectionists, they understand that intellectually, but they're like, yeah. I'm gonna try . Yeah, right. Close as possible. I know, I get it. I understand you cannot be perfect, but I'm really gonna try. Mm-hmm. , and that's what sets you up for failure. So perfectionistic mentality, people pleasing, and a lot of the, that's a big one, especially for dentists.

we are trained to follow these protocols, to cut this perfect class to cavity or have this perfect class one molar. You know, when we finish an Orthodon case, Like we are literally trained to be micro-focused on a perfect outcome really, and that permeates your life and your personality. So it's really hard to separate what you do at work.

Like Sure, strive to do your best is different than strive to be perfect because it's unattainable and it leads you to. Extra amount of action that you're just literally spinning the wheels and not moving in a productive way towards your goal. And that creates burnout, right? Okay. So perfectionism be, uh, people pleasing, which kind of like a side effect of perfectionism where, you know, you wanna do your best and you have these unrealistic expectations of what you can achieve.

And so when patients come into you, you wanna acc, acc accommodate them no matter what, because you're tying in your self worth to your work, right? In other words, you are thinking, you know, I'm a good doctor if I can help every patient. I'm a good doctor. If the patient leaves me a good yield purview, right?

Like you're tying in your self worth to your. , and these are two separate things. And when you do that, then you wanna please everyone, right? Because you want them to say, oh, you're so great. Thank you, doctor. You're amazing. You're the best. I'm gonna write you a yield review, which has nothing to do with you as a person.

And that has everything to do with the service that you provide. But the service cannot be perfect because it's impossible. So you're becoming unrealistic with what you're promising to your patients. And when you cannot meet what you had promised them, you start pupil pleas. , you know what I'm saying?

Mm-hmm. . And that just leaves you feeling icky because it's unauthentic. You know, you start going oh yes. You know, Mr. Smith, you came, for the third time this week without an appointment. That's okay. We're gonna squeeze you in. You know, you came an hour late for your appointment. Oh, that's okay.

We're, we're going to squeeze you in. because you are afraid that if you don't, Mr. Smith will get so upset and maybe throw a tantrum or write you about, you'll review or I don't know, scr at your staff and something like that. So you're not setting these healthy boundaries mm-hmm. that these patients really need.

You know, boundaries is another big component, because you don't understand your Owen, limitations as a clinician and, and as a person. and then the last one is, it's a personality who's highly self, self-critical. , you know, low self-esteem. Mm-hmm. , people who are like, have a lot of self doubt.

which sadly happens in a lot of women dentists. Which has to do with the way we're socialized. You know, men and women are socialized a little bit differently, so we're not as assertive as men and we tend to be more, more looking within ourselves and criticizing ourselves. That's why there's so fewer women leaders in dentistry, especially, you know, who are stepping forward and leading the industry.

So we tend to be more self-critical. So when you are. Perfectionist, expecting impossible things from you, and you are self-critical. No matter what you do, you find the flaws. Yeah. So you'll end up people pleasing because you want them to like you, and then at the end you feel just crappy because you're not showing up as yourself, you're not being authentic, and you can't deliver what you had promised.

Which feeds even more being self-critical, you end up doing extra work. More and more miles for people who will never be pleased and you end up earning out. So it's

Michael: like a, let me see if I got this right. So, so if you're being very self-critical mm-hmm. , you tend to, you said compensate with perfectionism.

Yeah. Pretty much. Okay. Perfectionism and then that's impossible to reach. Right. Right. Be perfect. So then you tend to people please mm-hmm. and. If somebody gets upset, then you'd be so critical against, so it's like a little

Zhanna: It's a it, it's a cycles. Exactly. So it's a rated cycle. Wow. Which forces you like the only solution that you're braining him up with, will I have to do more?

And then you start doing more work. That's not necessarily a thought through work. Right. Like for example, , you just start accommodating all these patients who show up without an appointment. You start giving them discounts just because you want them to like you. Like it's completely defeating the goal of your revenue and what you're set to do.

Mm-hmm. . Right? Which also ties in. You probably haven't thought about your brand and what's your positioning with these people, right? Cuz you're starting to mix your personality with your business . Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you just start spinning the wheels, Throwing every, all the resources that you have and burning out, unfortunately.

So then when people, you know, end up coming to me, we have to unpack all of this and go back to the basics, okay. What exactly success looks like for you at the office? What exactly does it look like for you at home? And let's make sure that your self-worth as a human has nothing to do with these two.

Your self worth is. Your self-worth is Absolut. , there's nothing you can do or say that will make you more worthy or less worthy. So once you start with that, dealing with your business and your personal life becomes so much easier. See what I'm saying?

Michael: Yeah. You're able to separate kind of the, the two.

Mm-hmm. , uh, when it comes to, cause I think that's the hard part. I feel like a lot of times we, we don't separate it or we go through seasons, right? Mm-hmm. and I, I don't know, you can tell me if I'm wrong or not Jonna, but like sometimes I believe like. There's gonna be seasons where you're gonna have to work really hard, right?

And it's gonna be like, mm-hmm. , I'm gonna do everything. And then there's seasons where you're like, yeah, we could watch Netflix today. Or, you know what I mean? We could relax and stuff like that. But there's hardly ever a moment where everything kind of just feels balanced, if that makes sense. Mm-hmm. ?

Zhanna: yeah, so you could do it this way. , but you could also a little bit even things out because a feeling of balance is a feeling that's created by your thoughts. So there's sometimes things in life where it's easier to do something and sometimes it's harder.

Like for example, weight loss actually comes up a lot for my clients. Mm-hmm. . And you know, if it's I'm trying to think if it's September or August or September. It's easier for people to lose weight when, rather when it's end of October in November, in December, right? Mm-hmm. like the holiday spirit because of the environment.

So people always say, oh my gosh, the holidays come in. There's no way I'm like, around all these food pushers. It's so much harder. So it's kind of like that rollercoaster that you described, that people think that it's easier to lose weight when. , they're not surrounded by holidays and cookies and, and Turkey and all that stuff, right?

Mm-hmm. . But that's really your perception, your mindset, because if you created a sustainable goal for weight loss and how many pounds you wanna lose per month, and what are all the actions that will take you there, right? Like I'm gonna work out five times a day. I'm gonna walk 10,000 steps.

I'm gonna drink 60 ounces of water. I'm going to be eating, you know, two meals. four ounces of protein and veggies like you, you become very specific, right? Then it doesn't matter. Then it's holidays. All you had to do is just manage your mind around, you know, I'm at a dinner table and my plan says to do this and, Mary here is passing a pumpkin pie.

So you just have to manage your thoughts around. . I want it like a simple thought as I want it. That creates, right, like an urge for you. We think it's a fact. Like I want it means I should have it, right? Mm-hmm. . So it creates that rollercoaster effect. But if you level it out and you expect, remember that, I was telling you about obstacles and strategies, if you, anticipate all the obstacles that might happen, and the majority of obstacles really are our.

How we're gonna think about what my mom says who baked a pie. She's gonna think that if I don't eat it, I don't love her. Yeah. It's not about, you know what I'm saying? Like we do these things to herself. Yeah. But if you explain to her, mom, I love you more than anything and I'm gonna have that pie tomorrow.

But right now I'm just not hungry. Or I choose now to. , then it's gonna, it's gonna create a very different experience where you can equalize and balance out your effort when it's planned. Remember with that higher brain? Mm-hmm. , when you plan it out and then you manage your mind around it so that you don't have this mind drama, then you can just execute the math and everything becomes more balanced and playing field, so you don't have to go through up and down.

Michael: Okay. Okay. Makes a lot of sense. Okay. I wanna ask you so much more about this stuff, but when we focus on like the business side of it, what can a dentist do today to improve their, their marketing and business with this?

Zhanna: Yeah. So, as a dental coach, I think about marketing very differently than as a practitioner would.

So the way I think about marketing is really you are telling people that you can help them. , that's all that marketing is. The majority of doctors think of marketing as a way to get new patients. Mm-hmm. . And when you think about, oh, I have to get people to come to my practice because my practice needs money or something like that.

That's kind of like Anki way to think about it. No wonder they don't go in their, they don't take action. Mm-hmm. . Right. That's why. There's a lot of strategies on marketing out there. There's a lot of great advice, but unless you have the mindset of the person who gave, who gave you that advice, you're not likely to create the same result as their strategy promises.

Mm-hmm. Right. Makes sense. Mm-hmm. ? Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Makes sense. Because somebody will say, okay, let's go on social media right now. Social media is big. You have to market your practice on Instagram. They can even give you like the marketing strategy for Instagram. They're gonna say, this is what you're gonna do. You have to have a long PO post. A short post, a cur cell, a reel, and a testimony. . But if your mindset as a doctor is, oh, that sucks. I don't wanna do that. I'm, I'm, what is the reel? Even like, I am horrible on camera. Mm-hmm. , what kind of reels do you think they will create? Probably not the ones that will ex attract a lot of patients, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you think about marketing is this is just me telling people that I can help them. Isn't that. You're just, your sign is open. I'm here open for you to come here and I'll help you. And I always look at it as a trifecta. So in order to be confident in telling people that you can help them, you need to believe in your product or service.

You need to believe in your client or your patient, and you need to believe in yourself as a clinician. So let me give you an example for dentistry, you need to believe in your product. What services are you providing? What exactly is your dental practice doing? Are you a general dentist? Are you a specialist?

I am a big proponent of having a niche. I really believe in nicheing down, and here's why I. . A lot of doctors are afraid to knee down because they are afraid that they will turn down, turn away. Some patients, right, they're, they want to attract everyone as much as possible, but if you market to everyone you attract no one buying behavior of people has changed, especially since the pandemic. People still want to buy the best product, but they also want to buy it from the best. Which means that their values need to align with yours or the other way around. Your values need to align with theirs. They want to know about you. Like for example, you, Michael, you help, practices with ground marketing, Uhhuh, , right? For marketing. And you do this by helping put the doctor's story in the forefront, create the website around their story that. The part of marketing where you connect with your customer, you tell them your story, right? You, this is your branding too.

Like they need to resonate with your values and that's okay that some people will not like you, but then some people will love you and they're not gonna hesitate. They're gonna come and they're gonna bring their friends, That's how you create the brand. Recognition and loyalty. Like for example, when you think about Starbucks, what do they.

Coffee, right? Mm-hmm. , like when you think coffee, you think Starbucks? Do they, do they sell sandwiches? Yeah. Do you go to Starbucks for sandwiches? No. Mm-hmm. . So by focusing on one thing, one niche coffee equals Starbucks, you will attract those people and then you can you know, increase, uh, or add other, products that you are, that you are selling or other, other, uh, services that you are providing because these people are already in.

this is how it might look like for a dentist, you know, as a general dentist. And I think dentists also do that a lot. Like, marketing. I am a cosmetic dentist, right? I do just, just be the guy or the gal on the block who does amazing veneers. . It doesn't mean that you don't do rick nails and crowns and you know, fillings, but be known for that one thing.

Don't be afraid to niche down and really get good at this because people wanna buy the best product, right? So believe, believe in your service what you're providing, be really great at it, or be like an aligner company. Uh, practice, right? Create the brand recognition, and that's what we'll. your clients. So it's number one, believe in your product or service.

Number two is believe in your client. Really think that your patients want help. They want what you have to offer and what you have to offer will change their life for the better.

Like really like zoom out. Don't just be a doctor who's diagnosing teeth and decay. Look how, what? What is the. The service that you will provide for them, the experience they you'll provide for them will have an effect on their life. So if you really believe that you have the best product, For that person that will benefit from having smile makeover or better bite or cavity free mouth and educated, about oral health so that they can educate their, uh, children and, you know, have a whole healthy family.

The last pieces believe in yourself as a clinician. Mm-hmm. , you know, you need to em embrace and embody that you are the best person to help that patient. So when you, when all this trifecta is working, that's when you will market in the most efficient and the most confident way. Really, I have the best product.

People want it, and I'm the best person to do that. For them to give that service, uh, to them. Now I just have to tell them I have to go meet people, tell them that I'm a dentist and make them offers to. . Yeah. So that's how I look about marketing.

Michael: Okay. And I feel like a lot of the times we get kind of like, tunnel vision or, or maybe clouded with like, we just took out a huge loan, we opened up a practice and now we gotta get these new patients like as quickly and as possible.

And we kind of, go really fast over these three things. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm.

Zhanna: instead of sit down. Meditate. Yeah. That typically, that typically happens because that primal brain kicks in. Right? It's trying to keep you safe. Mm-hmm. , right? Because the primals brain's job is to. , make sure you don't take any action.

So whenever these sentences pop in your head, oh, I just took out this practice loan, we have to make money. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to be an entrepreneur. You don't have to have a practice. You don't have to be a dentist, you don't have to get outta bed. You choose to now ask yourself, why do I choose to do that?

Do you see? You feel like it's a little bit, it's a lot more empowering question to ask yourself. So that is

talking to yourself this way and just be, be kind with yourself, you know? It's okay. It's just my conditioning. This is my habitual thinking is telling me about this loan and the pressure that I'm putting on myself and stuff like that. That's okay. Your opinion is noted, but I'm going to focus on. What actions can I take to actually efficiently, successfully get to my goal by serving people?

That's, I think what's, doctors always often forget that you're not just there to, make money or diagnose cavities or extract decay teeth or straighten their teeth. You are there to serve people. How can you best serve people? Think about that. You know, or when. You are networking with other doctors for specialists.

You know, they go network with general dentists. When you go to the networking event. There was I think it was like a study where they looked at 250 people who showed up to a networking event and they said everybody raised their hand who came here to sell something to another person? Everybody raised their hands all two 50, and they said, and now raise hands who came here to buy something?

One person raised their hand. That's why people hate networking events, right? Yeah. Because we feel like this pressure like, oh, I have to sell myself or my practices or like, send. Send me patients, send me, uh, referrals and stuff like that. But if you're thinking, how can I serve them? Right? Because there's always value exchange in anything you are doing.

You just have to think about it this way. So let's say for me, for an orthodontist, if I'm an orthodontist and I going to go meet my referring dentist, general dentist or just any dentist on the block, I want them to refer me patients, what's in it for them. . Like it's not just dropping off, uh, donuts and saying, hi, Dr.

K, I'm next door. Mm-hmm. , send me patients. Yeah. Like what's in it for them? It goes back to that tripod of, belief system. What is that specific value that I can provide to your patients? If I am the veneer doctor, you know, I do the best veneers You. If your patients need veneers and need smile makeover, I can help them see this like value exchange.

There's something for that referring doctor that you do as another doctor or a specialist. And when you approach it this way, it, it takes this weird sexiness out of it because you're not selling anything really. Marketing is not selling. You're just trying to, help people, show people that you can help them.

Right? So like, thinking about us a little bit differently is very, .

Michael: Yeah, I like that a lot. The reciprocity effect, right? Like, this is what we can do for you, kind of thing. Yes. Okay. Awesome. So then, right now, another question is, what would you like to see more from a dentist? you can put yourself in the shoes of the general population, right?

Or you can put yourself in the shoes of, of what you do as a life coach and think about what would I wanna see more from? What do I feel like they're neglecting or what do I feel like maybe they can be doing increasing more on

Zhanna: just like as, as a doctor in, in their practice? In terms of service or in terms of marketing?

Michael: It could be in terms of, it could be in terms of both. In both. Yeah. let's go for that. Yeah,

Zhanna: so I think it goes back to that nicheing, you know, having, being specific in something I think. Helpful will be for doctors is to figure out what's their target market is, because then they can help the best, these people, these patients, because these patients will receive the exact experience that they want.

And that would help doctors too match with more, uh, patients. So I would love for, you know, my colleagues to really look at the map where they're at. Hopefully they have done it before they purchased a practice. Mm-hmm. , they can do it now. And if they figured out that, you know, uh, their practice is focused on dangers, but they're in the middle of their rodeo drive in la.

probably not the service you wanna be selling, right? . Yeah. So you might wanna shift a little bit, or sometimes honestly, the best solution is just to sell the practice and do all that homework and move somewhere else. You know, I always tell my clients, do you want to be bright or do you wanna be rich?

Right? , you kind of have to decide. So really looking into your target market. Who is in your vicinity? What do people want, right? And you can do that by, you know, setting the demographics or really get to know your, your clients, your patient. I think what's really helpful and would benefit both patients and doctors is look at your competitors.

Look at their yield reviews. Look at what people are talking, what are patients not happy about? And then solve that in your practice. That will not only help you help more people, but more people will be helped with something that they need and your competitors are missing. Mm-hmm. , right?

Michael: You see that?

Yeah. Yeah. Makes a

Zhanna: lot of. . Yeah. And you know, really, like I said, look at your numbers, figure out what your goals, figure out how you want to run your practice, what you wanna charge, what kind of people you wanna attract, and what would serve them best. Like what would, what kind of product or service you can create that will really like, create amazing experience for that.

Mm-hmm. , because then that will really benefit. your patience and that will help you grow your practice too. Yeah. Okay. So I think having this like niche down approach and be really specific and serving would be helpful for both.

Michael: Okay. Yeah. Awesome. And then, right now, someone who's pretty involved in like social media, you know what I mean?

Mm-hmm. , like you're, you're out there and everything. And also like you're involved in the industry, but I really appreciate that you're also involved in like the lives, right? Of a lot of these. practice owners and dentists. So I wanna ask you right now, looking at it from your point of view, what do you hate?

And then what do you love about dentistry?

Zhanna: Ooh, what do I hate and what do I love about dentistry? How interesting. In terms of social media, I think. , I'll start with what I love. I think what I love is that I think more doctors are understanding the importance of like personal branding and bringing, bringing their own personality to their businesses, right?

There's two, there's two schools of thoughts when it comes to branding your business. You can either create. Business persona that represents your brand. That is kind of like faceless, meaning you don't have to like necessarily put your own pictures everywhere, especially on social media and stuff like that.

Maybe just one. But. , your customers get a sense of like the energy, the or around your business. Like what exactly, are you a boutique? Are you high volume? Like what, where exactly do you stand? So that's one approach, like this business entity or you can just be yourself and you are your own brand.

Mm-hmm. and I thi, this is what I do in my business. Like what you see is my brand is me. . And I think that creates, you know, the like and trust the two important components for people to, to buy from you. Right? And I think a lot of doctors are starting to embrace that, which is very hard. So I like that, that doctors are starting to do that.

And I um, you know, I applaud them because as professionals we are, we are, we are taught to be professional, right? Like personal life and professional are completely separate, you know, like tight upper lip type thing. But. people are buying from people. You know what I mean? Yeah. We can't just hide behind the mask of the white code because there was a person behind there.

And as much as we wanna be perfect, people know we're not. Mm-hmm. , but they really appreciate if you're passionate about it. So that kind of bleeds into what I, I wouldn't say I hate, but I wish I could see more. Doctors being more passionate about what they're doing, which I think has to do with really finding that niche that you love.

And then when you are passionate about it, people actually, customers perceive, passion as in we are going to do a better job for them. because if, like, think about it, a doctor who just comes in a, in a consult room and just spits out diagnosis, I mean, you're, you're just sitting there thinking like, like, you're an idiot because they're just talking all this terminology at you and then they tell you everything that's wrong with you and how much it's gonna cost.

Right. Versus a doctor who comes and they love what they do, they're interested in you, they wanna incorporate. Uh, work that they're recommending for you with your lifestyle and how it's gonna all make it work with, you know, how much it costs and stuff like that. Who would you rather go? Probably to the second doctor, right?

Mm-hmm. . Yeah, because you think like he or she will do a better job for you because they care. So I would really wish that doctors embraced more the importance of, You know, personal branding and the mindset that they bring to their daily work and finding the area that they truly love and improving as much as possible in that niche of dentistry that they're doing, because I think that will bring the best value to both the doctors and the

Michael: patients. Awesome. Okay. As long as, thank you so much for being with us. It's been a pleasure. But before we say goodbye, can you tell our listeners where they can.

Zhanna: Yes, sure. So the main area they can find me is on LinkedIn. That's where I hang out the most. and in the show notes, we'll probably leave my my coordinates.

It's just my name, Dr. Janko. And there is I have a mailing list where I send, weekly motivational and inspirational nuggets for doctors to become thriving leaders in dentistry. So we'll probably leave a link to that too so I can hop on that mailing list.

Michael: Awesome. So guys, yeah, that will all be in the show notes below.

So definitely reach out to Jean after that. And thank you so much for being with us on this podcast. It's been a pleasure and we'll hear from you soon.

Zhanna: Sounds good. Thank you for having me.

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In this episode, Sandy Pardue, from Classic Practice, shows us the importance of patient retention and how we might have more patients going out the back door that coming in the front! The first step to a healthy retention system is knowing your numbers. If you know your retention rate, you can locate the problems and put an end to patients falling off the radar. Sandy emphasizes the use of multiple forms of communication and staying top of mind with your patients. While staying in touch with patients is important, spamming them with texts isn't the answer. Building a communicative team that shows the value of dentistry at each visit is the sure path to happy and healthy patients.

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Catch Michael and Sandy's conversation here to learn more on patient retention and effective office practices!

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You can reach out to Sandy Pardue here:

Classic Practice Website

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Other Mentions and Links:

Dental Drill Bits Podcast

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If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Marketing, ask me on these platforms:

My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/

The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041

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Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

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Michael: Hey Sandy. So talk to us about patient retention. How can we utilize this, or what advice or suggestions can you give us that will improve our patient retention?

Sandy: Michael, that's one of my favorite topics because I feel like in dentistry, people aren't paying attention to it.

And I, I'll ask team members and doctors as I see 'em, like, what's your retention rate? And they're like, I don't know. They're clueless about. . And that's really sad because when you think about the marketing, uh, people are spending a lot of money on marketing and they're getting in these new patients, but the new patients aren't staying.

The back door is wide open. Mm-hmm. , and there's so many parts to retention that people don't think about. It's you're getting these patients in right. But there's that internal marketing that plays a big role. And then it's the follow up with recare and the way people feel when they come in. All those things play into people wanting to come back.

So we always talk about this, um, and our consulting and our lectures because it's so important. And so listeners might be thinking, well, Sandy, I've never really thought about what percentage of our patients we retain. . If you think about it, if you've got a practice that's getting 30 or 50 new patients a month, and as time goes by, if you've got 10 years in the practice, how many patients should you have?

Are you still starving for new patients? Because so many left, the retention percentage that we see is 50 to 60%, so that means 50 to 60% of the patients aren't coming. So I wanna give the listeners some tips. Like what? What do you do? Well, first off, learn where you are, and that's fairly easy. In fact, I would implement this system in the practice to.

At the beginning of the month, you train your front office team to to pull a recall report, a recare, whatever you call it in your practice, and find out how many people are due to come in for that month. So let's say the month is March. look at everybody due with or without an appointment to see the hygienist in the month of March.

Write down that number at the end of the month when you're moving into. Now you're gonna pull that same report and see how many people are still on it. It is shocking for a lot of practices. Mm-hmm. . So they find out, wow, only half of our people came in. Or maybe only, only 60% came in. That's still terrible.

Right. So the first part of fixing anything is knowing, okay. Knowing and now watching, monitoring it. Mm-hmm. and then. . The things that people can do is you wanna make sure with your, whatever you're using for your third party software to reach out via text and email or however you do that. You wanna make sure that that is.

Reaching out to people longer than one year, or even longer than 18 months, because when people are out in the world and they're doing their thing, time goes fast. And you don't wanna just write off people and forget about 'em and quit trying to get them back in because a year or 18 months passed.

Mm-hmm. . So I always say, this about retention, like as long as blood is flowing through their veins and they didn't call and say, I'm never coming back. , consider them your patient cuz they consider you their dentist. Right? Hmm,

Michael: that's true. I never thought about that. Where they still consider you So 18 months.

Where would, how would the system look? For example, let's just say we're, we're pulling up our report, we figure out, my gosh, we're at 60%, right? Like, that's, that's pretty bad. Mm-hmm. . Now what's the steps to, I guess, bring them back and keep. .

Sandy: Okay. That's a good question. So what, what you wanna do, and I recommend all practices, just make this standard protocol every January, February, March, like in the beginning of the year, is go back about three years.

You could go as far back as five years if it's an older practice, if the practice has been around for 8, 10, 15 or more years and just go back. As far as three to five years and get last by last visit date. And then you're gonna get a bunch of people, like if you have 4,000 patients, you're gonna get a thousand, 2000 people on this list and reach out to them.

You wanna reactivate them. You see what happens, Michael, is people. if they're not being contacted. what happens is, have you ever heard that, that saying outta sight outta mind? Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . So I think what happens is we want our patients to come back, or we tell 'em they need to come back, or we make every effort to get 'em back.

And then as time passes and they don't come back, they start feeling a little guilty. And they might even be a little embarrassed to come to the practice because you wanted him there. They may even cheat on you, right? They get this big postcard in the mail from, from the dentist down the street that offers like a big discount on a cleaning, and they go check them out.

But they really, really didn't like it as much as they like your practice and now they're embarrassed to go back because you might know they even have feeling over there. So you're surely gonna know mm-hmm. . So if you stay in contact with them and you're always reaching out, I think you'll stand a much better chance of, of reactivating them and getting them back.

But retention also, uh, starts in hygiene. But what is your hygienist spending her time doing, communicating to that patient? With that time that your hygienist has with them, are they talking about what's gonna happen the next time they come in, or how important it is for them to keep that upcoming appointment because you wanna check in a certain area.

That you communicated. So all those things are really important. So, uh, that knowing your retention percentage starts there and then having a really good recare system and staying in touch with people and better communication and better experience in the practice. Those are all

Michael: important. Gotcha. So let's, let's do that.

Let's, if you can give us the rear care system. So where, like, for example, I'm listening to this episode right now and I'm like, oh. Sandy's right? I gotta put, put this system in here. How can we implement it tomorrow? How can we insert.

Sandy: Okay, great question. So the first thing that people need to do is learn what their software is actually doing for them.

Like if you're texting or emailing or whatever your protocol is, learn what that software is doing. And you wanna sit down with your team. A lot of teams don't even know how often a text is sent. They know nothing. They don't even know what the message is. So you wanna look at the protocols for a pre-scheduled person or a person that left with no appointment.

They left the practice with no appointment. you need to look at both of those scenarios and you wanna write like a flow chart of what needs to happen. So let's take Prescheduled for example. Well, first off, I'll just have to throw this in here. Mm-hmm. is, you shouldn't be pre-scheduling every single appointment for every single patient, you wanna make sure that you, you're not putting people that are repeat offenders with broken appointments six months away. So let's say you're pre-scheduling about 80% of your people. time goes by and about three weeks before that appointment, you wanna reach out to them. I prefer a card, okay, for that first contact.

But if you'd prefer an email, just keep in mind that 28% are opened. Maybe it's a text, but it's three weeks before the appointment is the first contact, and that message is going to let them know that they have an appointment if they need to change it, that you need to know at least 48 hours in. Then moving closer to the appointment.

Three days before the appointment, you send out an email. Two days before the appointment, you're gonna send out a confirmation text. If you don't hear back from them the day before the appointment, you're gonna call and that confirmation text is gonna let them know. If we don't hear back from you, we're gonna put somebody else in that spot.

Mm-hmm. . And so you're gonna call though the day before just as one more try to get. And then you might have to put somebody else. If you can't get them there, then I like a same day text first thing in the morning that's telling them again, uh, we're looking forward to seeing you at two o'clock this afternoon.

So it's kind of a. Done deal. It's a matter of fact. We look forward to seeing you. So that's, that's pretty much it. And, uh, you can mix it up though. It's like, here's the thing, A lot of times people just send out so many texts and emails that it becomes spam. And I hear people talking about it. And as you know, everywhere you go they wanna text you.

I mean, just today I got, I had so many texts. I got a text from the Vigo Garden people and the bond plants people, or everybody I've done business with. Janie and Jack kids clothes, it gets ridiculous. So what's happening is it's not just dentistry that's texting people, right?

It's everybody texting and they give you a discount if you give your cell phone number. So people are doing that, right? So you're getting all this text and so it's getting a little annoying. So you need to mix up your communications, emails and text and phone and physical.

Michael: Gotcha. Okay. I like that a lot.

You're right. It now that you mention it, , you do see it like a lot of texts coming in and it's like, oh, okay. It's the same. You can even almost tell like the same systems that they're using kind of thing. You're like, okay, same software, same soft. Okay, so real quick, um, I wanna know, what marketing techniques have you seen when it comes to patient retention work internally?

Sandy: Internally. Well, I'm gonna tell you, it starts with the experience and I always tell people it's like I pay a ridiculous amount for my haircut. And you guys might be looking to say, really? Well, it's been since before Christmas. I just made an appointment this morning that I'm going for later this week, but I pay.

$90 for a haircut plus a tip, which is a lot in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Okay, but why? Why would I do that? he's not that good. I mean, he's good, but I'm telling you, it's the way you feel when you go there. It's beautiful. That doesn't mean you have to go redo your office, but the smell, oh, I could, it. . It just is wonderful.

I mean, I, I love the way that place smells. Everybody is so friendly and they're always on time, okay? Mm-hmm. , I never have to wait. It's easy to get in. Those are the things that patients are gonna look at when they think about you compared to their previous dentist or their doctor. It's how you make them.

Were they welcomed? Did you have to ask their name or did you know their name? How did it go through the, through the entire appointment? Did you make them feel uncomfortable? Did you embarrass them? I mean, all these things have to be considered the only thing that's gonna separate your practice from the practice next door or a block away is how you make that patient feel.

They're not gonna remember what you say. They're gonna remember how you made them.

Michael: Awesome, Sandy, I appreciate your time and if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find her on the Dental Marketer Society Facebook group, or where can they reach out to you directly?

Sandy: classic

Michael: practice.com. Awesome. So guys, that's gonna be in the show notes below, so definitely go check it out, sign up to her upcoming seminars. Also listen to our podcast that we have, together and where we dive deeper on this dental drill bit. Yes, definitely go check that out. It's gonna be in the show notes below. And uh, Sandy, thank you for being with me on this Monday morning marketing episode.

Sandy: Loved it. Happy scheduling everybody.

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Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society

Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/[Click here to leave a review on iTunes]

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Guest: David RiceBusiness Name: Ignite DDSCheck out David's Media:‍

Instagram: @igniteDDS

Ignite DDS Facebook Group

Email: [email protected]

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Other Mentions and Links:

The Psychology of Money

David on Episode 159

The Making Of Facebook Group

Sandy Pardue (Classic Practice)

Patterson

Jon Miller (Patterson)

Henry Schein

Benco

Bank of America

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Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer

Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍

Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society

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My Key Takeaways:

• Lending banks do not want to see that you have no debt, they want to see that you can SAVE money. Keep some savings in the bank when securing a loan!
• Many dentists start off with more than they need. Try running lean an mean at the beginning and add more ops later.
• Always consider the logical answer before making quick business decisions based on emotion.
• Podcasts and books are great learning resources starting off, but plan to have 3-5 good mentors to put things into action!
• Look at the dentist demographics in your area as well as the patient demographics. If there are hungry dentists saturating the market, another location may be better for your startup!
• Planning to reassess and improve your professional relationships every 90 days is imperative to growth.

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Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]

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p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.

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Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

Michael: David, how's it going, man? That's great. How you doing today? I'm doing pretty good, man. Thanks for asking. If you don't mind me asking, where are you located right now?

David: St. Petersburg, Florida. Is

Michael: that where you're, are you speaking right now or is that where your

David: hometown Yeah, so that, so St.

Petersburg is home for me, although I do dentistry in, uh, east Amherst, New York, which is Buffalo. So I've got a.

Michael: Yeah. How far is that?

David: You know, it's about a two hour plane flight, door to door. But I, I, I chunk my time, so I'm in St. Pete for, you know, a month, month and a half, and then I go back there for a week or two and so on and so forth,

Michael: man.

So he racking up the, the miles man,

David: Yeah. Yeah. Delta and I are besties.

Michael: I know. awesome man. So we appreci. Everything, man. I, I know a lot of the listeners here are from the startup group, dental Marketer Society, Facebook group too as well. A lot of other groups. You drop a lot of, knowledge, expertise, especially for startups.

Do you have, your own startup practice, or was it an acquisition or.

David: So I, you know, I kind of ran the full gamut, which I think is important for your listeners to understand. Mm-hmm. , you know, as they listen to people, as you know, advice from folks who've done things lots of different ways matters. So I was an associate, I did three acquisitions and a startup.

I've sold it all. I'm back to being an associate again by design. And, that, that matters when you're listening to folks. You know, one startup is great, 10 startup. Means something, you know, one acquisition is great, 10 acquisitions mean something. Mm-hmm. wanna be careful who you're listening to.

Michael: Yeah, that's true. Mm-hmm. , when you went to three acquisitions, was that your, out of the three acquisitions in the startup, which one was the first where you dove into?

David: First one, uh, was, was an acquisition. there are reasons to do one versus another based on your goals, demographics. opportunity, things like that.

But first one was an acquisition.

Michael: Gotcha. And then you continued to acquire more and more and then decided to do your startup like that? I,

David: I did. And you know, part of the reason I did a startup, part of the reason I acquired other practices as well as did the startup is, , people like to put you in a box and say, well, of course you're sober, successful, you're in East Amherst, New York, not Buffalo or de pew or Lancaster or wherever.

Mm-hmm. . And, um, so I just decided, well, I'm just gonna keep going and prove, you know, there are processes that work, they're universal, and then Yep, there are some things that shift based on geography. So that was, that was my why, honestly. And it was fun. And we got to put some young docs in really great positions early on to, you know, become owners and, and to take over.

Gotcha. What

Michael: were the processes when it came to the acquisitions where you're like, this is universal man, it's, it's whatever acquisition you jump into, it's gonna happen like this. And then what are some things we gotta look out for where it's unique?

David: Yeah. So I'll tell you some of the things that are important from a process standpoint are, um, how you sequence them.

So the first thing you need to do if you wanna buy a practice or start one, is like, get with a lender and get pre. Step number one, 100% of the time. then things differ. But, so acquisition, once we had the lending in place, then we started saying from a vision standpoint, like, who do I want to be?

What kind of practice do I want to have, kind of dentistry? Do I want to do what? ZIP codes, location, location, location, support that rather than trying. really high-end cosmetic dentistry in a demographic that couldn't support it or go into a neighborhood and wanna do bread and butter dentistry in a neighborhood that didn't understand that's not what they wanted.

So, you know, get the lending down, figure out what kind of practice you want to build from a vision standpoint. Then build your kind of your core team. and, and build out your, your business plan to deliver just like 10 steps. I love, but just a couple

Michael: there. . . So you said get the lending down. Let's, let's jump into it with you, right?

Sure. How did you get the lending down and then how did you figure out what kind of practice you wanted?

David: Man, great question. So here's, here's the first thing. I got the lending down the wrong. , so don't do what I did. Mm-hmm. , you know, I love to teach from the mistakes I made. most of you who are young dentists are being told by maybe parents or faculty or maybe even folks that you see online that you should be like, knocking off your debt, knocking off your debt, knocking off your debt.

Not true. Absolutely. 100% false. You should be going income-based repayment, making your minimum payment possible. Dashing cash. and then the moment you've either acquired your practice or if you start up, started up a practice, then crush your debt. I did it backwards. I, I went to a lender with zero debt.

I owned a home with also zero debt and I was a bad lender cuz banks don't want to take away your home or your dental practice if something goes sideways. They wanna look at an account and say, Hey, here's 150, $200,000. And if, God forbid, you're the half of a. , we've got a way to make ourselves whole again, don't do it the way I did it.

bank Cash, that's the first lesson.

Michael: Okay. So was it hard for you to get a loan cuz of that, or who'd you go with? Yeah. Who'd you end up having to

David: go with? So I went with Bank of America, I did. Three of my, my loans through them over the years. They're, they're, they're awesome. They've been great. They have a dental division.

They're the largest dental lender out there for a reason. and there's some lessons there too. Part of it is rate, but it's not all about rate. But I went with them and yeah, my first loan was, was tough. I had to have a co-signer, like, oh, think about all that, man. I was 27, I had zero debt. I was firing on all cylinders, and I needed someone to co-sign my.

because I did it wrong. So don't do

Michael: it wrong, . Okay. So like depth is good in this situation, right? Like you want to have that, cash in the bank.

David: So yeah. Cash flow is king. Mm-hmm. . And if you have, ballparks say 50 to 80 grand and a bank. and you show a bank that you can, save money, not light it on fire, cuz you're all excited, you finally get a paycheck. They're not actually gonna take a dime of your money. They just need to see that you're capable of saving money. And then there's other things they need to see too. But I didn't have that right. Even though I thought I did all these things right. What they saw was like a zero net balance. And that wasn't, that wasn't good for me as a young dentist who wanted to be an.

Okay,

Michael: so then you got the lending down. Yeah. What are the, here's, here's the process where you're like, okay, I'm just gonna get an acquire this practice right here, or how'd you figure out Yeah. The steps for that, like the practice that you

David: wanted? Yeah. So I knew for me, I wanted to do complete care. I wanted to do, I wanted patients who wanted like to invest in the.

and you, you guys know the dentistry that's out there. It's, you know, call it full mouth rehab, total health, whatever you wanna label it as. But they weren't, I didn't want patients who came in on an emergency only. I didn't want patients I had to fight. So whether we like that or not, that requires a dental iq.

Doesn't mean you have to be smart or, in, in life in general, but you have to have a high dental iq. You have to, you have to inherently value that kind of dentist. Or it's an uphill battle to build, 2,500, 3000 patients who get to that value. That's something we can build over time. But if you're gonna buy a practice, you wanna buy in an area where people sort of instinctively get that.

So we targeted zip codes and said, Hey, they had to have a certain household income, their family structure had to look a certain. , we wanted a family structure, not 10 kids, but maybe one or two kids. Mm-hmm. and people who, who lived in, in certain areas and he shopped in certain places and they, they liked and bought certain goods and services cuz we knew if they valued those things, they would value the dentistry we wanted.

So that narrowed it down for me, like three zip codes in, in Western New York, which is where I want it to be. So do that wherever it is you want to. And, narrow your search. And then from there, you know, there's some really good companies out there that can tell you should you be in a strip mall? Should you be in a standalone?

Should you be, a, at a complex that houses 10, 20, 30 businesses And you can study all that stuff and put yourself in an optimum position.

Michael: Gotcha. Did you go with any of those companies? Those really, really good. .

David: at the time a lot of them didn't exist. So who I did go with and who I still rely on to this day is I called my friends at Care Credit and said, Hey, you guys know, don't just know dentistry, you know, like healthcare.

Mm-hmm. . So tell me in these zip codes what neighborhood I should be in. Am I in a corner? Um, what kind of building I should be in? And they had all that data, which was super.

Michael: Gotcha. Okay. So you figured out like the, the patient base that you wanted, right? Like the exact type of patients then you went from there.

Yeah. When you've acquired these practices, cuz this has happened a lot in the past where numbers look inflated, right. whether it's production collection, new patients and they get in there and they're like, this is not at all what I thought it was gonna be. Yep.

David: Did that. No, thankfully I had great people on my team who knew how to look at not just the top end number, but why those numbers got there.

And they also knew who, how to dissect the practice based on the team that was present and say, Hey, this is the team you can count on moving forward. So these numbers should hold true or. , you know, this team member's been there 35 years, they're probably gonna retire. Or this team member, these team members only been there six months, so they're turning people over.

So that's gonna be something you need to consider on building a new team. So they dissected the numbers themselves, they dissected the processes. Um, we looked at existing team and culture. We looked at insurances. Participated versus accepted versus network. We looked at all those factors and then we looked at goodwill.

So if you're buying something, if you're thinking about buying a practice, ultimately that's what you're buying. You're buying me the seller anointing, you the buyer, as the greatest dentist on the planet and the person I've been searching for my entire career. And when you have all those things put together, you will not lose.

more than 10% of the patient base, and you should lose less than 5%. And anyone who tells you you're gonna expect to lose 20 or 30, they don't know how to do what they should know how to do. Don't listen to that advice.

Michael: Gotcha. Okay. That's really, really good advice. So then, mm-hmm. , you built three acquisitions.

So what was the, why not do a fourth one? Why'd you do a startup instead?

David: prove, I could prove I could take a startup to a million dollars in under 18 months, so that, that was. .

Michael: Oh man. So break that process down to us, like how did that happen?

David: Yeah. So, okay, so similar process. Go get a lender, get your pre-approval.

interesting enough. , your easiest lend is your first one, friends. So do that one, right? Every time you go back to a bank, yes, you, you have history, but you need to have really strong history. So in my sense, it worked out really great cause I had strong history, but in general, your first lend is easiest.

So start a practice. We looked at the same thing. What kind of dentistry do we want to. , what zip code codes will support that kind of dentistry? what kind of marketing plan are we gonna need? Because now they're not butts and seats from day one. We've gotta build butts and seats. And, and then how do we build the right lean team to open the doors with?

And how do we build the right le um, have the right lean, build? . So we didn't build a space that was too big. and we're paying for things that we don't really need. There's, there's lots of myths out there. Like, oh, build it for like six ops. No, do not do that. build lean and mean. You can move, you can expand.

worry about being locked in a space that's too small. That will be the best problem you'll ever have. so simple things that work and are repeatable Gotcha.

Michael: Halene and mean.

David: We did four ops. we plumbed all four, but we had only three outfitted. One as a main restorative op, one as a hygiene op, and one is sort of an overflow that you could use either way now.

I'm gonna caveat this. So imagine that I'm in a community that knows me already, so I had an advantage over you. Somebody who's doing a startup and no one knows you. Mm-hmm. . If I'm doing a startup and no one knows you, do not. Don't plan on having a hygienist for like six to eight months. Like go in as dentist, have an assistant who can also answer phones.

And then as soon as you can warrant adding somebody, add someone at the front desk. So you have front desk assistant dentist, and last, and not least add hygiene, but, I went and lean with, a trio. I'm gonna say most of you'll go and lean with the trio and, unplug hygiene.

Michael: Hmm. Okay.

That's really, really good. And then mm-hmm. , what was your marketing

David: plan? marketing for us, we had an advantage. One of my really great friends owns an ad agency that deals with outside of dental industry, so n f l, like big time folks. Hmm. But they took us on, out of friendship and then we targeted procedures and demographics of people that we knew would mix.

So we went urban with the. We knew we were gonna target essentially millennials as our patient. So what are procedures that we knew they wanted and what are factors we knew they wanted? So convenience was number one. Technology was gonna be number two, services like, know, Invisalign and things that people in a demographic whitening would want would be number three.

And then we just built everything from that core sort of found.

Michael: roughly monthly. How many new patients were you getting? 40. 40. Wow. Okay. So then today, where do you see it go wrong? Where do you see, like, where people are like, I'm trying to do all these Facebook. I don't know. You know what I mean? Like a bunch of stuff.

Where do you see it go wrong?

David: Oh, lots of places. So people don't, um, it goes wrong when you don't do your home. it goes wrong when you emotionally attach yourself to a location, and say, boy, I really want to be here, but you haven't studied to see, can that support you? One, are there enough patients per capita Two, are they the right patients for the style of practice you want to build?

that's one piece. Another piece is, investing in, in lease space or ownership. I would tell you if you're doing a startup, Nine out of 10 times you should lease not own. you wanna lower your, cashflow out. Cuz again, this, this is a cashflow game too. So the faster you can get the positive net, the better.

So most often that's leasing a space. Hire someone to negotiate for you. Uh, you would be shocked at the um, negotiation leverage you have when you get somebody in the game who understands how to beat a landlord. if you're thinking of doing a startup in the next year, the a n u, this could possibly be the best time to do a startup in the last 15 years.

so Awesome. So, you know, side then size of space, don't overbuild. I think a lot of people overbuild and then I think a lot of people over dentally, tech out get foundational pieces of technology that really, really matter. outfit your primary room to do all the things you want it to do, and then everything else is kind of nice to have.

If it fits in your budget, I would rather you spend way more money on your marketing, than outfit three rooms, Mac, daddy them. You can always come back and invest in, uh, more equipment. So I think those are the big ones. Okay. If it's me and what I'm seeing out there,

Michael: is a good, like, rule of thumb when it comes to, cuz it, you know, you hear that a lot, like, invest as much as you can in your marketing.

What's a good, like percentage wise when you're, when you're looking at

David: that man, it, it's, it's, honestly, it's hard to say. I'm gonna say the average startup today is 700 grand. So if you said you're spend. Oh God, 10% of that, 15% of that on marketing. That's, that's, that's probably a healthy budget.

I think it's easy for people to go, it's easy for people to underspend and then wonder, why am I only getting a couple patients? Cause there's, you know, you know, from what you do, there's like a critical mass number and you have to, you have to hit that threshold in order to cross over the other side. So I would say minimum 10, 15% of that load you.

Michael: Okay. It's interesting. I feel like, do you think some people look at the unicorn who like, oh, I opened up where I wanted to, did what I wanted to, did all this. And then they're like, I throw money at you, like, tell me how to do it. You know what I mean? Kind of thing. Do you think that's kind of like, I guess like common instead of, all right, we should sit down and do our due diligence here and this is not gonna work out.

David: Yeah, I think that's, um, unfortunately. , it's, uh, you know, social media. There's a blessing and a curse to it. The blessing is we meet people and we, we can learn some best practices. The curse, the downside to it is we're really like tiptoeing in somebody else's water and everybody's circumstances are different.

So I think, yes, unfortunately probably eight out of 10 people look at the unicorn and say, well, I'm just gonna do it that way, and that way might not be the way at all there. There needs to be process. this should be a zero emotion and a 100% logic driven process for everybody who's gonna do it.

Cause the feel good goes away the moment the bills start coming in and the revenue doesn't.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. Cuz I feel like I get, I hear that a lot, David, where it's like, oh man, I just needed my own place to do a startup. This is my own brand. Finally I can do what I want. You know what I mean? And there's a lot of emotion and I guess emotion kind of sells, but like, is that, is that wrong?

David: I'm just gonna say that I, and I'm you, anyone who's watching me, like, I'm not an absolute guy. I'm like, life's gray in the middle. But if you're making your choice on emotion yes. That is in, in that situation, it's 100% not the right way to do it. There are instances where you're gonna wanna start up and then there are instances you're absolutely not gonna wanna start up.

You're better off buying a practice. And then there are instances you might be better off staying an associate a little while longer to bank more cash and wait for the right opportunity to open up. it's e it's easy as a young dentist to think, man, I'm not moving fast enough cuz I'm watching all these people sprint.

I think what, what we don't see is all the behind the scenes stuff. Like it's easy to take a snapshot of my life today and be like, wow, that looks really great. But I'm here to tell you, like for every good thing that's happened, there's been like a hundred bad things, . that's just not what we talk about on social media all the time.

We don't talk about the work and the stress and the days. I would close the door and be like, you know what? I'm not paying myself today. I'm gonna pay my bills. I'm gonna pay my team, and then I'm gonna try to figure out how I'm going to. and like I had those times just like everybody else had those times.

So, you know, if you're thinking about this process, like really sit back, get with the small, and I mean small, like three to five people, mentors, stops and start listening deeply to their lessons and not this wide swath of people. Cuz you're gonna get a hundred different answers from a hundred different people.

Yeah.

Michael: So then what would be. Where you're, somebody's telling you, let's just say like, all these people are. I, I think I've heard it somewhere where they're like, undercover mentor, right? Where you don't know that, David, you're my mentor, but I've been listening to your stuff, watching your po, you know what I mean?

Kind of thing. So it's like, all right, I'm listening to David. And now what would you say to be like, Yeah, you do need a startup. You do need to do a startup. Yeah. What, what would be the, okay. , the

David: okay for it is, the first thing I would do is I would look in an area and I would say, okay, where do I want to be?

So here's where I want to be. Then I would say, what are the li where are the realistic opportunities in like those three zip codes? Can I acquire a practice in those three zip codes for a reason, like a fair value? yes. Or. yes. I'm here to tell you buy the practice, don't start one. unless you're looking at a group of dentists who've been there, who are already, really enjoying life.

So if you went into where I, my first practice where I started and you talked to my partner, my former partner, mark and Laura, and, and you wanted to compete, you could do a startup in their neighborhood. because they're already getting 60 new patients a month like clockwork. Everything's good. They don't have to worry about it.

So if you want to come in and do some marketing, like they're like, ah, come in my neighborhood and do some marketing. Now, if you wanted to do a startup in a neighborhood where there's six people who are just like you and everybody's hungry and everybody's trying to build, and maybe it's people that are, uh, two, three years ahead of you, so they have some systems in place, that is not the place to start up.

You're gonna get buried. , no matter how good you think you are. Mm-hmm. . so I think always look at not just the patient demographics, but the dentist demographics. And if the dentist demographics are people who are on autopilot and you wanna do a startup, go for it. If they're really, really new and they're not doing a lot of things, well go for it.

But boy, if they're in the middle and they're hungry and they do a lot of things right, that's not the place to do a startup. Don't do it.

Michael: Okay. Any like specific place? Like are you thinking of like Frisco or California? Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Okay. Doesn't matter.

David: Yeah, just any place where there's a population.

Population of people. so it doesn't, I mean, Buffalo, New York, I can, if you wanted to be in Buffalo or some suburb, I could tell you do not go to East Amherst. , do not go to Orchard Park. You wanna be in Buffalo proper, you wanna be in Lancaster to Pew, you wanna be um, in Lockport. All those places are opportunity.

But if you go to one of the three places where all the Beth dentists who are really hungry are, it's gonna be a tough haul uphill.

Michael: Yeah. So then that's like the strategy. But when it comes to like, I guess cuz you said to ignore the emotion, right? To, so yeah. Let's ignore the part where it's like, oh, I just want to do my own startup.

Yeah. When would it be okay then, or how do you know if it's like, I'm just being impatient, I need to find a better associate, uh, ship, or I need to find an acquisition. You know what I mean? Like when is it the okay to be, like, is it just when you're doing research and you're like, I feel like owning a business or, or how does that work?

Yeah.

David: I think when you are ready, like when you wake up in the morning, you think I'm ready to be a practice owner, then you should Go for it as a practice owner. But I think then you need to look at what's the best path for ownership for me. Mm-hmm. . and you should be patient enough to know that, like getting in the right relationship in life, like you might find Mr.

Miss, him, her wonderful when you're not looking. So it might not be today, it might be three months, six months, or a year from today. So it own that. You wanna own, that's amazing. But don't take a bad opportunity in a rush if it takes you eight months, 10 months, a year to get exactly what you want. It's worth the weight.

Michael: Gotcha. Okay. And then why is this the best time in past 15 years to do it?

David: So there's gonna be this little thing called the recession hitting the world. not if it's when, and it's how intensely. The great news is dentistry, like it is pandemic proof, it's recession proof. We've already been through multiple recessions.

Dentistry does really, really well. So here's the win. , you're going to be successful because you're still going to do dentistry, despite the economy. The wins are, you're gonna be able to negotiate with landlords much better because that's, uh, a business world that doesn't do well in recession. People stop paying rents.

Mm-hmm. . So now you, you're a really good tenant, or if you wanna buy a piece of property, property values are gonna dip 10, 15, 20%. So you're gonna buy for less. Equipment. Now you're not gonna go to, any major equipment company and get like a 30% off deal, but you are gonna get a deal and you're gonna get a lot of perks.

You're also gonna be able to get your equipment a whole lot faster. So maybe it took me eight, nine months to get my equipment and it takes you six, which gives you time. To get to your startup factor, like you've made the decision, you're doing it, you've done all your homework. Now your goal is to get the doors open as quickly as possible.

Cuz then time is money. So, real estate's gonna be a better buy. Equipment's gonna be a better buy. Supplies will be a better buy. And you're gonna do the same level of dentistry you would've done, uh, economy booming or economy just doing okay. So you're in that buy low sell high kind of place and, and realistically, you know, just two years.

you already have an asset that's probably worth, you know, 1.5 to two times x. And that's doesn't happen very often in that chart of a span kind. That's

Michael: good. I like that. So then if we were one a little bit, your three acquisitions in one startup, you let that go when?

David: life and timing. Seven months pre covid.

Michael: Okay. So pre covid life and ti. ,

David: it was part of an eight year plan. so yeah, I'm a, I'm a planning nut, so I had an eight year plan, where I, I love doing dentistry. I continue to do dentistry, but what I knew is Ignite was gonna take me to a different kind of business. And, it allows me to reach and work with young dentist.

all the time, which I love even more than doing dentistry full-time. And the other part for me, from like a life and a vision standpoint, it is, it gave me total mobility. So my wife and I wanted to live someplace where the sun shined every day. My dental practice was in a place where it's fine, like 20 days a year.

So , you know, ignite allowed us to move and take our, like our next life. earlier than it would've otherwise had I stayed a dentist full-time. So our practice needs its leaders there full-time. I get to go back and do all the things I do clinically and um, tech-wise, I get to build content there, which is amazing.

And then, um, I get to go, you know, be with my wife in Florida the rest of the time, which is, you know, that's our sort of perfect life design. Mm-hmm. ,

Michael: that's how you created it, right? Yeah. Towards the. Man. So you planned that out like that. Interesting. Okay, man. Mm-hmm. . So then I wanted to ask you, um, throughout your process of your acquisitions, also your, your startup and everything like that.

Sure. And what you've been seeing lately, what have been some of the best companies to work with, and then some of the worst ones.

David: So I'll caveat this with I'm different than many dentists where I believe that loyalty really. So I'm a Patterson guy. Mm-hmm. , and I've been for 29 years now.

That doesn't mean if you went to work with Shine or Benko or somebody else, that that's bad. That's not bad. Um, but my relationship started with Patterson years and years ago. They've been amazing to me. We've worked together with every single thing I've ever done, and it's been a craziest success. So if you don't know who to go to, I highly recommend that.

If you say, man, I work with Scheiner Benko and they're doing right by me. , stay with them, be super loyal to them. that's been, uh, I think a life premise. I do that with flights and hotels and everything, like loyalty pays big time. So I like Patterson. if I'm you guys and I'm talking like startups or first practice, one of my favorite people in dentistry, his name is Jonathan.

I love Jonathan. He's, he's integrity through the roof. He's got a banker's background, but he literally has devoted his whole life to, your first practice, whether it's an acquisition or a startup. And I love, love, love that cuz he has no vested interest in which one you choose. It just needs to be the right one for you.

That's like solid objective information. . he's tremendous. I'm a B of a guy. I also like provide, I think they're, they're also a very good lender. So I, I work with, uh, young docs on both of those lens all the time. I don't have no skin in the game. I just know that they both can deliver. sometimes one's better than the other just based on timing and, and offers they have. And sometimes it's just likability. Like, here's a couple good people. Pick who you wanna work with. Mm-hmm. , What spaces are you looking for

Michael: in, I guess gimme like from the processes of your startup, right? Where you're like, okay, we built it, but now after like one, two years, three years after it's up and running because like, let's just say for example, there's a.

So that, that leads to another question like, cuz you mentioned loyalty, right? When would it be okay to let that loyalty go? To be like, man, you screwed up way too many times. Like, these claims are, I can get 'em better done by somebody or I don't know. You know what I mean? yeah. And it's different now too, cuz of social media.

Like, you see everybody's saying they're the best, they're the, you know, contact this person and all these things. So Sure. Kinda like in that area.

David: Yeah, so that's, and that's a really good point. What I would recommend to all of you is you reassess every relationship you have every 90 days. So I'm not looking to make a move, but I am looking to make sure people are performing.

And that's on part of, that's on them, on on, on the other side of the relationship. But part of that's on me too, as an. You know, as the quote, c e o of my company and as a leader, is to define my expectations to all the people we work with and show them what a win is for you. Tell them, and, you know, when we work together, these are the things that matter most to me.

And then if you, every 90 days are circling up with them, they're either checking all those boxes or they're not. So for me, I, at 90 days, if somebody wasn't doing their job, I would say, Hey, remember when we promised? that these three or five things were really important, you were gonna do those things.

They'll say yes. You'll say, okay, so help me understand how we missed. I don't know, two out of the five. What are we gonna do about it? How do we fix that in between now and the next time we get together? And then if they fix it and it stays fixed, amazing. If they don't, then you know that's, you've given your best to the relationship.

They clearly look at it differently than you and. Then it's time to move on. Um, but I think like all relationships, when we communicate really, really well, here's what we need from you. And they say, here's what we need from you, and then we, we both work at delivering what we need. Then you'll find you'll have 10 year, 15 year, 20, 30 year relationships with people, and your life will go much more smoothly as a business owner in addition to costing you a lot less money.

Michael: I like that. So today still, David, do you re reassess it every 90 days or after like 10 years? You're like, we got it. We got, we're, we're

David: pretty cool. Mm-hmm. , we still do, we do it with every insurance. not with dental insurances, but like male practice, disability, life. Uh, we do it with our financial planners, in the office for the 401k and our profit sharing outside of the office.

For what we do alone, I do it with my C P A, we do it with our attorneys. and um, you know, it's, it was really cool when I was with the practice all the time and, and Mark and I were just partners together. We did it together. We brought everybody in and we round tabled it. We're like, okay, you're all on our team.

Cuz what's really interesting is sit down with the CPA and they're gonna give you, this advice, you know, over, you know, over in one cap. And then you sit down the financial planner and they might be in a totally different camp. No, no, no, no. That's a bad idea. Do this. But when we bring our cpay and our financial planner together, And it's not a, one versus the other.

It's more the goal is to win. So share why you c p a see it this way. Financial planners share why you see it this way? It's so cool to see people interact and say, you know what? Wow, I never really looked at that way. I get why you want to do that. So what if we did a little bit of this and then we did a little bit of that, and then we assessed what works best and then we'll do more of what works and less of what doesn't work.

Don't be afraid to take your external team and unite them in a room or a virtual room on a regular basis and have everybody talking to everybody. It's gonna make them feel really good because you're in this with them. It's not a transaction and you'll get really crazy better results when everybody communicates with everybody and people aren't butting heads all the time, you know, over turf.

Michael: So you do that every like quarter or every 90 days. Mm-hmm. you, you get everybody together and.

David: Yeah, that, and we, yeah. And I'll tell you pro-tip, when you're building out a space, do the same thing. We got our architect, our general contractor, Patterson as our distributor, who's gonna supply the equipment, all the subs, electric, plumbing, the whole nine yards.

We got 'em all together at, at a table, handed out a little information sheet, said, this is who y'all are. This is all your. . So we are gonna build this place together. And when you feel like somebody's holding you up, then let that person know along with us and we can hold everybody accountable in this process.

And our buildouts went much better that way than when we tried to do them not doing it that way.

Michael: I like that man. So you let the, you let them know, Hey, if you hold us up, everybody else is accountable kind of thing. .

David: Mm-hmm. . And you know, cuz you know, it's, it's, he said, she, she said, so if you're building a space out and, and you're, you're running behind, which happens too commonly in Buildouts.

Mm-hmm. , someone's gonna say, oh man, I couldn't come in and do my job cuz so and so didn't do theirs. Well, once you put everybody in a room and you hold them accountable to each other, then they, I can't blame if I'm a plumber. I can't blame the electrician cuz boy, we, we all know each other now. So if you had a problem with the electrician plumber, it was your. So let that person know and let us know there was a problem. So we knew what to expect.

Michael: Okay. I like that man. Okay. So we wanna reassess every relationship every 90 days, right? All together. Yeah, everybody. And then make sure we talk to everyone, let them know their roles, communicate and so forth. Okay.

Interesting. So, David, I know you, you do a lot now, I dunno if you're more busier now than you were when you had all the acquisition. So real quick, what's your area of e. .

David: I'm gonna say I'm a leadership and culture builder. That is, that is my, there are, there are things that I'm pretty darn good at, but that's what I'm pretty darn good at, that I really, really love and I'm a huge fan of.

So I work with young folks all the time on how to build that in their practice. And sometimes it's a personal thing. Most of the time it's a practice thing. when you really get it, you realize it's all the same. Mm-hmm. . So yeah, that's how I personally help people. And outside of that, I'm gonna say my superpower is just connecting you for the right people.

Big ocean out there. My job is just take the ocean, turn it into a pond, and then you as a, a young dock side, who in that pond you should play with. But at least we've weeded. , all the other fluff. Yeah,

Michael: everything else is unnecessary. So then what can a dentist do today to improve their, their marketing or their business?

David: First thing I would do is I would look at my internal systems. I'm a big fan of external marketing as well. I'm here to share with you if your internal systems aren't buttoned up. , um, you can reign in, you know, a hundred phone calls a day and you're not gonna convert mm-hmm. . So why spend the time, the energy and the dollars on that unless you have your internal systems buttoned up?

So I would work on that. I would work on my, my diagnostic skills, my treatment planning skills, and especially my communication skills from first phone call to passing the baton from one team member to the. To treatment plan and case acceptance to follow up. And if you master that process that you do all day every day as a team, you, you can't help but grow at least 20% in less than six months.

I mean, it's, it's hard not to grow that fast.

Michael: Yeah. So then look at, if, if you were to give us like a couple bullet points, like besides phones, right? Because like obviously if phones aren't converting, then we. You know, marketing is just being always what's, what are some internal systems that you've seen where people continue to miss it after year, two, year three, year four, and, and you have to go in there again and be like, keep an eye on this system or create a system for this.

What are some of those? Sure.

David: I'm gonna say low hanging fruit. people don't have assistant to. Patients for referrals. that's an easy one. you know who your best patients are, you probably want more of them and not just more of like the random person. So having a system for asking for referrals is a big one.

Having a system to, be up the case acceptance model from hygienist to dentist. Is another really, really easy one. So as a dentist, you should walk in a room and that patient should be primed. They should already have a, a firm grasp of everything you're gonna say. You and your hygienist should have a really nice system to communicate with each other before you walk in.

And then adding to that system how you share what you share over a patient's shelter. There's tons of data to show that your patients listen more to what they overhear than what they. . Um, and then the third one is system for accountability. And that is everybody does what they promised to do and I've seen so many dental practices fall off the ledge cuz everybody gets excited about something and then three months later, six months later, three years later, they're doing it.

Same darnt thing that they did in the beginning. So accountability is everything. Gotcha.

Michael: Okay. Interesting. Now these next couple questions are just to get into the head of someone who. Ran practices and startups, right. Acquisitions. But right now, what would you like to see more from a practice owner?

David: I would like to see more leadership.

this is gonna be a hard truth for some of you, but people don't leave jobs. They leave you. So if your team is walking out the door, they're leaving you. And I know you think it's about a dollar an hour or two bucks an hour, it's. . It's a good thing that we point to in today's world, but since the dawn of time, strong leaders build strong teams and strong teams stay cuz they're a part of something bigger.

Do you

Michael: ever feel like somebody ever comes to you and like, David, I'm trying to lead this, and then you're, you look at them, you talk to them, they're trying, but you're just like, you're just not a leader man. Like you're not meant for this role. Has that ever.

David: It, it happens a lot. And I, you know, I don't blame anyone when that happens because unless you have invested more time and energy in learning to be a leader, it's, you know, it's inherent in some people.

Some people are natural born leaders, but most people learn leadership as a skillset, just like they learn everything else. So I think what happens is, whether it's social media or parents or you read a book, you, you think you're taking these great lessons and bringing them to the table. somebody's hearing a totally different message than what you are verbalizing or even better what you're showing them, right?

Mm-hmm. , who you are is different than who you're speaking to them, so the connection is getting lost. So if you feel like this isn't going perfectly well, you know, spend some time to learn to be a leader. It's just like wrapping a tooth. You have to be taught.

Michael: Anything you recommend? Like, cuz you mentioned that and I'm like, oh dang.

I do that sometimes. Like I'll read a bucket and I'm like, we're doing this and then a year from now I'm like, what happened to that? We, we should have done that Right. Kind of thing. So what would you recommend where we go to get taught?

David: Yeah. So first I'm gonna say read all the books. That's, that's always a good thing.

Listen to all the podcasts, that's always a good thing. But look at that as like very 1 0 1 information. Mm-hmm. And then I'm gonna say, take a deep dive in leadership with somebody. So, Sandy Paru, great example. Like somebody who knows how to teach leadership. something I do a lot, I teach leadership a ton, um, to young d dentists.

there's probably 10 people I could name that, you know, if, if you guys wanna follow up with me, I'll give you all 10. Like, I doesn't matter to me. There's, there's like so much work out there for all of us. It's not a thing. So I'm happy to share all the people that I think are really, really good.

But find somebody. that you, you really trust what they say. Check on them, right? Check to see who else thinks they're really darn good at what they do, and then go all in and stop dabbling and stop listening to people in a Facebook group, including our Facebook group, right? Listen only to that person.

That's how you're gonna succeed. Mixed messages. It's just noise and it's a diversion from us succeeding quickly.

Michael: Yeah, a hundred percent, man. I agree. So then right now, What do you hate about dentistry or dislike ?

David: the blessing and the curse of social media. I hate social media and, and I, and I share that with all of you telling you that I built Ignite TDS on social media, right?

right? Mm-hmm. , we reach a million people a month. We built our entire company on social media, but I still, the problem is most of social media today is affirmation and it is not information. Mm-hmm. , it's people going to comm. and, um, it's not all groups, but certain groups who've got some significant popularity.

listen, they're Dan Kennedy marketing trained. They're har, they're honing in on three pain points that they know you have. And if you just pay attention, there might be 20 posts a day, seven days a week. But over the course of six months, they all say three things. They all harp on the fact that student loan debt is.

and shame on dental schools, they harp on insurance companies are awful. Shame on insurance companies for paying you less. there's a few others out there, but, um, I don't like that. I don't like people who, who position themselves to generate business out of fear. It works. I get it. But I, that's my biggest dislike in dentistry today.

Michael: Ah, when you were mentioning that, I, I started thinking of because, you know, we're all part of a lot of Facebook groups. Interesting. Yeah. No, no. I, I agree a hundred percent. Like, so then what would you, I guess, what would you like to see change from that? Just completely stop that or,

David: in, in a perfect world, like, yeah, I'd like people to just stop, but that's not gonna happen.

So what, so what I would like, honestly, a realistic world is each of us. As a, uh, social media user go in with both eyes wide open, and even in those groups where there are things like that, that I dislike, there's really good information, so don't throw it all out. Just go in and realize when somebody says this, they're saying it for a reason.

They're pushing you to an end. if that end game is your perfect end game, listen, if that is not your perfect end game and it's challenging your beliefs and where you wanna go and making you feel like um, you can't get there, then you need to minimize your exposure to it. Cause it repetition will get you and eventually wear you down and make you feel like you can't.

And, and I'm here to tell you, dentistry is still today one of the greatest professions where everything is possible. So you want to go be a fee for service dentist. I can teach you how to do that and make a lot of money. You want to be a P P O dentist. Um, better people than me can teach you how to do that and make a lot of money.

You wanna be a Medicaid dentist. Different people than me can teach you how to do that and make a lot of money. My job is to just help you in the lane if you're in my lane, and then get you to somebody who's in a different lane if you wanna be in a different lane.

Michael: Yeah, man. And I like that man affirmation and that information.

You're right, there's a lot of. , we used to be information overload. Now it's just opinion overload. Totally. Like everybody has an opinion for everything and states it as a fact. You know what I mean? Yeah. Everybody's

David: an expert. Like, and that, that's what I mean. If, if I literally, if I owned one, and in fact even if I owned my four practices and I didn't study practice models and work in like 50 practices a year, times the last 25 years. my information would be purely opinion and would mean nothing to you. So when somebody says, do these 10 things, how many times have they done it? How many different ways have they done it? If it's under 20, stop listening. It's irrelevant.

Michael: Yeah. If it's not applicable. Do you think it's more like, cuz like, oh, we're in the same boat.

I have like that common ground, like we're both just started up kind of thing, right? Yeah.

David: So they. Yeah, I, and, and there's value in that. So there's value in knowing that we're all in this together and that we're not alone. w Edwards Deming, who's probably the greatest economist America has ever seen, but certainly a top three, if you don't know him, study him.

94% of our successes in our systems, I can't build a good system. One shot. I have to have multiple shots over time. I can't have success over six months. I have to have success over time, um, over changing markets, over changing demographics. That's really where things matter. So listen to everybody but understand what that information means and, and the limitations of the information.

Michael: Gotcha. Okay. And then one of the last questions is right now, what do you love about dentist?

David: Everything, dentistry. Pound for pound dentistry is still the greatest opportunity out there for you. So your degree buys you, ownership and multiple facets. One location, two locations, a thousand locations. It's all doable. There's a model for each and a, and a playbook for each. You can be an education, you can never own anything and go to work for someone and do really, really well. If you wanna be nine to five and go. , you can not do any clinical dentistry at all and work on the industry side. So many opportunities there.

And if you want to be a part of the whole like influencer space, do it wisely. But there's a whole world to do there. So I love that dentistry affords all of us so many avenues to succeed and we get to pick the way we wanna do it. There's no one right way. There's, there's several right ways to succeed in all of those different avenue.

Mm.

Michael: I like that, man. Awesome. David, thank you so much for being with us. But before we say goodbye, can you tell our listeners where they can find you? Sure.

David: find me where it's easiest for you. So if you're on Instagram at Ignite, d d s, if you're on Facebook, we, we have a group, at Ignite, d d s insiders, or you'll see me in any of the number of groups.

I try my best to, you know, pick like eight of 'em and, and chime in. My email is my name. It's David dot Rice. At Ignite dds.com. Um, and obviously you're welcome to come to ignite dds.com and you can come there, register for free, or just come and learn. So, you know, go where it's easiest for you to go and, and, and, and reach out.

Seriously, like Dennis, she's been really amazing to me and my whole mission in life is to help it be more amazing for you.

Michael: So guys, that's all gonna be in the show notes below, and David, thank you for being with us. It's been a pleasure and we're here from you soon, bud. Thanks man.

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In this episode, Jasmine Smith, from Versa Solutions, breaks down 5 actionable tips that we can use to ensure a smooth insurance relationship.

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1. Get Credentialed - Yes, credentialing can be tricky, and it may be temping to bill under your name instead of the associate performing the treatment, but don't do it! This results in a messy claim and can be a red flag for future audits.
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2. Sign up for EFTs - Electronic Funds Transfer methods allow payments to be easily processed and can eliminate the travel time and restrictions of physical delivery.
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3. Verify Benefit Eligibility - Always double check a patient's benefit eligibility. Even though they might say they are covered, making sure can avoid future disappointment.
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4. Document Everything - The more documentation on procedures the better! Always keep good notes to avoid claim denial.
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5. Review AR Weekly - Be sure to review your Accounts Receivable balance at least once per week. If this is close to zero, meaning no money is owed, your account is in a good place!

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You can reach out to Jasmine Smith here:

Versa Solutions Website

Facebook

Linkedin

Twitter

Instagram: @versasolutionsinc

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Other Mentions and Links:

CAQH Credentialing Service (ADA)

Practice by Numbers

Weave

Dental Intel

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If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Marketing, ask me on these platforms:

My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/

The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041

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Thank you for supporting the podcast by checking out our sponsors!

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Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

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Michael: Hey Jasmine, so talk to us about medical and dental billing. How can we utilize this, or what advice or suggestions can you give us that will help us with doing medical and dental billing?

Jasmine: Right. So Michael, my experience as a, billing company owner, uh, involves mostly helping practice owners get to the bottom of their slow insurance and patient collections, and not only implement systems, um, to help achieve faster cash flow, but actually keep those systems running smoothly for them.

So, We put the work in and do all of the work, . So, um, we help all kinds of specialties, practice management softwares, practice types, whether they're fee for service, p o, Medicaid. So we've seen it all, done it all. but the common denominator I noticed between all of these practices, it's staffing issues.

It seems like everybody's having an issue with that right now. Mm-hmm. . So you can't keep your biller who or your office manager who's gonna make sure your claims go out, who's collecting from the patients. Who's sending statements and making follow up calls to the patients about their bills. Um, 1, 2, 3 years go by and you realize you've only gotten paid six to 7 cents of the dollar that you've actually worked for.

So the other side of the staffing issues is, um, hiring someone who has good intentions, and they believe they know the ins and outs of dental billing, but they really don't, and they can create some costly mistakes for their practice. So, If as the practice owner, you're not auditing the work, things can pile up really quickly.

So we've seen that happen as well. But I'm here because I wanna share five tips that every practice owner should implement that I wish everybody knew about. So the first one is get credentialed. I heard on one of your other podcasts of someone, um, really going into this point, going into depth.

That was great. Don't go off and hire an associate. Allow them to treat patients in your office and then bill under your name as the treating dentist. That's not a clean claim. That's an easy way to flag an audit with the insurance company because, um, if you're attaching your narrative for, you know, a procedure whose name is at the bottom, whose name is signed at the bottom of that narrative.

So, um, and if you accidentally. A batch of claims with, you know, your associate on them and you get it back and it's out of network or, you know, um, there's a denial. Then you wanna send a batch of, corrected claims with your name on it. That may cause suspicion as well. the a d a has a pre credentialing service, C A Q H, so that's a great, um, tool to use to get credentialed applications.

Second one is sign up for as many EFTs as possible. We've seen a claim go out same day as the date of service, and then you get paid the very next day. We've seen these bank accounts get funded the very next day after you see the patient. So that's very, very quick. Um, a lot of the insurance companies are getting crafty with insurance, credit card payments or v c virtual credit card.

Um, that's when they send you like, Hey, here's a credit card. You can process your credit card machine, for payment for this, you know, procedure. Um, but you actually. , charged a lot of fees with your merchant service. Mm-hmm. , if you do a annual, you know, credit card mm-hmm. , transaction, so there's no charge to receive EFTs from an insurance carrier.

Um, and then, you know, when disaster strikes in an area which we've seen, there's been hurricanes lately. Um, the mail stops, that's tens of thousands of dollars that's waiting To get to you. So, you know, imagine if you just had that direct deposit and you can access it immediately and do what you need to do.

Also, the paperwork of getting paper claims and checks all the time. It's just a bummer, . So, uh, my third tip. Is to verify. Uh, when a patient comes in and hands you an insurance card, you really need to verify the eligibility and benefits. You can't just take their word for it, that they have coverage and everything's covered. don't bill blindly don't update the benefits in the system by blindly, uh, yeah, it's the patient's job to know their benefits, but I assure you less than 10%, maybe even 5% of people actually know their benefits. , they're still gonna be upset when they have to pay that 25 dollar deductible that you didn't tell them about.

So just find out beforehand. What their insurance is all about, who you're billing, even before they're seen. And if you can't do that, if you just have no time, outsource it. There's many companies that do this. Um, and my fourth tip is documentation. I also heard another one of your podcasts or someone really, um, honed in on this point.

not only do x-ray. Need to justify a procedure being completed, but the clinical narrative needs to paint the picture as well. So, for example, we usually see the most denials with crowns and buildups. then we see the narrative template and we're like, oh, that's why , because the insurance carriers want to see whether it's an initial. Or replacement with the prior placement date? Was it a fracture? They need the location of the fracture. I've seen sometimes they were asking for the length and depth of the fracture. was it a fail amalgam restoration, recurrent decay? How much of the tooth had decayed before removal? How much of the tooth was remaining before the buildup?

Just so much needs to be in the narrative for processing, and that will make sure that you. Your payment quicker, and if you have a denial, it would be far and few in between. And then my fifth point is with patient billing. Um, we offer a service for patient billing with our company. So we've seen it all in this area as well.

Um, at the very least, you should review your new accounts on your AR on a weekly basis. So these are. Accounts, ideally that you know insurance has paid, um, and you need to review the ending balance. Every pr uh, practice management software really has a easy way for you to check this. and then you can send your statements out immediately after you re you reviewed the account.

what we do is make notes on the account, just showing us where the balance is coming from. And when the patient does call, we can just locate our note and explain where the balance is coming from really easily and quickly. Um, and then when you make a rule, stick with it. Like, if you deem contacting the patients three times is enough, maybe statement, call statement, write the balance off or send them to collections.

Don't let the balance linger. That's how your ar will increase over time. So just take action, you know, make some rules, set a system up with your staff and, um, your AR would, you know, look pretty clean. If your patients overpay you, this is the other hand of it, pay them back. Um, keep your AR as close to zero as possible.

So not too many credits, not too many debits. Let's just, you know, keep it close to zero, which is what we try to do with our company as.

Michael: nice, Jasmine, I appreciate that. Out of these five, I, I kind of wanna rewind a little bit. When you mentioned, um, the number two sign up for as many EFTs you said Yeah.

As possible. Okay. Can that ever backfire or no?

Jasmine: Um, I've not seen it backfire. Only when there is a recoupment that needs to happen. you know, patient. Plan actually terminated, but the insurance paid the office, they'll just take it out of the next payment. So you really have no control over that.

Usually if you get paper checks, they'll ask for the money back in another check. So you really have no control over that. But you know, they'll take it out of something anyway, . Gotcha.

Michael: Okay. Do you guys do medical billing too?

Jasmine: Um, we send medical claims for some of our oral surgery offices, when needed, but we don't really dive into the medical billing part of it with the coding and I c D 10.

Michael: Gotcha, gotcha. So then where do you see out of these five tips, like people mainly have the

Jasmine: most hiccup. most hiccups is probably the verification. Um, there are so many claims that go denied or rejected because the verification wasn't done in the beginning. probably second one would be the credentialing

Mm-hmm. , um, hiring an associate and not putting them on the claim. It's just kind of, I see that a lot. I know it's a headache trying to credential all of your new, employees, especially if, um, you're going out of network anyway. but it's just good to put them on the claim form. And then documentation would probably be number three.

why

Michael: documentation, like what is not

Jasmine: enough detail or not enough detail? Um, some doctors have their assistance right in the details of the narratives, and maybe they're not just, they're not trained enough or not enough was communicated with them. Um, but yeah, I, I would recommend, you know, at the end of the day, just review all of your notes.

Make sure. It's completely, filled out to the brim . Yeah. Too much information is good. Um, especially when trying to get these claims paid the first time. You don't wanna have it denied and come back and wait another 30 days for that to process. So. .

Michael: Yeah. Because I feel like that can be a headache, especially when you get a lot of denied claims.

I mean, you're on the phone, you're at the front office, you're getting another denied claim. You know, you're, you're dealing with that and people are coming in calling and all these things. Right? So it can be tough. I like what you mentioned when you said make a rule, stick with it to you.

From the many practices that work with you guys, what have you seen to be like a really fantastic role when it comes to this?

Jasmine: So we, uh, contact patients six times, right? So that's our role as our billing company. If we contact the patients, we we're probably sending three statements, making three follow-up phone calls.

that's our role. We stick with it. The offices tend to agree that yeah, that's a good amount of times to contact a patient about their bill. If they're not paying by then, then you know, how many other times do it. So, That's the rule, and that's good. It, when we're done with it, we exhaust all attempts.

Patient either gets sent to collections or if the balance is too low, it's written off. Lots of notes are written on the, um, on the account. Popup notes are created, so before the office or the patient even comes in, they have to pay the bill. So it's smooth. It, it works. . I think that's a, that's a good rule.

Sometimes they're like, did we contact them enough? I mean, we sent one statement. We, we called them, they said they'd pay it, but they never did call four more times. . Mm-hmm. . That's the rule. And then if they don't, then send it to collection. So, yeah. The amount of times of contacting a patient I think is a good rule to.

Michael: Do you ever recommend like texting or emailing them or

Jasmine: no? Yes. Um, now, in this day and age, take advantage of as many resources as you can. A lot of dentists have, dental intel. They have a payments feature. Practice by numbers also has a great payments feature. Um, I know we use our offices, if they have Weave, we'll use that on behalf of their office to text, you know, um, the patients and send 'em their bills.

So, take advantage of, of that mailing statements is, gonna be a thing of the past

Michael: now. Yeah. So then would you recommend, is that part of the six? So like, would it be like, . Then number two would be like text and th like that, or,

Jasmine: yeah, yeah. Usually you can send an email and a text at the same time.

That'll count as one contact, and then we'll follow up with a phone call and then send another email, text, um, we call, because we wanna make sure they're actually receiving their invoices. and if that method isn't working, we change it up, you know, especially if the patient's older, they probably need a mailed statement, so we'll, we'll change it up for them and send 'em a mailed state.

Michael: Okay. Awesome. Any final piece of advice you wanna give to our listeners about medical and dental billing?

Jasmine: stick with the pros. If you can't, um, do it or you feel overwhelmed with it, with your office, you don't have to worry. You know, you can outsource it. It's often cheaper than hiring a billing coordinator for your practice, um, or care than, you know, training someone to, um, do everything correctly.

Hire, outsource it. If you can't, like I did, like I said with the verifications, we don't do verifications, but a lot of our offices outsource that and they see much more collections in a lower AR because of it. so yeah, don't be afraid to ask for help .

Michael: Awesome, Jasmine, I appreciate your time and if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find her in the Dental Marketer Society Facebook or where can they reach

Jasmine: out to you?

Um, our website is www.versussolutionsinc.com. Uh, also on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, , everything there. So, um, yeah, feel free to reach out. We're everywhere.

Michael: All right. That's gonna be in the show notes below. And Jasmine, thank you for being with me on this Monday morning marketing episode.

Jasmine: Thank you.

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