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Kiera is joined by the tooth-healer himself, Jason Dent! Jason has an extensive background in pharmacy, and shares with Kiera where his pharmaceutical experience has bled over into dentistry. This includes the difference between anti-quag and anti-platelet and which medications are probably safe, what to do to shorten the drag time in the pharmacy, how to write prescriptions most efficiently, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today is a really awesome and unique day. It is, think the second time I've had somebody in the podcast studio with me live for a podcast and it's the one and only Jason Dent. Jason, how are you? I'm doing well. Good morning. Thanks for having me. It is crazy. I I watch Instagram real like this all the time where people are like in the podcast and they're hanging out on two chairs and couches and now look at us. We're doing it. Cheers. Cheers. That was a mic cheer for those of you who are only listening, but yeah, Jace, how does this feel to be on the podcast? It's weird. Like I was not nervous at all talking about it. I got really nervous as soon as you hit play. So if I stumble over my words, please forgive me ahead of time. Well, Jason, I appreciate you being on the podcast because marketing had asked me to do a topic about teledentistry and I was like, oh shoot, that's like not my forte at all. so You and I were actually chatting in the hot tub. call it Think Tank session and you and I, we have a lot of good ideas that come from that Think Tank. A lot of business. no phones. That's why. We do leave our phones out. But I was talking to Jason and this is actually a podcast we had talked about quite a while ago. Jason has a lot of information on pharmacy. And if you don't know, Jason isn't really, we were going through all of it last night. It's kind of a mock in the tub. And I think it's going to be great because I feel like this is an area, I'm working at Midwestern and knowing about how dentists, pharmacology was surely not your favorite one. Jason actually helps a lot of dentists with their clearances. And so we were talking about it and I like it will just be a really awesome podcast for you guys to brush up on pharmacology, different things from a pharmacist's side. So Jason, welcome. Thank you. Yeah, no, we were talking about it and here's like, what should I talk about on the podcast next? I have all these different topics and she's like, what do you know? And the only real interaction I have with dentists is doing clearances for procedures. We get them all the time, which makes sense. Lots of people are on blood thinner, I've always told Kiera, like, hey, I could talk about that. Like, that's kind of a passion of mine. I'm not a dentist. Or my name is Jason Dent. So in Hebrew, Jason means tooth. No, no, no, sorry. Nerves are getting to me. Jason means healer and Dent means tooth. So my name means tooth healer. So, here's a little set. Hold on, on, hold Can we just talk about? I brought that up before you could talk about it more. So. My name means tooth healer but I did not become a dentist. I know you wanted me to become a dentist. did. I don't know why. I enjoy medicine. I know what you're going to get to already. The things you're going to ask me. There's been years of this. But nevertheless, that's my name. We'll get that out of the way. But you did give me a great last name. So I mean, it's OK. You're All is fair and love here. SEO's up for that. But yeah, Jason, I'm going to get you right into the show. And I'm going to be the host. And we're going to welcome to the podcast show. Jace, how are you? Good, good, good. Good, good, good. So by getting into clearances, right? This is what you're kinda talking about with you know, before we get to clearances, I actually wanted Jason, for the listeners who don't know you, who haven't talked to you, who don't know, let's kinda just give them like, how did you go from, Kiera wanted you to be a dentist, to now Jason, you are on the podcast talking as our expert on pharmacy. fantastic. I've always really loved medicine, a ton. As a kid getting headaches and taking Excedrin, like you just feel like a miserable pile of crap. and then you take two pills and all of a sudden you feel better. Like that's amazing, like how does that happen? Also getting ear aches as a kid, just being in so much pain and then taking some medicine and you start feeling a lot better. I always had a lot of appreciation for that. I've always been mechanically inclined. I went to, started doing my undergrad and took biology and learned about ATP synthase, which is a spinning enzyme that's inside the mitochondria, like a turbine engine. I used to work on small engines on my dirt bike and thought that is so cool. So I really got wrapped up into chemistry. All the mechanics of chemistry really pulled me in. I'm not getting goosebumps. checking. I usually get goosebumps when I think about chemistry. But it's so cool. You think an engine's awesome, like pistons and camshafts and pressures, the cell is the same thing. It's not as loud, so it's not as cool. But it's fascinating. that's why we're like. ⁓ chemistry and really got into coagulation. So I did my residency after pharmacy school. we went to Arizona for three years. ⁓ You did and your main focus, you were never wanting to be the guy behind the counter. No, I haven't done that. Yeah. No, I love them though. I've always really want to go clinical. ⁓ But I love my retail ⁓ pharmacists. They're amazing resources. And ⁓ I use the retail pharmacist every day still to this day, but I went more the clinical route, really love the chemistry aspect of it. did my doctorate degree and then I did my residency in Reno. Reno's kind That's how we got here everybody. Welcome to Reno. Strategically placed because I was really interested in critical medicine and where we're located we cover a huge area. So we pull in to almost clear, we go clear to Utah, clear to California, all of Northern Nevada. We get cases from all over. So we actually are kind like the first hub of care for lot of areas. So we really get an eclectic mixture of patients that come in that need- all kinds of different cases that are coming to them. So it's what I really wanted. So I did my residency in critical care there. And then for the next 10 years, I worked in vascular medicine with my final five years being the supervisor of the clinic. Ran all the ins and outs of that. So my providers, two doctors were on our view. So when we talk about dentistry, talk about production, those kinds of things, totally get it. My doctors were the exact same way, my vascular providers. ⁓ There's some pains there, right? You wanna be seeing patients as much as possible, being able to help as many people, keeping the billing up. And had other nurse practitioners, four practitioners, a fleet of MAs, eight pharmacists. We also had that one location we had, going off the top of my head, I think we had eight locations running as well. And we took care of all the different kinds of vascular cases that came to us. Most common was blood clots, ⁓ which is just a... which is an easier way of saying VTE. There's so many different ways to say a blood clot. Like you might hear patients say, I've had a PE or a DVT or a venous thromboembolism or a clot in my leg, right? They're all clots, but in different locations. Same with an MI, and MI can be a clot as well. ⁓ there's a lot of, everybody's kind of saying the same thing, but sometimes the nomenclature can make it sound hard, but it really is actually pretty simple. No. And Jason, I love that you went through, you've been in like, and even in your, ⁓ when you were getting your doctorate, you were in the ER. You also worked in retail pharmacy. remember you having a little sticker on your hand. And retail pharmacy, I have a lot of respect for those guys. They have a lot of pressure on them. and then you also, ⁓ what was that test that you had to take that? I don't know. You were like studying forever for it. ⁓ board certification for, ⁓ NABP. Yeah. So I did that board certification as well. And now you've moved out of the hospital side onto another section in your career. Now in the insurance, right? So it's really, really interesting. So now I'm on the other side reading notes and evaluating clinical appropriateness and trying to help patients with getting coverage and making those kinds of determinations. So yeah, I've really jumped all over. Really love my clinical days. I know. don't I don't I do miss them. But yeah, kind of had a good exposure to a lot of. pharmacy a lot a lot of dentists actually with all the places that come through which Jason I really appreciate that and honestly I know you are my spouse and so it's fun to have you on but when I go into conversations like this I don't know any of this information and so finding experts and Jason I think here's me talk more about dentistry and my business than I do hear about him on pharmacy so as we were chatting about this I really realized you are a wealth of knowledge because you've been on the clinical side so you've done a lot of patient care and you've seen how medications interact and I know you've had a few scares in your career and ⁓ you've known some physicians that have had a few scares and ⁓ you've seen plenty of patients pass away working in the ER and gosh in Arizona drownings were such a big deal. I remember when you were in the ER on your rotations I'd be like who died today? Like tell me the stories and you've really seen and now going on to the insurance side I felt like you could just be such a good wealth of knowledge because I know dentists are sometimes so I would say like maybe just a little more anxious when it comes to medications. I know that dental students from Midwestern were like here was like four months and we had to like pass it, learn it. And Jason, you've done four years plus clinical residency, plus you've been in it. And something I really love about Nevada Medicine is they've been so collaborative with you. like your heart, your cardiologist, they diagnose and then they send to you to treat with medicine and... Yeah, I've been really lucky being here in Reno too. The cardiology team has been amazing to work with. We started a CHF program, sorry, congestive heart failure program for patients. So we would collaborate with cardiologists. They'd see the cardiologists and then they send them to the pharmacist to really manage all the medications. So there's pillars of therapy ⁓ called guideline directed medical therapy and the pharmacist would take care of all that. So that's gonna be your... your beta blockers, your ACEs, your ARBs, your Entresto, which would be a little bit better, spironolactone. So just making sure that all these things are dosed appropriately, really monitoring the heart, and make sure that patients are getting better. we've had real positive outcomes when the, sorry, this is totally off topic. do, talk about that study. When we looked at when patients were coming to see our pharmacists in our clinic that we started up, the patients were half as likely to be readmitted. And this was in 2018, and our pharmacists, We're thinking about all the medications. We're usually adjusting diabetes medications too at the same time. Just kind of naturally just taking care of all the medications because we kind of got a go ahead from the providers, a collaborative practice agreement that we could make adjustments to certain medications within certain parameters. So we weren't going rogue or maverick, but we were definitely trying to optimize our medications as much as possible. And then years later, some studies came out with, I'm sure you've seen Jardins and Farseegh. not trying to, I'm not. I don't get any kickback from them. I have no conflicts to share. But because our pharmacists were really optimizing that medication, those medications were later shown to reduce hospitalizations and heart failure, even though they're diabetes medications. Fascinating. So it wasn't really the pharmacists. It was just the pharmacists doing as much as they can with all the tools that were in front of them. And then we found out that the patients were going back to the hospital. half as much as regular patients. So, yeah, being here, it's been so amazing to work with providers here. the providers here want help, want to help patients, don't have an ego. I mean, I just, it's awesome. I love it. I do love how much I think Jason sees me geek out about dentistry and I watching Jay's geek about his pharmacy and how much he loves helping patients. And ⁓ really that was the whole idea of, all right. Dentistry has pharmacy as a part of it. And I know a lot of dentists are sending in clearances and I know working in a chair side, it would be like, oh no, if they're on warfarin or on their own blood clot, you guys, honestly don't even know half of what I'm talking about because this is not my jam, which is why Jason's here. But I do know that there was always like, well, we got to talk with their provider. And so having Jason come in and just kind of explain being the pharmacist that is approving or denying or saying yes or no to take them off the blood thinners in different parts, because you have seen several dental I don't know what they're called. What is it? Clarence's? that what comes to you? don't even know. All day my mind, it's like, here is the piece of paper that gets mailed to you to the pharmacist and then you mail it back. So whatever that is. But Chase, let's talk about it because I think you can give the dentist a lot of confidence coming from a pharmacist. What you guys see on that side. When do you actually need to approve or disapprove? Let's kind of dig into that. Yeah. Well, first of all, I think I'm not a replacement for any kind of clinical judgment whatsoever. Every patient's different. But the American Diabetes Association, you I work with diabetes a lot. American Dental Association has some really great guidelines on blood thinners and I would always reference them. I actually looked at their website today. Make sure I'm up to speed before I get back on this again. They have resources all around making decisions for blood thinners. And I think the one real important thing in putting myself in the shoes of a dentist or any kind of staff that's around a patient that's in a chair, if they say I'm on a blood thinner, right, a flag goes up. At least in my mind, that's what goes up. Like, okay, how do we get across this bridge? And I think the important thing to really distinct right then when they say they're on a blood thinner is that is kind of a slang word for a lot of different medications, right? Like it's the overarching word that everybody pulls up saying, I'm on a blood thinner. It's like, okay, but I don't know what say. It's like, I have a car. You're like, okay, do you have a Mazda? Do you have? Toyota, Honda, what do you have? or even worse it'd be like saying I have a vehicle, right? So when somebody says they're on a blood thinner, it opens up a whole box of possibilities of what they're Blood thinners are…
Full show notes at the publisherNo matter what position, no matter how many years someone's been in their position, every team member likes to know that they're doing a good job. Tiff and Kristy talk about why defining duties and responsibilities—and then measuring metrics against those duties and responsibilities—is so critical to "winning" at your job. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello Dental A Team listeners. I am so excited to be here with you today I know I see that every single time but I hope you guys know how much I truly love podcasting it is a time away from like we'll call it work I feel like podcasting just isn't work for us and we love Speaking to you guys. love getting all this information out there for you and we love our time together So you guys afford us that and today I have an all-time fave I actually I know this is gonna make you blush but I get some pretty incredible feedback. Kristy, I have Kristy here with us today. I get some pretty incredible feedback from a lot of our clients and a lot of listeners on the podcasts that we do together. So Kristy, I am here today in your presence and it just makes me feel so good. And I'm here to pick that brilliant brain. So thank you for showing up, bringing it and giving me, we've got an ample amount of time this afternoon together. So thank you, Kristy. The Dental A Team (00:54) Yeah. I always have fun when I'm here with you. You know that. It's just so natural that we can rip off each other. And ⁓ I don't know, you do a good job at picking my brain and pulling it out. So it's always fun. look forward to our time together. The Dental A Team (01:09) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Kristy. You guys should know something about Kristy. She is an incredible consultant and I know that this is our time that I get to kind of share and spread some light and joy on our consulting team. And Kristy, I think it's imperative for the world to know that, gosh, you have just an amazing list of clients who are really seeing some impressive results recently. We're into the new year. We're like, Now when this releases two months into the new year, which is freaking wild, but that's fine. But so many of your clients saw so many successes last year and in those successes we're seeing systems development and within those systems development, really seeing goals being pushed, being reached, being surpassed. You've got some clients that I know you were looking at the goals that they were setting for themselves and you were like, yes, and that's one of my favorite Kristy-isms. Yes, and, yes, and. I think you can do more. So you like are pushing them outside of their comfort zones and really projecting for them things that I don't think that a lot of your clients even see possible. I just think it's really cool. And today we're talking really about how accountability is gonna help reduce stress within the practice. And I say all of these things that you're doing really well for your clients right now, Kristy, because it takes so much accountability to be able to perform those pieces without an overload of stress. You can grow and not have accountability. You can spin your wheels and cycle in the negative or however you want to say it. But when that accountability piece is also attached to the things that you're implementing, I think that's really where you see the true results. And that's where we've gotten some incredible feedback that Kristy is amazing. And ⁓ you've taught them so many skills that they can then take them themselves. and carry it on. And I think it's really cool. It's just really valuable what you've been able to implement for practices. So my question, my first question to you, my first brain pick is why do you find it so important to uphold the accountability levels that you hold for your clients and that you train them to hold for their teams by proxy? Why is that so important to you and so valuable in the coaching that you do? The Dental A Team (03:31) Yeah, I love that question because even us in what we do, we want to know if we're winning or not. Right. And so every team member, doesn't matter what job you're doing. You want to know if you're doing a good job and if you're winning. And if we don't have KPIs to measure or clarity in our roles, we're just, we're going day by day by default, you know, and we could have a success, but like you said, it's How do we repeat it if we don't even know what we're looking for? So number one is defining those duties and understanding what am I responsible for and how do I know if I'm winning or The Dental A Team (04:15) Yeah, I love that. you said a couple of things there that I keyed in on, but you said duplicate. So making it repeatable and making it so that that system can be driven by anyone. like anyone can do it, it can be duplicated and you can take a same or similar system and copy and paste it into a different department or a different goal. And I totally agree. Now, when you have something that's duplicatable, it's just kind of I don't want to say on autopilot, but it feels more on autopilot because you're not having to put quite so much like thought process on everything, you know? It is kind of on autopilot. When you're able to do that, how does that, what level of accountability does that require? I guess is the question. Like we've got to, we can have all the systems in the world and the clarity and the job roles, we think we have the clarity and we hand it to them and then we walk away. what's the next step? We've got the clarity, we've got the job descriptions. What does the accountability look like for those things and why is it so important to the overall stress of the team? The Dental A Team (05:23) Yeah, again, in everything we do, it's either by default or by intention, right? And I'd rather be intentional. So using those duties and then following up. I'm a firm believer of performance reviews outside of wage reviews. Can they tie together? 100 % they can tie together. But I also feel as leaders in the practice, we have a responsibility to grow our people, not just grow our practice, but grow our people, right? And so having those conversations to measure against their duties and the KPIs, not a feeling, I feel like I did a good job, right? ⁓ Having those to measure against, lets them know, they know before they even come in that they're winning or not. And it also gives us the opportunity to coach them up, right? If they're not winning or, you know, what's getting in the way of it, or really it could be an opportunity to coach them and train them. And it doesn't necessarily mean us as leaders have to be the one to do it, but we can provide resources and we can get commitments around it so that we can measure, again, we don't have to hit perfection, but are we trending in a growth pattern? And the more that we grow our people, the more that our practice grows, you know? The Dental A Team (06:43) Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So you're tying that accountability measurement, that accountability piece is less micromanaging and oversight and like, are you doing the thing but it's tied into the results being driven. So if we're tracking the KPIs, we're tracking the results that we're desiring and we're seeing, are we on track, off track? Are we growing? Are we declining? That's the accountability measurement and then inspiring our team to want to win within that. that provides that feedback system, I guess, that loop back where they're like, hey, I'm seeing a downtrend. Maybe they're at a point now where they're inclined to speak up and ask for help or they see something that needs to be adjusted or switched and so they're doing it on their own rather than that micromanaged ⁓ over the shoulder accountability. Because I do think, Kristy, that a lot of times the definition of the word accountability can be It's like ASAP, like when can you come ASAP? That could mean anything. Your ASAP versus my ASAP is who knows what that means. So that accountability piece, I think we all have our own definition or our own variation of defining it, but your version here is really looking at the results driving it and then constantly coming back to it. So I love that. are you having your doctors and your practices? look at those results and talk about them because there's the one piece to assume that we're all adults and we're all going to look at them, we're all going to fill them in, we're all going to come to our leadership when we need help. But then that's where I get the phone calls from the doctors that's like, I thought I employed adults and they're not doing the thing. And they're well, we get busy too. So it doesn't always happen that way. So when are you suggesting or having your doctors and your practices really look at those results to bring that fold of accountability measurement into it? At the one-on-ones for sure, is there anything else that you're adding in there? The Dental A Team (08:42) Yeah, for sure. think that truly there's daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly metrics, and they can be broken out. ⁓ Yes, one-on-ones are specific to them, but it's also a team sport, right? And so, again, I think I encourage everybody to be doing meetings. If in a perfect world, I'd love them weekly and they're strategic to work on the business, not just in the business and in the ones that are doing it with intention and having those meetings and dialing in on those metrics. And, you know, they can tell if they're winning or not. It gives you the strategy to be able to course correct sooner than later. And it lets everybody know where they are and we can be support to each other. So to your question, I don't think it's cut and dry, but I do think there's daily, weekly, monthly numbers that we should be having a pulse on. I don't want to wait till November to know I'm $100,000 behind for the year. It gets a little harder to chunk down. So ⁓ the other thing that you said, Tiff, too, is when you were saying accountability, I think that word in and of itself tends to have a negative connotation. The Dental A Team (09:48) Yeah. Yeah. The Dental A Team (10:01) I want to challenge our members and people listening to see it as a positive thing. Like literally it's your time to invest in your people. I literally just got off the phone with one that, and it's funny because our admin team, it's usually where it falls. It's like, hey, I need you to credential this doctor. Okay, I don't even know how to do that. whose doctors don't even know how to do it. So how is that team member going to know how to do it? Right? Where do I start? And in fact, the doctor doesn't know how to do it. So sometimes it's, we can't just leave them out on an island and expect them to win. And if we check in early, we can provide resources. Again, I don't, a doctor, maybe they don't need to know how to do it, but can they guide them? and give them the resource. And in doing that, look how much more valuable they've just made that team member. The Dental A Team (10:55) I think you're spot on there. just that statement there of the team member, like I can picture is we want to talk about how accountability reduces the stress. And that's that scenario you just gave. I can picture the office manager being like, yeah, okay, I'll figure it out. And then all that does is add this underlying unknown stress in the back of her mind or his mind. They're thinking, I got to figure this out. I got to make this work. I got to I gotta do it, but I've got all these other things first. And then dot comes in and is like, hey, did you do that? And they're like, no, like, right? And now we're stressed and we're freaking out. And it's like, there's that unknown space that we don't always know what we don't know. So we don't always know the questions to ask, but just really having that feedback system of accountability within the results, I think is the key there. The Dental A Team (11:45) you one of the things we fail at as leaders is painting that clarity. Again, even if I asked you to do that, did you give me a timeframe? Because you might've wanted it done yesterday. I'm thinking, I could do it in the next month, you know? The Dental A Team (12:00) Yeah, yeah, yeah, which is what I do, right? I'm like, yep, got it, it's on my list. But I've got 60 other things that are also on my list that if I'm not given a prioritization, I'm gonna prioritize it myself, right? And that's, it's gonna fall where it falls. And then you come back and you say, where's that thing? I'm like, well, it's on the back end of my list, because what does it trump? So what does it go above that I can replace? it with, know, whatever. So you're spot on there. I love that, that it all loops together because in the beginning you said, then you just said to you like painting that clarity. And I always tell practices, and I know you do too, when you're building out the job descriptions and the org charts, you need one to three key metrics of results. What are the one to three things that this position is after? We want, you know, a schedule full to daily production goal. That's our schedulers goal. So all of those little pieces that get us there, we don't tackle those until we're not reaching goal. So if we're not reaching that big overarching metric, that's when we say, okay, what system is broken? But I think, Kristy, what tends to happen is that people are like, no, accountability causes stress. Like Tiff, Kristy, you're crazy. The accountability causes stress because we're micromanaging the systems. that get us to the result rather than holding the accountability lever to the result. The Dental A Team (13:31) I agree with you 100 % and truly looking at the person as a human and how can I develop this within them, right? I don't think anybody walks in on any given day thinking how can I make this day horrible, right? They want to please their leaders and it's just sometimes they don't understand how. They don't really have the clarity on how and more so they don't know what The Dental A Team (13:39) Yeah. bright. The Dental A Team (14:00) what winning looks like. The Dental A Team (14:02) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. No, I think you're spot on there and you're making me think that clarity piece, clarity piece and knowing how to make someone happy, right? How do I thrive in this position and make my doctor or my manager, whomever my lead, happy also ties back to when accountability is only held in the negative. It's very easy to start to feel like you're not, you can't win. There's no positive being brought to light. So it's it's celebrating when cause for celebrating and it's tackling system when cause for tackling systems and never tackling the person. Unless it's a personality, personnel issue that's separate, but when it comes to accountability results and driving the practice, it's more about celebrating and tackling as you need to and not only tackling, which in the dental industry, The Dental A Team (14:43) You got The Dental A Team (14:58) Our jobs, I tell practices all the time, patients come here so we can tell them w…
Full show notes at the publisherKiera is joined by Dr. Paul Etchison to talk about changing the mindset of turnover = failure. This transition is part of the evolution of leadership. Both Kiera and Dr. Etchison share their own experiences in remaining true to core values, and keeping their definitions of success separate from whether a team member stuck around or not. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today is an extra special day. I have one of my faves and every time we podcast, people say, you two just seem like you love each other so much. And I really do. I've been to this man's practice. We've been friends in the industry for I don't even know how many years pre-COVID. That's a long time. And we've been on each other's podcasts a lot. He has an incredible podcast. He's an incredible human, incredible friend, incredible mentor. I got the one and only Paul Etchison on the podcast today. Welcome. How are you today, Paul? Paul Etchison (00:28) Hey, I'm good. And I was just thinking about how you mentioned like the pre-COVID thing. You texted me a picture of when you came into my practice for two days. And it was like before COVID. And what was funny about it, and I don't know if it's funny or not, but like I looked at it and half of my team has turned over. They're all new people. So I know. ⁓ Kiera Dent (00:36) cute. Mm-hmm. It's real life, Paul. That's real life. It is funny and isn't because I go back and I used to be embarrassed about that. So let's just kind of highlight on that. I used to actually be very embarrassed of like, my gosh, I don't have senior team members. And like, I hate the question. There was a hot minute. The Dental A Team felt like I was Johnny Depp in the middle of the ocean and my boat was full blown on fire. And I was like, I just hope another one shows up soon. Like I hope something comes. ⁓ And then I realized that's business ownership. Like that's real life. And yes, we built these great cultures, but you outgrow team members and team members outgrow you in life circumstances. And I'd rather be honest and real rather than perfect. And so the fact that like teams shift in a lot, mean, shoot, I used to have this vision board, Paul, you want to hear how ridiculous this was? And I took the team and I put them in the one year, the three year, the 10, and I just had this like same team follow with me. That lasted me for like six months. And I was like, rip this thing up. Paul Etchison (01:31) Yes. You Kiera Dent (01:40) It's gotten better, it's stabilized, but I think that that's real life. So thanks for talking about it. Paul Etchison (01:44) It's hard, yeah, I mean, we look at it and I think like the beginning of my practice career, I had very little turnover, but it was, I had to put so much into keeping that. Like it was such a hard thing to keep going. there was a lot of team members that I kept and I was able to make them happy and I was able to have it be a productive relationship and they were good at the practice. But sometimes I look back on it I'm like, man, it was just, that was a lot of energy I put into one person. I should have just moved on. So that's how I practice now. It's different. There's a little bit more turnover and I think that's normal and that's part of business ownership. So we're okay. Kiera Dent (02:16) What changed in your mindset for that? I have so many questions for you today. You guys, Paul and I, when we get on the podcast, it really is just like a free for all. And Paul has no clue. I have a full plan of what I'm asking you today, ⁓ but it's going to be a free for all rift of business ownership of teams. How did you change that perspective? Because I think so many people chalk that up to, I'm a failure of a boss if I've got turnover. Like I had a doctor the other day on a coaching call and she's like, Kiera, Paul Etchison (02:19) Yeah. Kiera Dent (02:42) What am I going to do for PR? Like I've got people turning over and how do I PR this? So anything is twofold. One, how did you get like mentally change that mindset? Cause I think it's a big mental game. Paul Etchison (02:54) Yeah, for me, was everything that I've done in my career as far as like leadership growth and stuff, I think has always stemmed from some period of just struggle and burnout to some extent. It was like, I got to the point where I was taking everything that happened at the practice personally, every upset person at upset employees, they're bothered about something. They're they always, I mean, they're telling you how you should be doing things that not realizing that there's very complicated solutions. And sometimes there's not perfect solutions. A lot of times there's perfect solutions. So I think what changed for me is I started looking at it from a point of my mental sanity saying I can't attribute my feelings on the happiness of all these team members anymore. And all I need to do is just be very clear on what I want, be very consistent with the way that I treat them and hold them to that standard. But ultimately, I'm putting the ball in their court. It's up to them. And if they want to play ball, cool. If they don't, that's cool too. We can still be friends and you can go to some other office where it's more to your liking. But the biggest change for me was just realizing I can't be everything to everybody. And I did it for a long time and it was really exhausting. And I worked through that and I feel a lot better it. I think my team is better for it. Kiera Dent (04:08) Yeah, no, I don't disagree. And I'm glad you talked about that. It's been fun. think Paul, you felt like, I don't know, a big brother to me when we met and I came out to your practice and the fun things we've been able to do together and just the differences. ⁓ I think as we've grown up in the industry together, but I, I admired that because I always thought you had this amazing team. And I think to hear your version and then my version at the same time was very similar. I just realized like, We got a killer team. Like this is an amazing company. And I think when I evolved to you're so lucky to work here, you're so like not in an egotistical way, but I think in a confidence way of like, this is a great place and we're going to attract people. I started realizing like I had confidence to make offers of what we actually wanted to pay versus what I felt like I had to chase to get people to be here. ⁓ we pivoted and I used to like chase all the time and try to be everything for everybody. And then I'm like, Why am I doing this? Kiera, like you have built a company and a culture and a space that people love. And yes, there are changes and I will continue on forever evolve. I don't think that we're a perfectly set company, but I think that we're a pretty great, awesome place to work. And I think when I became centered, confident in me and what I was providing in the culture without having to be everything, I noticed I actually attracted a way different type of employee. I attracted somebody who wanted that same style. They, it, It was like no more like games. think in like compensation and all this, it was more just centered. It was like, this is what we do and this is who we are and I want great people. And I also think it was very much attributed to like, got dialed in on core values. And I was like, I'm sticking to these. These are like rock solid. do not deviate from that. And if you don't fit. Fantastic. There is another opportunity, like go find your dream place and we're going to find our dream team member. And I say that in a very like confident, hopefully not egotistical. And I think you, sounds like you did a similar thing, but I. I will say, I think you go through a space of realizing you're not a failure. It's an evolution. I think of, of leadership. It's almost like going from, I don't want to say immature. It's more like children and how's they grow. Like, I don't think a little baby is a failure for having that knowledge and that mindset. And I think some of us, are toddler baby owners. Like we've never done this before. We don't know. So we're going to have a different mindset. And then you just start to morph and evolve just like Children grow up and they morph and evolve into these teenagers, into these college students, into like the prime of their life. To me, that also feels like a maturity of leadership as well to being confident with that. Paul Etchison (06:42) Yeah, I love that you point that out too, because we do, we hear a lot of complaints from our team members and then we start to, it starts to add up and then we start to really doubt. Did we really create a great work environment? I mean, we just had an all day meeting maybe about two months ago, maybe six weeks ago, like that. And one of the questions I asked, we use this thing called Slido. It's just in real time, you put on a PowerPoint slide and everybody can vote on their phone. There's a million like programs that do this. But I asked the whole team anonymously on a scale of one to 10, how fun is it to work at Nelson Ridge Family Dental? And I was terrified to throw that Kiera Dent (07:03) Thank Paul Etchison (07:19) there. I had no idea what people were going to say. Kiera Dent (07:20) I don't blame you. Paul Etchison (07:22) It was everybody was like eight, nine. There was like three or four sixes. Now I have 30 something team members. So the Kiera Dent (07:29) Yeah. Paul Etchison (07:30) of it was very good, but it was, it was scary. if you would have asked me what I thought it was going to Kiera Dent (07:35) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Paul Etchison (07:37) I did not think it was going to be that good because the squeaky wheel gets the grease. This, you know, that's what we hear. That's what we focus on. And it reminds me of this one coaching client I had, cause I coached dentists as well. had a coach coaching client named Isaac and he did very similar to you. choir practice, he really got deep into the foundational core values of this is what the practice is. And turned over his entire team and he said, I feel like such a failure. I feel like everybody's leaving. I feel like I'm just turning everybody off. Patients are coming in and asking where everybody is. I just don't think my leadership's good. And I told him, just hang through, Hang, you'll find your people. And then six months later, he was like, I cannot tell you how much I love my team. And so I think the message of what you and I are saying, Kiera, is that no matter Kiera Dent (08:12) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. Paul Etchison (08:22) what you want to do with what kind of vision you have for your practice, your team's out there. They are there. They are waiting for someone to take charge and just make it a big deal that that's the type of people we have at this practice. Kiera Dent (08:26) Mm-hmm. Paul Etchison (08:33) So if anyone's listening thinking like, have this issue at my office, get those core values out, talk to the team about it. Don't just like leave it on a document, bring it up with ⁓ a meeting and say, guys, this is what I truly want. And sometimes apologize. I'm I haven't been holding everyone to the highest regard or the highest standard, but I'm ready to do it and I need your help. So I love that you brought up those two points. Those are amazing things and I think everybody struggles with that. Kiera Dent (08:55) Yeah. I think, and I think that that's something that I feel you and I both strive to do is tell people feel like they're not alone. I think so many doctors feel like I'm the only one out there. I'm the only one who can't keep my team there. I'm the only one who has team turnover. And like, this is not the path that we were even on my radar to head, but I think it's obviously the most important path for people to hear. ⁓ I think Paul, it's the no judgment. It's the hang through it. It's, ⁓ having a guide, a mentor who's been there, done that, done that successfully. I mean, you and I can both like, Gosh, you like grit through that and it's painful. But I also believe that while yes, painful, I feel it's an evolution of soul that you actually internally are craving. I don't believe that we rise to the call until we're ready. Like Kieran 2020, when I'm sitting on Johnny Depp like boat in the ocean, it was on fire. I was not ready for the call and the evolution that came in 2024 for me. Like I just, wasn't ready for it, but come 2024. And I think it's a, it's a shedding, it's a shifting. It's a, like, I call it like the skin sloughing. Like it's like a snake, like you're leaving it behind. It's, I watched penguins when I was in Antarctica, like small flex there, Paul. Like the Antarctica trip was pretty rad. And we watched it. Right? We went to Antarctica. Penguins are so cute and they smell terrible. Like they're like little ketchup bottles that just squirt poop all day long. And it's disgusting. Paul Etchison (10:11) I was just going to follow up on that. Whoa. Kiera Dent (10:25) but they were molting when we were there and they just looked absolutely miserable. Like they sat there and they told us like, please don't touch the penguins. like, these look just, they're like, it's very painful for them. They're having to completely molt off all of these feathers. And I think that that's how I feel a lot of business owners are like, are you going through that molting process? But again, just like those penguins, just like us, I really do believe that when we're ready to be called to that higher level, one, you're not alone, two, you don't have to go through it alone. Three, it's normal and it's part of growth, but like, there's also, you don't have to grow until you actually want to. Like, it sounds like Isaac was just ready. Like, I'm ready, I'm done. Like, I've hit my limit. I was ready, I was done. I was like, we are having a complete culture shift. Like, we're done and like, it needs to evolve. Sounds like you had it. But I also feel, and I don't know how you feel, Kieran 2020, Kieran 2024, even into 2025, leadership culture company. keeps evolving. don't feel like I have as many of those like huge molting in 2020, huge molting in 2024, 2025. It's more of a shift in a refinement rather than a full molt. But that's, think how, at least for me, that's how I think I view leadership is. Paul Etchison (11:37) Yeah, totally agree. It's like we go through these stages of leadership growth. And I remember for me, like leadership all the way up to COVID was like system, system, systems, consistency with team. And my team grew to like 35, 40 people and it got really unmanageable. And then when we came back from COVID from being shut down, I really wanted to try to do something different. And I wanted to keep that. ⁓ I just loved when we were shut down for COVID. I loved how it felt. It felt easy. And I said, I want that, but I don't want that craziness when we open up again. And when I did, I started to feel that same craziness. And I was going to therapy at the time. And like the therapist will tell you, just change your expectations. Don't take everything personally. And what I learned through that is there…
Full show notes at the publisherKiera is here with a gift to make your practice even better: The three most common mistakes dental practices make, and guidance on how to get out of them. Is your practice making one of these mistakes? Delegating tasks without ownership Avoiding hard conversations Flying blind on your numbers Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera and today is one of my favorite topics of all time. It's how to avoid the pitfalls because I feel like these are costly mistakes that dental practice owners make. We make these costly pitfalls. We go into them. We don't know about them. And you guys, if you know me, I have a mantra and I say, don't lose money. I hate losing money. It's one of my biggest pet peeves and I don't want you to lose money. So I'm excited to talk about it. I hope you guys are excited because... The reality is like so many people talk about like, success leaves clues and it does, but so does failure. And I I talk about this a lot when I present and when I speak and I say like success and failure are truly not radically different. They're not, they're like small little things. It's like successful practices are consistent. Successful practices put systems in, successful practices look at their KPIs, successful practices have team meetings that are effective. Successful practices have CEO time. Successful practices have delegation and ownership. Successful practices ⁓ follow through. They look at their case acceptance. They make their re-care calls. They do their reactivation. They do different verbiage. Like that's what they do. Failure practices don't stay consistent. They always have an excuse. They're always blaming. ⁓ They don't check their case acceptance. They don't track their KPIs. They don't look at their numbers. They don't take CEO time. Like these are just little steps. And like with my fingers, if you're just listening, I'm like, almost like scallops, like if we've got a middle point, success is I checked my KPIs, failure is I didn't check my KPIs. And while that's not like a huge move, it is moving you points away to where you end up either closer to success or closer to failure. And so I think when we realize this, these are the ones, like, how can I help you guys avoid these costs and mistakes? How can I like motivate and inspire you and like, not just motivate, but genuinely change you? So that way it's not this I like, well, shoot, we're on failure row. Shoot, like, I don't really know about this. Like, I just want to talk about three of the most common mistakes that people make and how do you correct course because you're going to make mistakes. But like if I'm doing the scallops again, successful offices realize like we didn't do the KPIs. So we're going to start doing the KPIs and we don't miss those. We're going to hold the meetings and we don't miss those. they course correct before they end up in the failure or the success bucket. They're course correcting constantly. And so this is just like where I'm at coaching hundreds and thousands of offices, team members galore, our team, like literally, I feel so blessed that we get to serve so many offices. I just saw like this really awesome highlight reel of all these doctors that came in person and I was watching it with Jason and I look over and Jason's just the sweetest thing. He's tearing up and he said, Kiera. I knew when you started Dental A Team, it was going to be like, he's like, I never imagined it being what it is today. He said, but all those people's lives, including all of you listening to the podcasts, all of those lives that we've been able to change because of Dental A Team Gosh, that is just such a blessing. It's such a beautiful thing. And I just want to say thank you. Like, thank you for being here. Thank you for being a part of the offices. Thank you for being a part of my Dental A Team podcast family. Thank you for just showing up. Thank you for changing lives through dentistry. Thank you for giving people a gift of confidence. Like, And for me to be able to give you a gift to make your practice even better, that's what I'm here for. That's what Dental A Team's about. So like we're here to help you recognize patterns. We're here to help you avoid burnout. We're here to help you make small changes before they become giant snowballs. And I think like my thought process has always been I'm here to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. We're here to share this podcast message with every single office out there. We're here to help offices realize like running a successful practice. does not have to be hard. It can actually be easy. And let's give you the tools, the tips, the resources, all of that to make your life a grand success. So if that sounds great to you, we'll rock on. So step number one, mistake number one that's very costly is delegating tasks without ownership. So like so many offices, hear them like, Kiera, I listened to the podcast and we implemented it, but like it just didn't work out. And I'm like, yeah, cause you delegated it and you didn't have the structure, didn't have the ownership, you didn't have the accountability, you didn't have the metrics. Like, okay. One of the doctors called this doctor out and they said, this doctor is a walking cheat, like cheat code. Go talk to him, go ask him what he does because he's been able to take his practice for massive success, which is true. When I met them, were doing about 1.5. Now we're clearing five. We're going to be crushing six to seven. And I just like, gosh, the giddiness in me for this office. Like they deserve the sun, the moon, the stars. Like you name it. They're just such good humans. And so when I think about this, like we're talking, this is a practice that went from like 1.5, 2 million up to this six, $7 million practice now, something I've noticed. And like I said, this doctor is a walking cheat code. They, when we go in and we're like, okay, we're going to roll out this new process. So we're going to do a new process on how we do case acceptance, or we're going do new process on how we do cancellations. They don't just go to the team and be like, all right guys, we're going to do cancellations. They are like, we're going to build an SOP. we're gonna have a team training, we're gonna have a metric, we're gonna do it for these four weeks. And they don't take a long time to execute on that. So it's like, perfect, we're gonna have this done in the next three weeks. But they execute, it's rolled out, it's like, it's very, very thorough. And this is a practice of a very large team and they all do it consistently. And when something gets off, they just go right back to the SOP, they update the SOP, where was it missed? What do we need to do? Let's do a team training on it. But I will say I've coached hundreds of offices and this is one office that I watch constantly that is able to delegate, have ownership and be able to have a full team move and stay hyper accountable. So this is just like, you've got to have ownership. You've got to have SOPs. You've got to roll it out to the team, make sure everybody's aware. And then we've got to have the metrics and the check-ins to make sure something's not off. And if it is off, we follow through on it. So people know that when we roll out new processes, they're here to stick. They're not just like a flash in the pan of like, I heard it on a podcast. Let's try it out. No, it's very, very, very thorough. So a quick check for you is like, go back and look at the last three things that you delegated. Did you assign them? Did you own them? And did you have follow up on it? crickets. Yeah, yeah, because you did it. Darn it. But you're going to do it in the future. Or maybe you did. And I'm high fiving you. But most of the time, people don't. And this is so costly because then you can't ever be free. You think you're moving. You're taking one step forward, but you're actually taking like 500 steps backwards because nothing's actually getting delegated. Nothing's actually moving forward. And you're only relying on your A plus star players that are building all these ownership accountability pieces. And people are like, but I want everybody to be that way. And I'm like, human nature is not. Tell me how you're doing on your New Year's. resolutions, probably not great because human nature by default doesn't stay accountable. Why do think I'm in business? because people, they know what they need to do. People are like, Kiera, I pay you to tell me like what to do that you do on the podcast. And it's like, yeah, because human nature is not follow through. Why do I pay a gym trainer? I've got all the resources, I got all the tools. I need somebody to literally hold me accountable to make me show up to work out. So look at the last three tasks. Did you delegate them? Was their ownership? Did you follow up on them? Did they have a metric? If not, it up, fix that and start to delegate with ownership and accountability. So mistake number two, are you guys ready for this? It's avoiding hard conversations. ⁓ man, that's a crowd drop off. This is so real though, because we don't have like Patrick Lanziani has the five dysfunctions of a team. And if you and your team have not read this, I highly recommend it's a very easy fable. Have it as like some like, evening reading. It's so fast, it's so easy and it's very, very great. And I think it's a reread. So if you've listened to it in the past or you read it, maybe do a reread. ⁓ But when we don't have trust and vulnerability and then we don't have healthy debate, AKA hard conversations, what happens is like little small issues become cracks and cracks aren't bad. But if cracks stay there, they actually break and then it becomes toxic and then it arose the entire team. So in leadership, we've got to have, let's like, I coached his office. guys might know him. He's incredible. ⁓ They've got a lot of offices. think I did seven office visits ⁓ in three days. We were hauling booty. And I love this doctor because he pays for me to come in to coach his teams, to teach them how to have uncomfortable conversations, to remind them like this is why we're here. And the more we have just a few of these and we get away from the fear of discomfort. and wanting to keep the peace, which is actually artificial harmony, we like care, we align and we move forward. And we use the sports analogy on this of, can you just imagine like pick your favorite sports team, basketball, baseball, soccer, I don't care what it is. Can you imagine for one second, like we'll just use basketball for instance, or football. Like if the quarterback or the point guard goes in, like let's do football, because they get thrashed. Like if that quarterback gets thrashed because his defensive line is not protecting for him. or no one's open because they didn't follow the play, can you just imagine if that quarterback runs off the field and is like, hey coach, could you tell the defensive line to cover for me next time? Like absolutely not. Or if that quarterback is just like, I'm just so angry with my defensive line. Like they didn't block for me. Like, no, can you imagine? Like, no, they call it out. Like you got a freaking block for me. Like we need to win this game. I need this to happen. And they do it in real time because everybody on the team, is committed to winning and they call each other in real time of their blind spots. Like my brother said, I'll play basketball. I played tennis. You got to call it in the moment. Like my dad is like, you got to call it in real time. You got to say, Hey, I need you to block. I need you to box out for me. I need you to like throw the ball. Like I'm here. Like I need you guys to get open, whatever it is. But like, if we can get a little bit better, that that's our culture rather than a, we sit here pretending to be perfect, but ultimately hating each other. and hate's probably a strong word, but creating gaps. And so what I encourage is we normalize uncomfortable conversations. We normalize and encourage it. We push on peer to peer accountability. We have each other instead of it being up to the coach, AKA office manager or doctor, to each other, peer to peer, to where we talk about it. We wanna get the W, we wanna win. And so helping your team realize that this is going to be the best way for us to win is to have these hard conversations. And it's not, I say it's not confrontation. It's just a conversation. Like let's take that hard out of there, but let's say what needs to happen. And so I would say, doctors, one of the worst things you can do to your great players is to tolerate the poor performance of a lower player. ⁓ Because they're watching you. They're watching to see standards are not what you say. They're what you tolerate. And so when you're A plus players are watching, like, well, doctor is going to do this constantly or doctors are not going to care about that. Now team members, can rise up and you can take care of things too. Doctors, we've also got to make sure that we're encouraging and we're having the hard conversations too. I don't think you know how much I do not enjoy hard conversations, but I know as a leader, as a boss, as a CEO, as a consultant, I have got to have the hard conversations and I'm going to keep having them. They're not easy, but they are my responsibility and I'm going to show up as a good team member because actually that's better than living in artificial harmony. It's so much better. So there's a great quote. If you want it, your success and happiness, that's my add on your success and happiness are directly proportional to the number of uncomfortable conversations you're willing to have. So if you want to grow, if you want to rise, how many of you look at your KPIs or your numbers like, gosh, freaking schedule is not full. Like, oh, like our profitability, like, but I go to my team meetings and I'm like, great job guys, you're doing great. Why don't we call it out? Hey, profitability is not where it needs to be. What are our solutions to get it to where it needs to be? I'm not being a jerk. I'm not sitting here sizzling. Hey, our schedule is not up to goal. What are we doing to get that fixed? Let's have a conversation. Let's fix it. Let's normalize that. That's calling out in real time. Hey, our schedule is not to goal. Like what's our solution? How are we going to get there? It's like it's a huddle. It's a genuine huddle. Think about sports players. Like they get together. Like you need to block. I need you to call that person. I need you to do this. You guys need to call that all the hygienists. If you've got downtime, call seven patients, whatever it is. That's how we get the W. something rude, let's normalize that we are a team. We call each other out. We celebrate when we win. Also like on the flip, like let's go to basketball, let's go to football. When they score a touchdown, the…
Full show notes at the publisherTiff and Monica provide exclusive, step-by-step insight into creating hiring ads that both grasp your specific practice's strengths and needs, and attract those rockstar team members you've been looking for. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are back today. I think we used to call it Consultant Takeover and now it's just literally a podcast, but it's my consulting team. And gosh, I love these days. You guys get to hear me just brag about the consultant team and the Dental A Team in general. And I have one of my faves. All these women are some of my favorite human beings in life. we got to recently, we were able to spend some really good quality time together and really just. Honestly, it was just fun. Like it wasn't even one-on-one, like getting to know each other. It was just really getting to know each other by proxy of having fun together. And if no one here listening knows, fun is one of our core values. And that is one of the core values. I don't even know. You may know this, but it was one of the core values that Kiera and I have had literally since day one. That was one that has never changed. Fun has always been there. We did have it really high. used to be our number one core value. And then we realized like, it was setting a weird precedent. So it's not quite as high anymore, but fun is massive for us. And we really, truly believe if you're not having fun, what are you even doing? I think there's oftentimes in life that things are not necessarily quote unquote fun, but there should be some air of sprinkles on top that can make life a little bit more fun in the end. So Monica, you make podcasting fun, your way of thinking. I like following. Monica (00:59) Yeah. The Dental A Team (01:22) your thought process. really, it is really fun for me to follow the thought process, especially because I tend to think I'm pretty good at knowing where someone's going or what they're doing, what their intent is. Like I'm usually pretty good at keying into it, but sometimes you catch me and I'm like, dang, I love how your brain works. So I love it because you make me think a little bit harder, like a little... more intentional, I like the word intentional. You make me think a little more intentional than I do on my day to day. So thank you for being here today, Monica, and shedding your brilliance on the Dental A Team, listeners and team. How are you this morning? It's a Monday morning for us and we're just at it bright and early. How are you? Monica (02:09) I'm doing great, Tiff. Thank you. Thanks for inviting me. You know, I think one of the things that attracted me and I was really curious about the Dental A Team was that core value of having fun because, you know, we just kind of get a little serious and boring as we become adults. And I'm like, gosh, I don't ever remember thinking like, my gosh, this work should be fun. Sometimes it is fun, but should it be fun? And I was so curious about that. to be honest, I think I shared this. I struggled a little bit with adding the fun factor in, you know, when I think about work and in my day. And I'm so glad that I decided to join the Dental A Team because that is my core value. Every day that I wake up, I'm like, I'm going to make this so fun today. What's going to be fun about my day? And I think fun is just a mindset. Right? Because you can do hard things. You can have hard conversations. You can have a hard day and still look for the fun and still make it fun. ⁓ So thank you. Thanks for inviting me today. This is one of my, I guess, new hobbies, newfound passions is podcasting, unscripted podcasting, ⁓ going with it. Right. And just seeing what our brains kind of like come up with. So. The Dental A Team (03:31) Yep. Monica (03:35) just so you all know, this is unscripted. This is ⁓ just real time and I love it. I love the authenticity of it, right? Because this is where great ideas are born with no agenda. it's, you you and I have like this really great kind of cadence and engagement. One thought leads to another. And sometimes I have to stop myself because I can see myself going down and, you know, a rabbit hole and just, you know, and so we'll... We'll keep it short and sweet and impactful. The Dental A Team (04:07) Awesome. I love that. Thank you. And I'm glad that you, I'm actually glad that you mentioned that I do. I do think it's important for listeners to know, like this is literally off the cuff. Uh, 99.9 % of it, have a topic and we like brainstorm for a quick minute, but really we have no idea what's going to come out of these podcasts until it's done. So it is a really magical experience. And I like it that way because I think that, like you said, there's, there's more ideas that are born in that kind of a mindset and it does, it keeps it fun. Monica (04:12) Thank Yeah. Yeah. The Dental A Team (04:36) Monica, been actually, it's been really fun. From my seat, I get to see the evolution of consulting and the evolution of ⁓ your position at the, at the company. And it's, was, it was been really cool. And I think for the listeners to know the Monica that you see today has always been here, but she was more reserved. And I think that comes from, it's fair. It's fair. comes from just, like you said, the older we get, more. we lose that like the Santa Claus effect. Like we lose that magic and the sparkles and reality sets in and we get, my boyfriend likes to call himself a realist. He's a pessimist a lot of times, but he calls himself a realist, which is fair. But we do become this like realist mindset when we're just like factual and we're like checking off the lists and we're so diligent and we tend not to laugh as much as we wanted to before. for us fun just means that We enjoy what we're doing. We bring an element of fun to our consulting. So when we work with you guys, like we're having fun. We're enjoying what we're doing. We're laughing. We're making light of the situations that we can. And we're making massive changes with easy implementations that totally just change the game for you guys. And that to us is so much fun for us to sit back and see. We can make a millimeter tweak on something that feels so massive in your world. and then it all falls into place. And it's just really cool. think of like the implants, know, they're tweaking, tweaking, tweaking and torquing. And you can go a millimeter too far or be a millimeter too short or be like spot on. And that's what I think of like that, that implant torque. We're not making massive adjustments, but we're making massive impacts and implant changes someone's life, but it's minimal adjustments. Monica (06:25) Yeah. Yeah, I think ⁓ just to add to what you said, it's really important to take some time to see through the childlike eyes, right? With awe and wonder. ⁓ think it's also important not to confuse fun with playtime, right? Because work is serious stuff, what we do, right? We can have fun and get the job done and have those really impactful days ⁓ because it is a serious The Dental A Team (06:45) Yes. Yes. Monica (06:58) business, right? ⁓ And fun doesn't equal playtime. And I remember a client of mine saying, well, you know, it's all you guys sound to like fun. And I'm like, yeah, because work should be fun. What you're doing is amazing. You are helping people achieve their goals, their wellness goals, the smiles that they've wanted, maybe relieving someone out of pain and, you know, shame and everything that goes around, you know, dentistry. The Dental A Team (07:23) Yeah. Monica (07:28) And you're impacting, you know, your team's lives and your community's lives and your own life. And it should be fun. You should see the beauty of that, right? ⁓ So it's not all fun and games, guys. It is serious stuff. When we say fun, that means live life, you know, with joy and wonder and childlike lenses. So ⁓ if you, I think if you approach, you know, the day with that mindset, everything is lighter, everything is ⁓ easier, right? There's a place to things and there's just, you you're operating from a heart space versus your mental space, you know? The Dental A Team (08:08) I agree. Yeah, I agree. I agree. And I understand that everybody's going to have a core value of fun and that's okay, too. You don't have to. You truly don't have to. And you don't have to come in in the same mindset as we do. Just know that's how we operate. And when you work with us, that's what you're getting. You're getting that fun mindset of how can we make small changes that make massive impacts. And one of those spaces, I've actually watched you, make some pretty massive impacts with a client of yours. So this is Monica (08:17) Yeah. The Dental A Team (08:36) This is a good topic that came up for us. We get our topics from our list and I thought this was a great one for Monica actually because you have been working with a client recently. This is on hiring and building hiring ads and I know you've got at least one and you've got multiple that are hiring, but you've got one that you've worked like literally hand in hand as though you're part of their, you are part of their team, but if your boots on the ground, part of their team because of their capacity and the type of hiring that they're doing. We've done this with a lot of clients, especially when they're hiring like office managers, because the office manager would do the hiring, right? So when they don't, which is the situation you're in now where they don't technically have like a dedicated office manager ⁓ with enough space in their world to do the hiring, even down to writing the ads and let's face it, the dentist CEOs, it's not your forte, first of all, most of the time, and you don't have time for it either. So building that out and Monica, have... the reason that it's applicable is you have had fun doing this with them. And there's been challenges too, but I think you've made some massive strides with them in this aspect. And the first space that you started was really learning the team, learning the practice, and writing ads that attracted the right type of people. And now you guys are in the interview process, but Monica. From the lens of consultant working with this practice or other practices you've done as well, how do you advise them and how do you help craft those ads to speak to their needs? And everyone's so different, right? So how do you do that and what suggestions do you think people could take away from today to do that on their own as well? Monica (10:18) Yeah, that's a great question, Tiff. And you're right, I've had a fun time ⁓ kind of wrapping my arms around this one client that does need it. I think one really important factor is like, remember who you are. Why are you great? When we are in a space of lack, whether we're lacking appropriate team members or we're not, you know, doing what we want to do. We're not doing the dentistry that we want. We're not where we should be. ⁓ I think we go down this rabbit hole of like, and almost inertia kicks in, you know? So let's reframe that mindset. Why are you great? Why did you start this? You know, how do you measure success? So I always say great leaders at ask great questions. ⁓ Ask yourself those questions. Why am I great? What's different about me? Do I want to be different? And if so, what makes me different? What do I do differently than my colleagues in the area? And identify who you are. What's your persona? What do patients say about you? Go to your reviews, pull up your Google reviews, do a little kind of investigative work, a self-discovery. about your practice. What are your Google reviews? What are patients saying about you? What do you want to be known for? The Dental A Team (11:52) Yeah, I love that. actually, Simon Sinek, I listen him a lot and he speaks about your why, right? Finding your why. And he says often, if you're trying to figure out what is your special gift, like what is your talent? What is it that you're here? What is your purpose? He says, ask your friends. Ask your friends why they are friends with you. What is it about you that your friends... Monica (12:16) I love that. The Dental A Team (12:19) stick around for or that they lean on you for. And I think Monica, that makes me think of the Google reviews. Like ask your patients, like why do your patients come back? Why does your team who you have currently, why are they your team? What are they speaking about you? And I think that can go twofold, right? Cause you're gonna find out some things that you may not have, that might not be super fun. It might not feel really good to hear some of the things, but those are areas that fantastic. Let's pull that into a KPI. How can we improve that? But you're gonna hear so many things as to why people love you, why they love your practice, why you. so I love that self-discovery start. I think it's really, really massive. Monica (12:55) Yes. Yeah, you're absolutely right. You're gonna hear some things that you may not want to hear, but I would say approach this exercise with the mindset of gratitude. Be grateful for the feedback. Be grateful for the positive feedback and be grateful for the not so positive feedback. That's a little harder to swallow, you know? ⁓ Don't attach yourself to the outcome. Attach yourself to the process of, right? And so even when you don't have a good The Dental A Team (13:03) Yeah. Monica (13:29) ⁓ you know, less than favorable outcome or response or feedback. would say, thank you. Thank you for sharing that because this is how I'm going to get better. That's not how I want to be perceived. Right. Would you mind sharing more? Would you mind if I asked further questions? Right. Get curious and be grateful, grateful that people are willing to step out and be honest. Right. ⁓ it takes courage. It takes courage for that. so I always say don't. attach yourself to the outcome, but the process of. You can learn a lot about yourself in that process and your practice. I think Google reviews are really important because it's your patient's perception of their experience, not of you per se. And it may not be your reality, but it's their reality, right? So it allows us an opportunity to dig deeper and learn more, right? Opportunity, gratitude, what's your story? I would say start with those things, those three things, right? One of the other things that I like to do is I like to see what's out there. What are other ads that are posted in my area? What are the competitors looking for? What are they saying about their practice, right? And I put on my hat of I'm looking for a job and I am a rock star. ⁓ whatever it is, office manager, treatment coordinator. I'm a Rockstar treatment coordinator and I am looking for my next home. What ad calls my attention? Which one am I going to click on? What ads am I scrolling through? Right? Because if you want Rockstar employees, you have to have a Rockstar ad. Right? And so if your ad is ⁓ The Dental A Team (15:17) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Monica (15:24) the same as the other ads, ⁓ it's gonna be about the money. So who are you? Why should a Rockstar treatment coordinator come work for you? Start with your story. What are the qualities that you…
Full show notes at the publisherRe-releasing a DAT listener favorite! The Dental A-Team is Team Online Statements over Team Paper Statements! This podcast episode is a sign your practice needs to get on the online statement train. Lots of practices struggle getting collections up because they're doing it the old-fashioned way. Listen in for the four steps you should take to make it as easy as possible to collect payments from your patients. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today we are bringing you something so special. I am so excited because this is one of our most popular episodes from the archives. Whether you're hearing this for the first time or catching it again, I am so excited because it's jam packed with a ton of takeaways that you can start using right now in your practice. We have released thousands, literally thousands of episodes. And I wanted to start bringing a few of these amazing episodes back for you. So I hope you enjoy. And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time. on the Dental A Team podcast. The Dental A Team (00:32) You guys, happy day to you. I hope you're doing fantastic wherever you are. And I hope you are just enjoying life. I think I need this podcast more than you guys might need this podcast. I've got the COVID crank, guys. I feel like I've just gotten angry and sick of not being able to hire people and frustrated with just feeling like I'm trapped. Maybe any of you are feeling that way. Hey, just shoot me an email, say me too, you can text me. ⁓ But I hope we can all remember today, for me, when I'm in those modes, I have to literally go to my journal and do gratitude. And I also listen to, I've got a podcast that I listen to over and over and over again. Yes, you guys know I'm obsessed with Tony Robbins. ⁓ And this one is when it says change your life in 2021. And I will literally listen to that podcast over and over and over again and remind myself of how many great things there are in my life. ⁓ I don't think it's important to say like my life could be so much worse because while it can, that just negates your feelings of feeling yuck. And right now for me, I feel like I'm feeling very stagnant. But last night I had to remind myself that ⁓ just like... The world has seasons, our life has seasons. And right now, instead of maybe being in massive growth and full bloom, it's not quite spring yet. So maybe being okay to hibernate, to slow down a little bit more, to get ready for that hustle and bustle of bloom seasons. I didn't feel like I really slowed down through the winter hibernation seasons. And so maybe just also allowing yourself and your practice to go through the seasons as well. That way you can have vibrant springs. You can have very flowing summers, you can have more harvest in the fall and then have that hibernation quiet time as well. But definitely give yourself that space and not mitigate the reality of what you're facing. So today guys, ⁓ with that said, I'm here for you. If you wanna be here for me, I'll take it. So just email me guys. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. I'd love to hear from you. I truly do, I enjoy hearing from you guys. So thanks for being my pen pals. I never really had a great pen pal growing up. Did any of you guys have a good pen pal? Because if you did, also tell me that. Like you guys, you don't understand. Your emails that are just like a, Kiera, I'm a massive fan, I love the podcast, yeah, I had a pen pal. Those ones are some of my favorite emails of the day. You guys, I average hundreds of emails every single day. And so to get those little sprinklings of fun ones, they just make my day. So thank you for those of you who have done that. And if you're thinking about it, do it. Also, I do love ⁓ in the I travel a lot guys and I get bored a lot. I'm a very busy human. I appreciate when you guys leave us ⁓ reviews on the podcast. You guys are helping shout out to this podcast family guys. Our downloads are cranking. So whatever you're doing, keep doing it. If you're sharing this, if you're leaving reviews, do it, do it again. Have somebody else that you know do it as well because guys we are on track to break that millionth download this year and you guys are the only way that we can do this. So. Keep it up, we skyrocketed in the month of January. February is on track as well. So guys, keep moving, keep moving. And the way you can help us out, I'll give you specifics. Number one, if you have not done so, go leave a five star review on the podcast. Whatever platform you're listening, that helps us, because it helps them rank us higher so other people can find us. Number two, download the podcast. I know it sounds so dumb, but actually, Download it not just listen that helps it as well because then more people will find us because they're ranking us as a higher podcast and number three shared on social platforms So when you guys are listening, please guys have a story about us tag us in it post if there's a great topic that you're loving post that podcast because I know a lot of you guys are listening you can even just take a quick selfie while you're in the car and tag Dental A Team podcast you don't even have to list the episode those are three great ways you guys can help us radically increase our downloads and break that millionth download. Why do we care about one million downloads? I'll tell you, because we're on a mission to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. Well, guess what? If you guys don't help us share the word, we can do the work all day long and create great content. But if you guys don't share, we're only going to be able to impact as many people as we have, which is thousands, guys. I can't believe how many people listen to this podcast. It's almost three years old, guys. And guess what? you're helping to grow this into a legacy of helping other practices. So thank you guys. Kudos to you giving you a massive hug of appreciation. And with that, let's segue into a really great topic and that is on paper statements versus online payments. Ooh, sexy, fun, everything more. Just shut the podcast off right now. I hate billing. I'm just kidding. I'm going to make it fun for you. So if your practice is sending out paper statements, rock on. I'm happy for you. If you have online payments, even better rock on. If you don't have online payments, get it done because online payments are the way of the future. Let me just ask you guys, how many things do you pay online? Let's just quickly like think of everything we pay online. I buy airline tickets online, hotels online, Amazon. I promise you everybody here shops on Amazon. ⁓ Amazon, I order Christmas presents online, birthday presents, gift cards to favorite restaurants. 99 % of everything we do is online. There's very few things that we actually still physically have to go to a location to do. So a lot of practices struggle getting their collections up because they're doing it a bit old fashioned. That's okay. It's worked in the past. There's still a great thing for it. But paper statements, you guys really, I think are becoming a way of the past. And we need to make sure we have an easy way for our patients to do it, to make payments. I thought about this, if I were to say, could you please pay me, but I'm only available via check, which, or you can call me during the hours that I'm available. I probably wouldn't get many people paying their payments because odds are the hours that I'm available are the hours that they're actually at work making money to be able to pay those bills. Doesn't that feel a little backwards? Like if we really stop and think about what we've done, we're like, you need to call us between the hours of eight and five. Like I have a company that's trying to get me to do a scheduling appointment. Oh, I want to poke my eyes out. I'm not kidding. I'm going on five months of trying to get this thing scheduled. Five, count them up. One, two, three, four, five. The reason that it's a pain in the booty is because they are asking us to go to this place from the hours of 10 to three. I don't know if he has, no, but from the hours of 10 to three. I don't take a lunch, my coaching calls go straight through. My husband is a pharmacist and actually is a clinical pharmacist, so sees patients all day long in heart and vascular. So for us to get time to go to this appointment, what do we have to do? We have to take time off or do it on our lunch hours. But guess what? My husband's in leadership and I run a company, so lunch hours really don't and it's an appointment I don't really have a burning desire to go do. Hashtag paying payments is something people don't really want to do. So how hard is it for them to actually get in your schedule and pay your bills? The answer is we've made it very hard for them. I don't like to make it hard for people to pay me money. So how can you make it easier? Number one, the first and foremost easiest way to do it is you can actually contact your credit card processor and see if they could actually put that button on your website. Believe it or not, Dental A Team are pages for payments that clients, so if it's like gold or silver or platinum, those are actually made by my credit card processing company. They made the web pages for my payment portal. So your credit card processing companies can do that. If you need a great credit card processor, give me a call. ⁓ Email us, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. We've got some great ones that have great rates. Make sure you're, that's actually a like fun, like just saving money for your practices, checking your credit card rates. but you can have them literally put a button on your website for you. So that's like a great easy way to do it. Then you can update your software that says make a payment online. How many of you when you're paying bills, just go online to pay your bills? I will tell you I do it. The only time I call somebody is if my bill is different online than what it was on my paper statement. So there is a benefit of paper statements to let me know to pay it, but guess what? If we could go one step further and do a text to pay our statements, we're way more likely to actually text than to respond to paper. So for me, when it comes to online payments, first and foremost, you gotta get it there. Secondly, Modento, and I do think, don't quote me on this, I do think Dental Intel either has or is coming up with online payments. Those are probably my top two. Flex also does it for Open Dental. They only work with Open Dental. Modento works with all the major softwares. ⁓ I know, ⁓ gosh, Care Stack, they also have a built-in for online payments. but find a way to get online payments into your statements. I personally love to just text people their statement first. You can also email statements first. Think about how much money you're saving just on stamps and paper alone and printing by not mailing out these statements. Also, they've proven you're much more likely to get a text message open rate than you are to have people actually respond to emails or mail. So that would be how I would suggest you set this up. Then if we... are still mailing paper statements, totally fine. ⁓ At the Dental A Team, we actually love to send two statements, so that's 60 days worth of statements, if they haven't paid via a phone call or a text message, okay? This is super important. A lot of people hear, Kiera said I can still send two statements. That is true if you have already called them and texted them to try and get payment before we mail a statement. Okay, did you catch that? Only do you mail a paper statement if you've already called and texted to try and collect payment over the phone before we mail the statement. And that's both times we mail the statement. So for the 30 day statement and the 60 day statement. Then after that on the 90 day statement, we're going to send our third statement on red paper. Again, this is assuming they have not responded to two phone calls, two text messages, and two already normal letters. That means I've contacted them how many times? Two phone calls, two text messages, and two letters. That was two four, six times I reached out to this person, okay? Then I'm gonna call them again, text them again. Now I'm up to eight times, I'm going to mail them a red letter. The red letter is going to be like final statement, okay? So you can see that red letter actually, Tiffany did it in a practice, drastically increase the collections because guess what? They saw this red piece of paper through the little window. That's going to probably tell them that they need to fix this quickly. So that's going to drastically help you guys out a ton. So make sure that third one you sent on red paper. So those are some of the easiest ways, guys, to be able to get your AR down, get money into your practice faster and easier, and make it more convenient for your patients to pay you. But let's not forget the number one most proactive thing you can do, and that is make sure that we're collecting over the counter with correct estimates. I really can't tell you how much people are just like, we'll bill you or we'll send you a statement. Guys, you can estimate a lot closer and more accurately. It's okay if there's a balance on the account, get smarter and adjust that for next time. So you get more and more accurate, but please, please, please, please, please collect over the counter first rather than just sending statements. Cause that's actually going to cut down the need for online payments. The goal should be that we actually can reduce that exponentially. So just wanted to give you guys a quick like. Couple of ideas, I hope if nothing else, number one, get a way to make payments online. I don't care if you use a software, I don't care if you call your credit card processor, but this quarter, make it your goal that you will absolutely 100 % have a way for your patients to pay online. Number two, call and text those patients, utilize those services. Again, like I said, my dental's great, dental intel's great, ⁓ Flexa's great, find a way, that way you can text and email statements to your patients. Your software probably can do it, so check that first. Then the third thing is make sure we're calling and texting before we send those statements out. This way we can make sure that we're maximizing our time and helping our patients do it. Let's think of how is the easiest way for these patients to pay their bills? Well, number one, not to give them a bill, right? Number two, to have it convenient because most people are going to pay bills after working hours when you're not in the practice. That's great. We want to be collecting money when we're not working. And number three, How can we make sure that we have a solid follow-up process with them that makes it very easy and convenient? Send out two white letters and send the third one out on red paper if they haven't paid. The goal is you should be sending out maybe one or two, maybe at the most 10 red letters a month because we should have already been able to collect. So guys, I hope that was helpful for you. If you need help getting this set up, if you need us to help coach your billing team ⁓ or your practic…
Full show notes at the publisherKiera takes listeners through specific actions the most successful dentistry minds have incorporated into their day-to-day to stay elevated. She touches on: Planning out an ideal week Reviewing these numbers weekly Fostering problem-solvers And more! Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera and I hope that you guys are having an amazing day today. I hope you're loving dentistry. I hope you're loving your opportunities. I hope that you are remembering that we have one life and I hope that you're making it the absolute best life you can. There's a song that I recently heard called Time's a Ticken and it's like, so call your mom, love your babies, talk to your friends and... I just think about it and another thing I saw were like, if your mom and dad are still able to call you, how blessed are we? And I know some people have strained relationships, but I think as much love that we can give and as much as we can foster great relationships in our lives and realize how much goodness we have, I think that's an amazing space for us. just hopefully you know how much I love and appreciate you and how much I'm rooting for you, whether I know you personally or whether... you are someone in our Dental A Team family, or if you are in our podcast family, or if you're new to this, just know I'm rooting for you. Even if I don't know you personally, ⁓ you're doing better than you think you are today. Guys, it's going to be fun. I want to talk about CEO habits for next level, like what top practice leaders are doing and just some tips for you. As we're rolling into a 2026, I love looking at habits and not necessarily fads, but habits. And so what do things do? And I believe that habits, not just hustle, are going to help you with success. ⁓ So many times it's like, well, what made the success successful? And it's like really consistency on doing the best things and the highest priority things consistently. And so giving a couple of three core habits that I think growth-minded leaders, practice owners have versus overwhelmed operators. And so really being able to give you that guidance and at Dental A Team we're obsessed with helping dentists become CEOs of their practices and having amazing teams thrive around them and. ⁓ Giving you guys all of that today is really what it is and we want you guys to feel clarity, confidence and consistency. And I know sometimes when you're in the whirlwind of the day-to-day business, it can feel very hard to have this. But I will say, if you can build these as a building blocks, the noise can lessen. I'm not gonna promise it will go away, but it can definitely lessen and doing it over time. Just like with front office team members were like, I just don't have time, Kiera. And we're like, great, let's put in a power hour. And they're like, it's never enough time. You're right. Today is not enough time, but if you do one hour a week blocked with no interruptions and you work on the highest level things, I've watched teams over and over and over again, be like, I actually don't need this hour anymore. And we get our recare calls done and we get our unscheduled treatment calls done and we block that and we do it. And office managers, they block that time and billers block the time to do insurance verification. It does not need to be a lot of time, but it does need to be consistent. So with that, you guys, this is going to be something that's a a habit, ⁓ daily and weekly habits that you can create that you can really just put into your life now. So number one is, this sounds so silly and I do this often, it's creating and committing to an ideal week. ⁓ And so that's being able to have a rhythm and not reaction. so what I noticed and it's crazy because as my company evolves, my life and my business and my schedule needs to evolve as well. When the business was smaller, I used to be able to run back to back to back to back meetings. There wasn't as much strategy that I needed to think about. There weren't as many hard decisions. There weren't as many like complex decisions that I used to be able to run a week like back to back to back. And then I realized like, I can't run like that anymore. I need to have like on time and off time, on time, off time. And then there's presenting like podcasts. Like you try to put meetings on a podcast day. You guys, am in podcast is creative land and I'm on presenting mode. And I'm like here hanging out with you guys and having a good time. don't put meetings where I'm trying to like figure out a budget that is such a different mind than a creative mind. And so really being able to block this where we have it and color coding your calendar. What I really do believe is as a CEO of a practice, you're going to have clinician time, right? You're going to have being a dentist. Then you're going to have leader time where you're developing your leaders. And then you're going to have visionary CEO time. And if you can block this in there and you don't have to have it perfect. So do I have leader time where I'm like developing my leaders and I'm spending time figuring out leadership pieces for them and investing in my leaders and coaching my leaders. Do I have that blocked in there? And then do I have this deep work visionary CEO time where I'm reviewing the financials and I'm answering questions from my office manager and doctors sometimes they even recommend you have another block of am I getting like all the busy work like the labs and the clin checks and the cases and looking at all the scheduling coming up. Do I have time to work on that? And blocking this and it sounds like, gosh, there's so much and there is, this is why you feel overwhelmed and you feel radical. So having my doctor dentists in time, my leadership development time, my CEO time, and then if you need any other time, great. I also put in my personal time. So am I working out and taking care of my body? And we did this with our mastermind group where I learned a thing called rapid planning method from Tony Robbins and I really enjoyed it. And then I took it of course, ended Kiera spin to it. But what I really loved is Tony actually had us rename our categories. So instead of saying workout time, it's my honoring my body time. And that was so much more fulfilling for me. And I also have buckets in there that are color coded of date time. Like I call it mine and Jason's forever love story. And what do I put into my calendar that's blocked specifically for that? And what's lovely is when you have colors around it, ⁓ you can actually make it to where you then are working on those specific areas. and you're able to see them very, very easily. So when we look at this, I think about my colors and my favorite color is pink. So I always have my Kiera section where I'm honoring myself. It's in pink in my calendar. When I'm working on Dental A Team and I used to like call it just Dental A Team. Now it's my passion project and it's blue. Honoring my body is orange. I needed that like vibrant orange, like getting excited about it. And I have that in there. my leadership visionary time, that's going to be a different color. For me, that's more of this like blue turquoise color. It's more serene, it's calm. So whatever that is for you, just having those color coordinated things and like I popped into my RPM planner. So I have my ⁓ ROASIS ⁓ is our home. And so working on my home, wealth, genius, fun, that's curious thing. And I always make sure I have fun built into my calendar. But I think like you can make it as complex or as simple as you want, but I would really recommend we've got our dentist time. our leader time, so maybe that's like our give back time or our development time or our like my first team time and then my visionary, my exciting time. What does that look like and really blocking that in your calendar? And so then we audit our week at the end of the week and I remember I was taught like many times like the most productive thing is to go back and look where did I win my week? Where did I like lose the week and what do need to change for this? And Even me going into a new year, actually have a new EA joining me pretty soon. So that's thrill. If any of you had a personal assistant EA that's been with you for a long time and you're getting a new one, let's ⁓ just say it's a thrill. And I'm really excited for Marissa to join as Shelbi's getting ready to have some life changes. And I'm so, so, so excited for her. ⁓ And going through that and being able to experience it, I realized I needed a different calendar. What I've been doing is not going to get me to where I need to go. And so we've been working on it and I like built it. You guys, I like to like really mass and like if I'm in podcast mode, I'm in podcast mode. And if I'm in coaching call mode, I'm in coaching call mode. And if I'm in business mode, I'm in business mode. ⁓ but I realized what I was doing is I was business mode. I was coaching call AKA dentists thing that I was in heavy meetings and then I was in podcasting. And I think sometimes when we run that heavy, it's very hard to have like downtime. And so for you looking, you're working as a dentist all four days. So could we block maybe Wednesday mornings where you have a catch up time or do we have a CEO day where it's a Friday and you actually have that block for four hours and you work on that. I have a dentist, he works Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays are always off and he works Friday. And I'm like, that is the weirdest schedule. He's like, Keira, I love it. I get all my admin stuff done when people are still there. I have time to think that's when I'm gonna work on my decisions. And then I go in and have a great Friday where I've got nothing on me and I produce my highest amount. And this doctor is a very high producing doctor but he's very regimented in how he does it. And that's how he's been operating for the last like 30 years. So when you implement this and you commit, so I'm like, okay, let's break it down. guys know I like to make it easy. I like to make it tactical for you. You got to block these areas. What am I done to seeing? When am I leading? And when am I thinking about the greater big like CEOing of the company? And if I'm only going to do one, I'm going to block a two hour block every single week to work on high level of the business. Just like I recommended for our leaders blocking one hour minimum per week of deep work time. and doing it at your prime optimal time. For me, it's early mornings. I operate so good from like 6 a.m. lately, it's been like 3 a.m. until about 11 and then like I'm out. I don't want to be thinking heavy. I don't like hard things. That's my operating. Just like I run on protein, Jason runs on carbs. Like it's just operating in how we function, but really making sure you do that. Again, this is a habit. It's a discipline. It's reviewing it. And I had a doctor who was really high level. We coached together for about a year and he said, Kiera, coaching with you was one of the most impactful years of my life. because you taught me to prioritize my calendar, to review my calendar, to work on my family relationships, to work on my leadership, to delegate, to see what things were in my calendar that I could delegate. And this person has grown and added multi-multi-practices and I'm so proud of him. But truly, this is going to be your best thing. So action on this of getting this habit into place is block two hours as your CEO time, no operations, no calls. You are just fully focused on the business and commit to doing that. for the next four months. Whoa, four months, can you imagine? Just try it. Test it out, tell me, Kiera, I'm trying the experiment. Email me, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. I'm committed to it and I want you to not break that promise to yourself. You hold it strong. I had a doctor who did this. She put a like sign on her door and she said, do not interrupt me at all. Now you have to hold this strong because if someone's like, hey doc, I just have a quick question. Nope, right now is my time and I need you to respect my time. I'll be available at this time. You call that one or two times and your team will not interrupt you again because they know you are dead serious on this. So review it. Now you're already doing that. I want you to take it one level further and I want you to add in your date time, your workout time, something that you are also adding in that needs to be blocked. And I want you to ramp it up one more. Okay, that's number one habit. Number two habit is reviewing your KPIs and your financials every single week. And you're making decisions based on data, not on feeling. So we all know that what we measure improves, right? All of that is there. So what it is is KPIs, you gotta be looking at those, whether you're using dental Intel, we recommend Addit. Practice by numbers, I don't care. All of our clients do get Addit. So if you're like, hey, I'm thinking about consulting, but I'm not sure about cost or guess what, we cover that cost for you and it's free for you and we also have other perks for you. So ⁓ definitely cost savings that way. And we help you build a scorecard and a dashboard and we teach your team to look at this. But you as a CEO of your practice, this is how you become a CEO. CEOs make decisions based on numbers and metrics, not on feeling and gut. but you have to take time to review the data to sift through the data. We have an amazing CRO on our team that's a chief revenue officer. didn't even know that was a position. And I have been begging our marketing team to go through our podcast data to figure out what did the listeners want? have, guys, oh my gosh, we're moving into, think our, we started in 2019. So this year, seven years on the pod, guys. I cannot believe that. Lucky seven over here. But thinking about it, I was like, go look at the data. want to, not just what Kiera feels and what I think you guys, are 1,100 episodes in by now. Like we should be able to have great data of what you guys want. And you're gonna hear a change this year because we actually went through Paul kudos to him. He went through and he looked at all the data and he said, all right, Kiera, here are the episodes doing well here. The episodes not doing well. Here are the things that listeners want. Here's how we need to revamp it. And I was so proud of him and so grateful because now we're building content based on what the data is telling us. But you know how long that took him? It took him like three months to go through it all, sift through it all. And for you, You've got data, you've got case acceptance data, you've got new patient call conversion data, you've got our billing, our AR data, you've got diagnosis of doctors, we've got hygiene period data. That is the stuff you need to be looking at to see how are we doing? You've got how long is it to our next appointment? We see how far out are we booking our new patients? We see how far out are we booking our six month appointments? Are we staying at six months? How much money are we losing? A doctor had me come in and I looked and saw it, you…
Full show notes at the publisherDAT consultant Kristy breaks down what exactly took place for a practice that didn't have a solid admin team, struggled to find team members, and other challenges to hit its goal of $3 million in revenue. She touches on what core systems were implemented, how delegation worked, case acceptances successes, and more that got this office meeting its five-year goal 44 months early. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: speaker-0 (00:00) Good morning, Dental A Team listeners. I am so excited to be here. You guys know that the consultants and I love recording these podcasts and I get to be here. This is our Monday morning mix up here for Kristy and I. have switched on some of our podcast recording and honestly starting my day. with these beautiful, beautiful minds has been something that's really, really turned a corner for me. I love starting the week and starting the day with podcasting. Kristy, thank you so much for being here today. ⁓ Gosh, how are you? How's life? How's Kristy's world? speaker-1 (00:35) Absolutely. I love being here and starting the day and the week with you as well and going well. mean, hitting the ground running end of year and really pushing planning for next year. It's been fun. Fun celebrating with clients and looking toward new goals for the new year. speaker-0 (00:55) Amazing. I love it. And you guys know we record these in ⁓ succession. We record these in advance and we get these prepped and ready for you. And something we're really excited to bring you today is something Kristy's found within her digging. So every year we help all of our clients prep for the next year. We look at what did we do this year? What was your growth this year? And it gives us an opportunity to see everything that has been done and what's worked really, really well. With all of our clients, we do this obviously monthly. And then we do a really big quarterly report and get all those information over there and make sure that we're on track for our yearly goal. But at the end of the year, it's this big push to say, realistically, realistically, where are we? And then where can we take you next year to really prep and plan? So this I am really excited for. like to, you know, I like to pick the brains of the consultants. And towards the end of the year now, as Kristy is getting all of these things ready and this recording, you know, comes out early January that or early new year, I should say at least. ⁓ We're just really excited to be able to see these numbers, share them with you, and then share some tactical pieces that Kristy's been able to develop and implement with this specific practice we picked today. So I am so excited, Kristy. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much for allowing me to pick your brain on your clients. I know you have a handful of platinum and gold clients that you work with constantly. are a... ⁓ you are a digger. Like I feel like you just you dig and you dig and you dig until you find that last missing piece that is that you know, I feel like you've got like thousand piece puzzle and you find you finally found that piece hiding under the table to finish your puzzle and that's it feels like that's what you did this year with this specific client. So Kristy again, thank you for letting me pick your brain and gosh, I I think the best place to start Kristy is to really highlight where they were this specific practice and then we can get into where you were able to take them with your consulting and their ⁓ you know their leadership within the practice. So where were they when they came to Dental A Team? They signed up just so you guys know as a platinum client. So this means that they had an hour and a half of dedicated time with Kristy dedicated means an hour of time an hour and a half of time with Kristy with access to Kristy outside of that. So that's why it's that dedicated time. So I know there were emails and there were text messages and then they also did the platinum package has two in office visits or our in person masterminds choice to be made there at sign up. So just so you know, they had the full package and Kristy take us, take us through it. Where were they when they signed up for that platinum package and they were just like, girl, get in my office. We need you here. What did their life look like? Yeah. speaker-1 (03:38) ⁓ truly Tiff, they were about 2.8 million last year and really pushing, striving to hit over that $3 million mark for this year. ⁓ but really having, struggling with team. they had no admin team members really when we started. so, ⁓ outsourced insurance, ⁓ trying to get that back on track and really struggling to find teammates, ⁓ of quality. So there was a lot of moving pieces I would say for this year. speaker-0 (04:14) Yeah, and how many providers did they have in office at 2.8 million for reference? speaker-1 (04:18) ⁓ Actually, they had ⁓ two and a half because they did have an associate starting the year as well, which phased out ⁓ through the year. speaker-0 (04:31) and how many hygienists. speaker-1 (04:34) three, three, four. speaker-0 (04:35) Hygienist, awesome. For two and a half doctors. Yes. Yeah, that makes sense. So thank you, Minette 2.8. I've been really looking to break that 3 million barrier with two and a half doctors, three hygienists. I like three hygienists is probably a little bit light for two and a half doctors, but that's where that 2.8 comes into play. It actually works out perfectly. So looking to really increase hygiene, to increase doctors, to really hit the ground running and get that 3 million. speaker-1 (04:38) Yeah, two and a Okay. speaker-0 (05:03) As you said, when they came, I think they, I recollect that they came and they just really didn't know what that extra piece was for that 200,000. Like they were like right on the cusp of it and where do I find it? And even just saying that, like going from 2.8 to 3 million, right? That 200,000 is like, oh, when I say it as 200,000, now I can think in providers, what do I need to do as far as providers, as far as treatment, et cetera? That makes sense. So it sounds like they needed an extra at least 200,000. They needed team members. They needed to figure out why they didn't have team members and then probably reduce their outsourcing and bring stuff back in-house, I'm sure. So Kristy, as it just brought oversight before we get into the nitty gritty, that's where they started. 2.8 lacking team members, really needing a plan. I know their profit was reflective of 2.8, they were reflective of needing more profit. Now, by the end of the year, so by the end of 2025, working as a platinum client with you, where did they end up? speaker-1 (06:10) Yeah, they're ending the year over 3 million and actually even cut working hours, Tiff. And I'll back up a minute and say truly, it was probably closer to two doctors by the time they split hours and still looking for another hygienist actually to add to the mix. with that being said, they hit their mark and surpassed it for sure. They've got about 18.5 % growth over last year. and doctors working less hours. speaker-0 (06:41) Amazing. And I think that's the ultimate goal, right? Most doctors come in and they're not like, okay, Kristy, teach me how to work five days a week and make $300,000. They're like, teach me how to work three days a week, two days a week, even get an associate in place and make $3 million or more, whatever that goal is. So 18 and a half percent growth is massive. And I know that's reflective also in their profit. And then where did their team kind of, I know that there's You guys, just have to say this for whatever reason, an instability in teams is not super uncommon anymore. It's just, is an ever fluctuating space. It's a, it's a moving piece that dentistry has not had in our lives before. think it's been in other industries. think other industries have felt these kinds of waves and they've dealt with this. It's not something that dentistry has really had until the last few years. So to say that they, had a lot of outsource to say that they had not as many team members as they might need coming into the year is not the most uncommon thing. And to continue to fluctuate with that is not the most uncommon thing. So I do want to preface with that, but Kristy, how did their leadership come along? And to get 18 and a half percent growth, there's got to be some sort of personal growth as well and leadership growth and kind of team stability in some areas at least. So how does that look? speaker-1 (08:06) Yeah, absolutely. And you are spot on. We did a lot of self-reflection and dug deep in our own leadership style and working on ⁓ developing a feedback loop for team members and for team members to doctors, right? And giving that reinforcing feedback and then developmental feedback along the way. So making sure that we had team touches every quarter. to guide the growth and development for sure. speaker-0 (08:37) Amazing, amazing. So leadership within the doctors for sure and the owners, but also leadership within the team and self-reflection within the team of job descriptions. this what I'm really good at? Is this what I want to do? Where can I do better or ⁓ learn more to enhance my position within the practice and really talking about those things? feel like I remember this. client and I remember because most clients are this way, they come in and they're just not talking about the things and I think that happens in every industry and every company and even families. We just don't talk enough and so really ramping up the communication within their departments and within each other as a full team, I think really helped to highlight some of the systems and implementations that you guys were able to develop. Do you agree? speaker-1 (09:29) I agree 100 % painting that clarity through their duties. And really we worked on delegation too. Being able to delegate and trust and then come back and track and verify. And it gave the doctors a peace of mind that things were happening. And once they started seeing that, it was easier for them to continue to delegate. speaker-0 (09:53) Absolutely. So I want to come back to the delegation because I know everybody is sitting there thinking, I need to write this down. How do I, what do I, what do I delegate? Right. It's not always just the, do I delegate? But sometimes it comes down to what do I delegate? So I want to come back to the delegate. But first I want you to maybe just highlight a few of the core systems that you guys were able to implement. And then we'll talk about within those systems, what were they able to delegate out to the team? So I can imagine. that there was some room for growth and some space for some diagnostics and making sure that we're diagnosing enough. know the first place doctors like to go or practices like to go is new patients. And that is a space and I'm not going to discredit new patients. But oftentimes we have to really take a step back and think, we making the most out of the opportunities that we already have and have been given? Or do we need more opportunities? So that's a That's a space where I think the consulting comes in and really helps to decipher based on the data that we have because we know what it takes to diagnose certain amounts. And yes, it depends. I know I've got an office that's in like a college area. And so yeah, he needs more opportunity because he's not got a lot of, you know, implants or whatever. But I know you guys really, really dug in and focused heavily on that aspect of the diagnosis, the new patients, all of that. So what were you able to uncover? within the diagnosis space and realistically that turns into your case acceptance too. speaker-1 (11:22) Yeah, really multifo-tiff, but for the most part, what we were noticing is doctors were really great at diagnosing. ⁓ They had probably over $3 million in diagnosed treatment even this year, and ⁓ case acceptance was a little bit lacking in that regard. ⁓ We had probably $2 million of unscheduled treatment walking out the door. and being able to hone in on our skills for ⁓ case acceptance, not only ⁓ financially finding solutions, but also how we're speaking to patients at the chair to create that value. We really worked hard to dial that in and it showed. We really captured and gained more case acceptance from patients. speaker-0 (12:17) Amazing. It sounds like that is again, going back to the communication within the team. So getting the communication or getting the team talking more, communicating more, really, really helps to increase the trust that the patient feels that the team starts trusting each other more. And you don't even walk around thinking I don't trust these people. It's not an apparent lack of trust. But the more you communicate with someone, the more intentional conversations you have. And the more you talk about the needs even just treatment planning that trust naturally builds. And then you just, you have a closeness. All of a sudden you're closer with people than you were prior and that's what it is. You're not walking around thinking I don't trust people, but then all of a sudden you're like, my gosh, I love these people. And that's how it's developed. So developing that within the team then transpires into the team, communicating more with the patients as well and communicating on a different kind of level, think, chair side even. regarding treatment and trusting the treatment planning. if we've got a team that's like, just honestly, if we've got a team that's not super emotionally close to the doctor or the practice or our vision or our why, if we're not bought into why we're here, we're not as intentional speaking about treatment. So really ramping up that communication, Kristy, feels like it was just such a space that transformed how they communicated about the treatment that gave them the opportunity to level it up. speaker-1 (13:48) Yeah, I agree with you 100%. We actually took a step back and revisited the doctors why and shared it with the team and let that really be our beacon of light in every, every interaction with our patients. So, um, and I would say even, even with that, you know, creating the team buy-in back to doctors, why and purpose for the practice. Um, and they were all committed and it showed. speaker-0 (14:17) That's beautiful. That's beautiful. And it really does make a difference because we need to know, we need something to believe in. We need something to go after. We need a goal. And then we need the inspiration of a why of something to believe in. What are we even doing here? So I love that. How what kind of systems did you use? And you can use actual, you know, dental lighting systems are all here on these podcasts somewhere we love giving. We love giving the information out. But what were the actual chair side? or ⁓ communication tools, what were the actual systems that you helped them implement that really changed their communication? So we can say, talk more. We've got to have the system behind it. speaker-1 (14:57) Absolutely. ⁓ Number one, the handoffs, making sure we're communicating with patients, whatever they came in on the phone call, whatever they said, making sure that was communicated to the clinical team and addressed with the patient. So they understood out of the gate, wow, you listen to me, right? And then hygiene handoffs to the doctor when they come in the room. ⁓ And then back to... the clinical team and clinical team going handoff to the front…
Full show notes at the publisherKiera and Tiff are on the pod together to ask, What are you working toward? Your professional purpose can often get lost when you're too buried in work, and the two invite listeners to take a step back and ask themselves key questions in order to recenter. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and it is Spiffy Tiffy and Kiera back on the podcast. I messaged Tiff and just said, Hey, are you free? Because the topic today, I actually think Tiff and I can really rift on of such a solid conversation. I'm really excited about. So Tiff, welcome to the podcast. How are doing today? The Dental A Team (00:19) I'm good. I'm excited because we haven't even, I don't even know what this, what you're thinking. So we're all learning this together, you guys. The Dental A Team (00:25) you It's true. This is the magic of Kiera and Tiff. We can truly pull each other in at any moment of any presentation and we pretty much can just pick up. And I think that's a beautiful thing when you have somebody that, I don't know, Tiff, it's just like, I was gonna say a funny joke, but I'm not gonna say that joke. We want someone who is so connected to you that just knows what you're going to do. It's truly pure magic. And we've literally had that since we met. So for those of you new to the podcast, welcome. Tiff and I are. just two girls who love dentistry and wanted to change the world. And here we are. We really are passionate about life and business. We're passionate about dentists having their best lives, team members having their best lives. And that's really the core of what Dental A Team is about. So to get both of us, mean, literally I met Tiff when I was a rookie business owner. So the fact that we're still here together, we still love working together, I think is a pretty magical, incredible thing. And we would just always have said, we wanted to build a business that we are proud of, that we enjoy working in. There have been times we have not enjoyed working here. I remember last year about this time I called you and we're both like, why is it so hard? Like I just remember it. And so there are ups and downs of a business, but in that vein, okay, Tiff, here's the preface. You ready? I'm going to tell you. So I was at the gym the other day and I absolutely hate with a passion sled pushes. Like I hate them. They are freaking hard. And Laura, my trainer, she like, I hate it. Like I don't have strong. shoulders, my knees like hurt like that's why I go to the gym like I've got these like dumb problems and I was pushing the sled and like I'm shaking every ounce me wants to just give up it is so hard it's not that far but I really absolutely like loathe sled sled pushes and sled poles and Laura yelled at me she's like Kiera what are you working towards think about that while you push this and I was like I'm doing a podcast on this and Tiff I feel like you are the perfect person to podcast with me on because that has set with me. And as I was pushing, I literally had the thought of I'm pushing to my 90, 100, 110 year old self that Tiff knows the vision. Cotton candy pink hair here, cotton candy blue hair on Tiff. We're going to be these like fit ripped grannies that are just living our best life, having so much fun. But I thought about that physically for my body. But I thought we do sled pushes and sled pulls in our business every single day. And to really start to think and dig deep of like What are we working for? What is that purpose? And Tiff, know that this is right up your alley, which is why I didn't even have to prep you on it. Cause I'm like, let me just give a little preface and you're going to be all in. Cause one it's working out, which is your huge passion to its life. And three, we get to be on the podcast together. It's a triple win. You're welcome. So triple whammy. Here we go. So just thinking about that, I don't know. I want to just, have no agenda of where I want to take this podcast other than The Dental A Team (03:01) I do love it. Triple whammy. The Dental A Team (03:15) It just made me really, I've been thinking about this. We're probably like four weeks since she said it to me, like literally it was a yell. So just imagine me and Tiff are your gym trainers here yelling at you, like, what are you working towards? What are you pushing this for? Why are you doing it? And I think sometimes that can get lost in people. And I think until we get that like yell wake up when it's like truly just like hard, I think sometimes we are asleep and hopefully today's podcast might wake you up and bring you to being present, being focused and being intentional. So Tiff. It's okay, take it away. The Dental A Team (03:45) Totally, I love working out, so thank you. Thank you for thinking of me and that reference. I don't do sled pulls because I don't like them, and I don't have a trainer telling me to do them, so I'm very proud of you for doing them. This is wild, I hate mountain climbers and knee ups. Those are my two worst enemies. So I'm with you on hating some sort of exercise at least. I'll do, I don't know, I'll do a burpee all day long for you, but ask me to do a knee up or a mountain climber, I'm out. But actually, The Dental A Team (03:54) you me too. Mm-hmm. The Dental A Team (04:14) This is, we're always like synchronistic. So it is fitting that this comes up. I actually like on a, think there's different scales that you could take this conversation. And I think there's the grand scale of like, why are we doing this? You and I come back to this constantly. And at about this time last year, we had really lost that vision and that drive. And so we did have to come back. I was actually thinking about that just the other day. was like, gosh, it was almost a year ago at this point, like by a couple of weeks, I think. Yeah. So yeah. The Dental A Team (04:37) too. Crazy. Like literally. The Dental A Team (04:42) Yeah, so I was thinking about it too, but this morning actually, I had a conversation with a client and it kind of, it's very pertinent to this subject and it kind of is interesting to me because we're thinking on a grand scale here and you're like, you're 80, 90, 100, 110 year old self is what you're envisioning and we go big a lot on like goals and visions and dreams and wishes for the, the. clients for their practices, but something that I chatted about this morning was like as simple as something you're implementing. And the conversation was set around bonuses and bonus structures. And I was like, okay, you can do anything you want with a bonus. I don't care. I truly don't care what you decide. You need to be profitable at the bottom line, the end of the day. That's all I care about. My job is to make sure you're profitable. I don't care what your decision is. I have input on everything. But the real question is, why are you doing a bonus? Because that will help answer the question of which style of bonus you want to do. And I think, Kiera, why are you exercising? Because that's going to help you decide what style of exercises are the best for that need. If you just woke up one day, people do this all the time. They're like, I'm gonna exercise today. I'm gonna start today. And they're like, okay, there's, this is like, I think one of the main reasons people don't exercise, because you wake up and you're like, today's the day I'm gonna do it. And you're like, okay, there's 15,000 gyms to choose from, all ranging prices. I could get a trainer, but that's X amount of money. And I don't know that I need one or want one. I could do a CrossFit gym. I could do power lifting. I could do, spin classes, I could do there's a million things. And so it's like, if you don't know the reason why you're doing the thing you're going to do, it's very difficult to pick what that looks like or to finalize or decide or clarify what that looks like down to the smallest decisions. And when people sit in indecision or I always say if something is really, really hard and I say this, I always preface this with that doesn't mean life isn't hard. Life is hard, but when something is so hard that you're like, why isn't this working? I think of the toddler with that little game, right? And it's got the circle and the triangle and the square and the X. And this toddler has the square and the circle and they just sit there banging and banging and banging and banging and screaming in frustration because they know it's supposed to go inside the box. It's supposed to get inside the box, but they can't figure out. The Dental A Team (07:10) Mm-hmm. Thank you. The Dental A Team (07:36) how it gets inside the box. And when we're sitting there like banging our heads against the wall, if you were doing all of these things in the gym, Kiera, felt this way about the sled and weren't seeing results, that's that space of like, I am doing everything I can possibly think of, why isn't this working? When you feel that way, I think my suspicion is that we've lost sight of why we're doing that thing. The Dental A Team (07:38) Right. Okay. The Dental A Team (08:05) Right? Or that thing isn't actually fitting the reason that we're here and we're doing the wrong thing. So we need to find that new path and that new thing circumventing what we're trying to do. We're trying to break through this wall, but sometimes it's like, no, actually that wall was supposed to be there. I was supposed to drive around. This is someone's yard. I can't just drive through their yard. Like this wall is supposed to be here. I'm actually supposed to drive around this wall, but my shortest path in my brain is through the wall. I hope that makes sense. The Dental A Team (08:23) Right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It does make sense and it actually made me think about Simon Sinek's why starts with the why, which is the purpose. And then you go into the how, which is the process. And then you go into the what, which is the result. And I think so many people, you said Tiff, they're starting with the result. It's like, I want to have a six pack. ⁓ Great. But like why? When you can go bigger and I can think of, like when I was pushing that said pole, I'm like, I'm so angry pushing this thing. And I'm like, yeah, but 90 year old, 110 year old Kiera, if I can be running, I can be walking, I can be lifting things and my bones aren't frail. That's the purpose. Like that's the big purpose. This is why we're even doing. What is the cause? What do you believe? Like I believe that I'm going to be 110 year old fit woman who can do all these things. Then the how is the process. I go to the gym three times a week and the result is I have strong muscles and I have the six pack. That's, that's the after effect. That's not the starting. And with your practice, like when Tiff and I, talked about it, we lost the why. That's why I think things were so hard. Like I feel like we were the toddler trying to shove the X into the circle and saying like, get in there. Like this needs to fit. Like it has to be this way. Like you said, we were running into someone's yard. Like there was a wall there and we couldn't see it. And when we scaled it back and it was like, this is the purpose of why we're doing what we do. Then the how is the process we do consulting this way. And then the result is your business grows. The profitability is there. You look at your numbers. And I think when I just, it really was just a highlight of I think people today listening, I would just implore you and encourage you to ask the question of why am I doing this? And not like you can have it to make money. That's a result, but there's got to be something deeper and bigger and more than that. That's going to sustain you through that. Like true sled pull push, because I don't know, like businesses are not, you are not profitable forever. Like that's not something that's just like you get to profit and you stay at profit. Just like you don't get to fit and you stay at fit. You don't get to. a certain result and you stay there. You have to maintain, have to be vigilant. You have to be on top of it. Just because like, I remember there was an epiphany one day, Tiff, Tiffanie epiphany. There you go. It's not quite efficiency, but I'm going to get there. ⁓ it was an epiphany where I literally was like, I get not half to work out. get to work out now, not to look good, but to be able to walk and not have pain. Like it was this moment. Cause I used to just work out. Like I need to like, look a little bit better in my swimsuit. So like, we'll just go to the gym for that. Then I was like, no, this is just a way of life. This is a process. And I think when you realize that that's business, like being profitable, looking at the numbers, being the CEO, getting the team on board, doing great dentistry, that's all part of this. It's not the, do this just because it's like, that's part of all that you're doing. But when you have a greater why, I mean, even just the last couple of nights, me and Gwendolyn, which is my chat GPT have been hanging out tip. And it was crazy because even though I'm exhausted, I'm lit up and fired up and excited because of what we're building and the purpose and all that. And that's what you want to get to. And to think Tiffanie, a year ago, you and I, remember I was on a walk. I remember exactly where I was. And I just remember hearing you and like, it was so like painful. You're like, why is this so hard? And I remember stopping, sitting on the ground, literally crying. And I was like, I don't know, Tiff, like, this is not what we built this for. This is not the life we want to be living. Like something radically has to change. And it was because I think our why was just grow a bigger business. wasn't, let's change people's lives. Let's impact people. Let's look at what we're doing and how we can shift it. So I know that was a bit of a rant on my side. I just hope people are waking up and remembering like, what are you working towards? All this pain, all this hardship is part of it. But when that why is so vigilant and so pressing and so driving it, you're able to get through the sled pole as much as you don't enjoy it and get to the other side because you know there's a bigger purpose you're working towards. The Dental A Team (12:21) Mm-hmm. Yeah, I agree. And I think that we also have to remember that things shift and they change. The reasons that we do things change. So I have a couple of thoughts as you're speaking. First of all, you're having a difficult time ⁓ committing to a task or doing it all the time, or sometimes I forget, I'm like, shoot, I forgot. was gonna start going to the gym three times a week, like six weeks ago, and I haven't gone once, right? So if you forgot, it wasn't important, right? So my theory on that is either it's not the right thing. So you chose the wrong thing to get you to the result you're after or your result you're after, your why, isn't strong enough. It doesn't hit fully yet, if that makes sense. So like Kiera,…
Full show notes at the publisherKiera joins Jill Simonds, founder of Savvy Strategic Partners, to talk about all things leadership mindset, including what to do when you feel trapped by your business (Kiera gets personal on this one!), the ebb and flow of motivation, psychology of ownership, and a ton, ton more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera And today it's a special podcast. I was so lucky to be featured on a podcast with Savvy. They are actually a fractional company and we have hired them to get different team members on our team and their founder, Jill Simonds and I got on the podcast and talked about all things from founder mindset to guilt of being an owner to how we stay trapped in businesses. And I just felt that this is such a poignant and pertinent podcast for all of you. So I hope you all enjoy this episode. I hope you learn a lot. And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast. The Dental A Team (00:37) Welcome everyone to vision untethered conversations with inspirational leaders. My name is Jill Simonds, founder of Savvy Strategic Partners. We are a dedicated leadership team of fractional executives. I am so thrilled to introduce my special guest today, Kiera Dent, the dynamic founder of the Dental A Team, a consulting firm dedicated to helping dental practices simplify operations, strengthen leadership and elevate patient care. With her unique background as both a dental clinician and business owner, brings a powerful blend of insight and business strategy to every practice she partners with. Her and her team have worked with hundreds of practices nationwide to build systems that reduce stress, increase efficiency, and foster long-term success. Kiera, I'm so excited to have you here. Thank you, Jill. Thank you. I'm so excited and honored to be here. It's fun. love what you're doing out there. I love these kinds of conversations and wow, it's always fun to sit back and hear your own bio. So thanks. It feels, feels a good way to kick off the podcast. Let's hope I deliver up to that, but truly just honored to be here. Super excited and just love what you're doing for all the founders out there like myself. Just helping us get to that executive level that we need when we maybe aren't quite large enough to bring on all these amazing players full time into our company. So just super jazz and excited to be here with you today. Yeah, me too. I'm excited to get into it. I don't actually think I know your full story and inspiration behind Dental A Team and your purpose and passion. So let's start there. What inspired your journey and how does your purpose align with the unique challenges that you face in scaling a business today? Yeah, well, Dentistry was never meant to be in my blood. I just happened to be in high school and saw a really fast path to wearing scrubs. thought I can be a dental assistant or I can be a nurse. I don't want to learn the whole body. That's disgusting. Mouth, I could probably handle. So that's honestly what kicked this off. So was in high school. It was a random career. And then everybody kind of teases me because my last name is Dent. It's not a stage name. And I make the joke that's real life. I just had to get three fiancees to get that last name. That was really what got me into it. I love dentistry. It turned out to be a perfect career for me. And so I did it in high school and then I went to college and college. I actually did an undergrad in marriage and family therapy. I was planning to be a therapist and I remember being, I was interviewing in Oklahoma for grad school and I remember sitting in the interview and I was thinking like, I wonder how that like filling's going. I wonder how that crown prep's going. And I thought, gosh, this is going to be such a weird world. Like I am trying to like pitch myself to this future college. but I'm thinking about how much fun I had back in the office and how my patients were doing. And so I got a full ride scholarship and I decided to put it on pause. went to, pharmacy school with my husband. and we went out there and we decided we'll put this on pause. We'll see if we can both get into the same school. But I just realized my heart, my soul, my passion is in dentistry. I'd been a dental assistant, a treatment coordinator, a scheduler, a biller, an office manager, all the pieces. And so when we went to pharmacy school, decided, you know what, I'm going to call around to all of his schools and I'm going to see if we can get a spouse discount if I work at the college. Because some schools, and man, pharmacy school was not for the faint of heart. So I called around and luckily Arizona, they did and Jason got accepted to it. So I was like, all right, sights are on. I've always been a little hustler. I'm like, sites are on, I'm to get a job at this college. And I just felt truly, truly blessed. So many people tried to get jobs there. All my friends were trying to get jobs there. And I randomly was talking to this lady in the pool at our complex and she says she has nothing to do with me getting the job there. But I fully believe that Laura had a lot of, a lot of strings behind the scenes to get me the job at Midwestern in Arizona. So I a discount on the tuition, which was great. Um, but I was able to then work at the dental college and that truly is what kicked off this Dental A Team consulting company because I worked at the college for three years, got the, got the discount. And then while my husband was doing his residency, one of the students actually asked me to come and start a practice with her in Colorado. And I thought, Oh my gosh, like good thing I said no to the marriage and family therapy. Like let's go from dental assistant to practice owner three years. Like, let's do this. So actually helped start a practice in Colorado. ⁓ took our first office from 500,000 to 2.4 million in nine months, opened a second location and I was like hooked on this adrenaline junkie of business ownership. But at the same time, just like we were drinking from a fire hose. My marriage was almost in shambles. I was in shambles. Like I'm 5'8". I was 98 pounds. I was not sleeping. I was up at 2 a.m. staying like up till 10 p.m. Like just it was an exhausting road. drain, everything was falling apart. And so when I split from that partnership, ⁓ I sat there and I remember just sitting, I didn't know what to do. Like I'd lost my marriage practically. I'd lost my identity. I was like on death row in lots of different facets. And I remember just thinking like, I don't even know who Kiera Dent is anymore. And so I sat there and I was like, well, I'm going to start a consulting company. Like I love dentistry. If I could help her, I could probably help more people. And I think that this is the fuel of founders where when we're at rock bottom, we've got to have something that builds us into our next version. And that's what Dental A Team was for me. So Dental A Team, say, was built from like the ashes of my life. Like it feels like the Phoenix rising for me. And so I started a company. Like I just, I didn't even know what I was doing. Had no background in it. And I went and consulted my friend and I was like, I just need to practice on you. I don't even know what I'm doing. And we took his practice and we grew it tremendously. He then introduced me to a consultant overnight. had 50 clients. I started like just making things up as I went. And it was really like an overnight success, but I went from like rookie don't know what I'm doing to this. I know that I can help practices and I want to serve. And I've got all these dentists that are just like these little babies that are going to get. ripped apart in the industry, there's gotta be a way. And so it's always said, like I always said, I wanted to positively impact the wealth of dentistry in the greatest way possible. And that's what I've said since day one, that's how it is. And now I realize that life is my passion, dentistry is my platform, but changing people's lives, helping them live their best lives. And it's wild that we're even talking Jill, because what you do for me and my business is what I do for dentists. And so it's this weird annoyance to me that I'm like, I can be a miracle grow. and I can grow dental practices and it can be so fun. But yeah, I have no idea how to do that in a corporate world. And so learning it and evolving, and that's actually how you and I even got together was I needed someone but not a consultant. I was like, listen, I know what consultants do. I am a consultant. Like I need, I need someone with me. So that's how we got here and that's how my passion's been. I don't get to wear scrubs. That's the only bummer. Like the whole story started with scrubs and now you like wear clothes. ⁓ You can make some really stylish scrubs as part of the entire. I would love to, but I do joke. like, took my marriage and found my therapy background, tethered it with my passion of dentistry and created a company from like just true passion and love. man, it's just been a, I think it's good. We don't know the end from the beginning. So many people want to know that. I don't think knowing what I know now I would have ever started, but I think I needed that as a person. to build, execute. And I think that that's how founders are. We're just meant to build, we're meant to create, we're to be these creators. And so to build something that's just been magical and changed so many lives, like, gosh, the joy it's brought me has been like a hundredfold beyond anything I could have imagined. ⁓ beautiful story. And yeah, quite funny too, the path ⁓ and steps that you took to get here, but wait a listen. mean, just listen to your intuition. And it sounds like you have some of those key core memories along the way of like your thought process sitting in scenarios where you're like, wait, is this me? Is this even what I want? And acting on it and taking that initiative and to where it's got you. That's a beautiful story. Thank you. Yeah. Can you share a specific experience from this where you have felt trapped by your business? Every day, What strategies have you implemented or are you to create space for true growth and scalability? Yes. This is such a good and I hope like listeners, they're probably like, I don't know. I just hope that what I share is making you not feel alone. I think is probably the biggest piece because I hear this from dentists. I'm like, I know I'm not alone and I joined a bunch of groups for it. But ⁓ I say that Dental A Team is a dragon that never sleeps. Like this thing just is a crying baby of breathing dragon that just never ever stops. And I think that there have been times, so especially last year, last year was like my rock bottom. So technically we're eight years into the company, but like I was partnered with that other guy for five, for four years. So I feel like I'm like five years in on my own trying to do this, even though I know it's like just had a funny path. But last year I hit rock bottom. Like I went cold turkey. I checked out of work. I remember just being like, I am sick. Like not physically sick, but mentally, emotionally, spiritually, like I'm apathetic to life. Like things just need to shut down. and I'm sure a lot of founders get to this level where you just, you're doing everything. Like the whole company is riding on you and you are so rad that you built this company, but it's outgrown you and you don't know how to shed that and to build and to create and to evolve. And so my, ⁓ And I think it was, I feel like I tell myself lies all the times, which I'm sure most people can relate to of, okay, care, just push through like three more months and we're going to be better. Like three more months, we got to hire three. So you're always in this like, okay, it's going to get better at three months. And then you're like, well, shoot, like this person didn't work out. So I got to keep doing sales or, this didn't work out. So I've got to keep doing this aspect of the business. that could be a me that could be not me, but last year my strategy was like completely checked out of life. I, came back from a conference, I was so exhausted, so burnout that I just called my executive team and said, all right, you guys have it. Like, I don't want to hear from anybody. Like I put all the things like, here's a lawyer, here's the CPA here. Of course, I'm not just going to let this thing fail, but I needed a complete shut off reset and I slept for 17 hours a day for an entire month. Like it was every day just exhausted. felt numb. felt like I lost like, The way to best describe it is I felt like I was watching a movie in color that went black and white and that was my life. Like there was no color, there was no emotion. There was no, I feel like I lost feeling to life. And I think that was just coping mechanism to get through. We did a lot of therapy, like lots of different pieces. And I realized like, okay, we got to take care of Kiera first and then we have to get to these spaces. So when you say like, do you ever feel trapped by your business? Yes. Cause it's like, what do you do? This is a company that's a consulting company built on Kiera. That's Kiera Dent. That's her face. Like, how do you even sell this type of a B2B business to somebody? So I did meet with people. did find two potential buyers. I was like, I need a way out. I need to figure out how do I get rid of this crying baby? Like it's got to just stop, like make the crying stop. ⁓ And then that's where we actually pulled in a traction coach. So Rick, we hired Rick. I was like, I need someone who's outside of this company who can see it that can also be the motivating voice for my team and help them see like, Kiera can't keep carrying all this. So I will say like Rick was a huge blessing. He came from a great network of people and then the leadership team. was like, we had to have a complete reset of everything's not on Kiera's plate, but I don't think it was all leadership team. think that there's a lot of pieces of Kiera perfection that my ego. needed to feel important and to be able to let that go. Things aren't going to be perfect, Jill. I still stress like my, I have a little bracelet on that says trust and flow. And that's this year's theme of like, here, you got to trust people and you've got to go with the flow more than trying to curate and force because that's always going to be the hardest path. So, and then we obviously hired you. We hired Jenna who's been a phenomenal fractional. we brought on a CRO. who's helping in the sales and marketing department. But I also think that businesses when they hit a certain level, they finally have the cash to be able to hire the expertise that you need to bring on. But before that, I was so cash flow scared that I think I maybe held on to profitability too hard rather than hiring help sooner that could have probably prevented it getting that low. So now it's like mandatory, I go to the gym. three times a week, non-negotiable. have sets time, like we shut off from work every single day at five o'clock. My husband has alarm that goes off and like, we don't talk work. We hot…
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