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Kiera shares specific tips for how practice owners can gain consistency, confidence, and calm in their day-to-day unsteady of chaos and surprise at the unknown. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today's a fun day. ⁓ think how to get more stability and predictability in your dental practice. I think this is a zone where people don't know how to have stability, predictability, growth, and how to do that in a consistent way. so ⁓ some practices feel like it's like a freaking rollercoaster. Like your systems are wild and it's like, what? flavor of the day should I be choosing? I fix my system? Should I go for a new patient? Should I be working on my P &L? And I think that that's just like what people do. And they're like, how do I get this stability? How do get this predictability? Now I heard this quote and then I tried to find this quote. So I'm just going to tell you, because I love it. I don't know if it's real or not, but I'm just going to say it's real. They said that Walt Disney said, and I love Walt Disney and I'm obsessed with Disney, but they were able to create predictable magic with systems behind the scenes. And I think about that for practices of like, can I help you create predictable magic, predictable cashflow, predictable, ⁓ profitability, predictable, like new patients. Well, it's through the systems behind the scenes and the team that's in place. so today really working on that of like how we can go from chaos and like whack them all of like, and I feel like I do this too in my company. just so you know, I don't think anybody's ever perfect at this, but I think we can actually cut out a lot of these pieces for you to create less chaos. more predictability, more predictable magic in your practice ⁓ to give you that consistency, confidence, and calm in an owner's life rather than the chaos and the surprise and the unknown of will I be able to make it next month? Will I be able to make it in six months? I think for me as a business owner, is the hardest part of being a business owner is that unpredictability. so trying to give you more, ⁓ more predictability and stability. So if you're tired of the revenue swings, you're tired of the no show surprises, you're tired of the last minute team drama, like you're just tired and exhausted of that. This episode's for you. This is where today we're gonna really go into our mission of positively impacting the world of dentistry with tactical advice ⁓ from experts who do dentists and team consulting. We've been there, we've done it, we've done it multiple times, we've run it in our own practices. ⁓ Every single consultant on our team has had to have a proven track record of going through exactly what you go through. coming out on the other side with ease and grace. So that's what we're here for and so I'm gonna just break it down into a couple quick steps for you today of just some different things that can probably help you create some more predictability in your practice to create more stability and to get you out of that, like I said, the revenue swings and no-show surprises. Now, this isn't something that's going to come easy. This isn't something that happens overnight. ⁓ I have a sign up in my kitchen that says discipline equals freedom. This is a disciplined act. This is what the high achievers do. These are not the small practices that are doing this. And it's the, like, I feel like it's investing. Someone once told me investing is like vanilla ice cream. It's not sexy and nobody gets really excited over vanilla ice cream, but it's predictable and it's always good. And that's what I feel this is like, let's create your practice into the vanilla ice cream practice where it's not sexy. It's not flashy, but it is predictable and it's stable for you. And then from there, like add the sprinkles, add the toppings, add the chocolate. Like you can make vanilla ice cream awesome. It's a great base and a great foundation. So today I wanna help you create that in your practice. So step one is a daily and weekly rhythm. ⁓ I found that structure is something that's so paramount. Even my mom, like there were seven kids in my family and my mom had to create structure. Like I remember summertime, a lot of parents hate summertime because their kids have no structure. They enjoy school time, there's structure, there's a rhythm, there's something that they can count on. Kids go to school at this time, kids come home at this time, there's predictability in there. And so for you within your practice, let's kind of take what we do. in parenting and in growing up. And let's apply that to your practice because the same principles apply. And so having these different pieces ⁓ in place of how teams communicate, of how we review performances. So it's a cadence. Like I hate remembering things and I love cadences. just a couple key strategies on this daily and weekly rhythm would be morning huddle. And in morning huddle, morning huddle is one of my fastest ways that I'm able to create stability and structure within a practice if it's a good one. So we're looking at patient. patients, goals and priorities. And we're doing it consistently and we're looking for opportunities. So a great morning huddle, Kristy and I were talking the other day and she said, I can add 10 to 15 grand to most practices just with a great daily huddle. And I love that because I agree with you. If you use a huddle strategically, it's like, why do team members like in basketball or football, why do they huddle? They huddle to win the game and that's what your huddle should be. So we have our daily morning huddle to look for opportunities to prioritize, to align, to make sure our goals are actually where we want them to go. Then after that, we have a weekly leadership and team meetings. We're looking at our numbers, resolving obstacles. We literally teach our teams traction style ⁓ L10 meetings so that way you can run it. So we're talking about our data, any of our numbers that are off-track or an immediate issue. We teach you how to solve issues. We teach you how to rate a meeting. So they're very effective and efficient meetings using data. So we're not just sitting here like vomiting our problems. You vomit the problems, yes, but we're also going to have a strategic way of how we solve them. And then this way we're able to catch our problems earlier. So between those two things of a daily and a weekly, so we're having a daily huddle that's focused on strategy. It's focused on winning. It's focused on opportunities. And then we have a weekly leadership. So your leadership team gets together and departments. And I know you might be like, that's so many meetings. It's fine. You're welcome to do that. But I'm like, if you want to know how the big players are hitting, like I'm talking the practices I work with that are 20, 30 million annually. This is what they're doing. And at a small level on a big level, this works. When I had one team member, did leadership meetings every single week because I figured we need to start, like that's a big practices to do. That's a big organization to do. So why am I thinking I'm so small not to implement that? When you do this, you typically will see a 10 to 20 % increase in revenue and decrease in overhead. You'll increase your schedule. Like just doing this, you'll look for opportunities. Your schedule will start to get hit more consistently because we're tracking it. We're tracking it every single day. And people like don't love to talk about this, but I'm like, I also don't love working out, but I want the six pack abs. So it's choose your heart. Like would we rather sit there and like hope and pray and want to have it? Or are we going to start to put in some of these daily practices and weekly practices that work for other ones? So that way you can have more predictability. I promise you what, where your focus is, like where energy goes, focus flow, like where focus goes, energy flows. Let me get that one right. Where focus goes, energy flows. So if I'm focused on the numbers, I'm focused on the things we should be doing. I'm focused on solving problems sooner. That's where my energy is gonna go. So we're gonna start to like, if you read the book essentialism, they talk about like, don't spin your wheels on a million things, spin your wheels on the most important things and laser focus on it and get everybody rowing in the same direction, you're ultimately gonna grow so much faster. So when we're doing these little pieces, this is what it is. So I would, if I was you, add these meetings into it, but I would make sure my meetings are powerful and impactful. I wouldn't just do meetings for meeting's sake, meetings need to be done with intentionality. Number two is tracking. Leading metrics, not just lagging ones. So a leading and a lagging, I really hate these, they're really hard for me, but it's leading ones are things we have control over, lagging is the outcome at the end. So for example, like pre-appointment, how pre-appointed are our books? What's our unscheduled treatment? What's our AR aging? What's our same day conversions? What's our diagnosis rate? Like all those things are leading measures that will help us know if our outcome is going to actually get met. So if we're looking at pre-appointment, like, how many patients in our database are pre-appointed for appointments versus how much re-care and reactivation do we need to do? So it's these two things like, if I wanna schedule full, I can pre-appoint, I can reappoint, I can look at all those different pieces to make sure my schedule's full. Schedule full is the outcome, the pre-appointment, the reappointment, all of that is a leading measure that's going to help me get to my outcome. And then we wanna actually look at those. So, ⁓ and a lot of times it's like, we want to hire somebody. Well, let's think about the leading metrics that would help us. It's how many ads did we place and how many interviews did we perform? Those are things we have control over. I don't have control over if I hire somebody or not. I don't have control over the candidates that come to me, but I do have control over how many ads I place and how many interviews I perform. So let's track that versus tracking somebody being hired. Let's track how many reappointments we have and pre-appointments we have. Those are things we can control versus as our schedule full. I still want to track both. Those are still important, but we have, your team can influence the leading measures. They can't necessarily influence the lagging ones. And if we have great leading measures that we're tracking, our lagging outcomes should actually be hit. Then we look at those in our weekly meetings, not just at the end of the month. And then this way, like it's a KPI scorecard that the whole team's looking at and they're watching. So when we do this, what you find is our reappointment. Like, so in office, when they start tracking their reappointments, And we started doing it consistently. go from 80 % to 85 to 98. And people are like, but Kiera, I already do this. We're already doing it. And I'm like, great, then let's just make sure that the data proves what you're already doing and you're getting the gold stars for what you're already doing. What's crazy is when you start tracking these little things, your practice, that's gonna get a lot better. And it's crazy to how quickly it does. So if I was in your shoes, I would look at where are my gaps and where are the things that I felt, like I said, the... the schedule gaps. So what could I do if I've got gaps in my schedule that would be leading? Well, it'd be how many outbound calls did we make and how many patients did we get scheduled off those outbound calls? Those are things I can control. So this is on my re-care. Tiffanie, she used to make her practices call 50 patients a day. I am not exaggerating that. I think it was actually a hundred. Like it was so many, cause she's like the more I have to have so many outbound calls cause she had tracked it. I have have this many outbound calls in order to have my schedule stay consistently full. I can't just call when I need an opening. I need to be constantly putting those phone calls out there so patients are calling me back and I keep my schedule full. That's something. So when you're looking at like, well, I'm so tired of the cashflow dips. I'm so tired of the schedule gaps. My question is, what are you doing proactively? Like those are the systems behind the scene that create the predictable magic. I guarantee you Walt Disney's not like, you know, we should have fireworks. Well, no, there's all these systems in play before they even get to firework show. to make sure the firework show is a success. So for you looking at what are the predictable things I should be doing. So the way you break this down is what are the three big stressors I have? And then what are leading measures that I could add into place to prevent that? So instead of me looking at the end of my PNL and be like, well, shoot, I don't have money. Could you look at your bank account every single day? Could you look at your PNL every single day? could you look at your diagnosis and your production? If you want to produce a hundred grand, you've got to be diagnosing 300,000. That's something within your control. You could start to say, am I diagnosing $300,000 a month? I break that down to how many dollars I need to do a day. I watch my daily production diagnosis. I work with my hygiene team. I integrate Overjet or Pearl as AI solutions to it. That's how you can start to move this one forward for you exponentially rather than hoping and praying that we're hitting our cashflow at end of the month. That's how you start to be a more strategic, getting out of that chaos into consistency and predictability. And then step three would be like building capacity plans. when I look at this, sometimes we like, so back at the beginning, I mentioned to you, said, are you tired of the revenue swings, the no show surprises, the last minute team drama? Well, cool, this is around like the team culture and all that. So. People and time are gonna be a big piece for that. So based on our production goals and where we want to go, based on where we are currently and in the future, I need to start planning and projecting out how many team members do I need for the production? How do I have block scheduling to make sure that I'm not having like up and down months? How can I forecast out on my schedule to see when are my down months? When are my up months? When are people taking vacations? How can I proactively plan for this? And then we're going to plan PTO and hiring proactively. So when I'm projecting out with a practice, we're literally at like September. ⁓ So convenient timing of this podcast to release for you. I'm looking ahead to say, okay, let's plan out our entire year time off. When are we having meetings? What are the highs and lows? What are the peaks and valleys within our production? And how can I sta…
Full show notes at the publisherDid you know: Each position in your practice should contribute toward the practice's goals? Tiff and Kristy break down why each position should have a vision and specific metrics (starting at the job description), and how together, alongside all the other positions, they work toward the greater good of the practice. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello Dental A Team listeners. I am so excited to be here today. I am always excited to be here today you guys I love podcasting I really really do and I love podcasting with other people more than solo and I get to pull consultants in and Britt from HR Headquarters over there HQ and Eve from marketing like I get to pull in just the most fun people from our team to Just double up and get some time with Kristy I've got you today and this is like our special time together and I just love it. So, and Kristy, I put you specifically at the end of my podcasting day. I hope you noticed that not just because of timing, but because you bring a sense of calm to my life and podcasting with you, not to say that it's not easy with anyone else on our team, but you really like, it's just so easy. You bring a sense of calm and ease. And I was like, that's what I want to end my day with. So thank you for. opening up your schedule to me and for being here today, Kristy, how are you? DAT Kristy (00:59) Good, absolutely. I love it too. I mean, we were just talking the other day because we don't get much time together and so I know we look forward to this time. now that I know you put me at the end of the day on purpose, I love it. I love it. I love it. Yeah, it's a good way to end the day. The Dental A Team (01:13) Surprise! Good. Well, I'm glad. know Mondays are busy for you. Our team does, we do meeting Mondays and so it gets a little jam packed, but it's nice because we get it. I feel like we get all of that admin stuff out of the way and we get aligned on actions we need to take for the week kind of all together on the same day. And then we just spearhead our week ready to go. Well, Kristy, ⁓ today is exciting. I I'm gonna actually pull in what we were just talking about. you guys, you guys know, avid listeners, you guys have been here. We've been doing this podcast for a really long time, you guys, and if you have ideas on things that you want to hear, please send them in because our little brains over here are just thinking of all of these things. Sometimes they feel like, did we just record this? It's like this content sounds so similar to something else we've talked about. And so I don't know how to label this one. But I want you guys to know we are going to chat today a little bit about job descriptions. And this is something that we find incredibly important. So we talk about it a lot. So I want to drive that home. They are so important. And Kristy, something that I recently recorded a podcast with Brittany. And something we talked about, part of that leadership skill, was being able to give direction to the team to execute decisions. as a leader, being able to execute decisions, being decisive and having execution as leadership, but also gifting that to the team. And we talked about the vision of the practice, kind of where the company's going and the leader, the owner, being able to utilize that for the culture of the company. But I kind of think right now, these job descriptions are the vision per position. It gives us our heading so that within my position in the practice or the organization, I can say yes, no, maybe, yes, this is the right decision right now for the company. And it brings about some clarity for everyone. Kristy, you, what do you think? DAT Kristy (03:28) Yeah, I love that you mentioned that because for so long, think we've all understood that job descriptions should have duties, right? I truly am a fan of duties versus titles, but also I think honing in on the other aspect of, think the duties, let me step back. The duties tell us what we're responsible for, but I think bringing in the other aspect tells us how the person should behave. And so I think they go hand in hand. And I think oftentimes we miss that other piece of it and then we get frustrated when we don't hire that person. The Dental A Team (04:11) Yeah, I agree. in ⁓ a layer on top of that, you mentioned job duties and kind of how to behave. But even within that ⁓ what piece, the job duties, the clarification on the job duties, if I know that my job, my goal of my position is to have the schedule full, maybe I'm a schedule coordinator, and my number one metric is 90 % full on hygiene for the next five days, 80 % full doctor, like whatever that metric is. If I know that's my metric, then I think, my gosh, this one patient, my how-to says confirmations. And step one is text message, email, text message, email, but I know this person is 85 years old and they're not getting these text messages. I don't have to question, do I call this patient? My job, my goal is to get that patient here for that appointment, no matter what that means looks like. So I think that vision and that ⁓ very clear cut, this is what the metric is of your position. I sitting in that scheduling coordinator position can say, Julie, at 85, I'm just gonna call her. I'm not gonna mess with the text messages and wait until three days before if I know she needs a call and we need to confirm her right. Like I have this information, but we often get asked, Kristy, I think. by different team members that they're like, well, can I do this? I'm like, well, does it get you to your goal? Is it a part of what gets the practice to our goals? Heck yeah, I think that's a great idea. It gives you the space to be creative, to get to the results that you need to get to, that are set as parameters because you know what you're driving towards. DAT Kristy (05:58) Yeah, you said that so well. So again, I'm with you. It's not just the duties and how we behave and perform them. But like you said, then we can tie it to what metrics am I responsible for? And one other piece behind that is painting the clarity. If it's 90 % reappointment rate or, you know, whatever metric I am responsible for. Now, what system comes behind that metric if it's not where I want it to be, right? So then I can pull up the system and say, hey, am I not working the system properly or do I need to find a new system because our system's not working any longer to get the result we want? The Dental A Team (06:45) for sure and that's where teams come to us, or office managers, and they're like, my team has no accountability, how do I hold them accountable? Or how do I get my team to hold themselves accountable? How do I get them to own their jobs? It's really hard to own something if you don't have complete clarity around that goal that you're working towards. And so having those smart goals with those metrics tied to them, Kristy, like you just said, allows that person then, like you've said, to work backwards from the result to see What did I do that got the result? Because anything you do, I literally just said it this morning, I say it all the time, even consistently being inconsistent is going to get you a result. Consistently doing anything will get you the result. And if your consistency lies in inconsistently, I'm always inconsistent, you're going to get a result. So knowing what your target result is in comparison to the result that you got allows you to backtrack and say, DAT Kristy (07:25) Yeah. The Dental A Team (07:41) Was I inconsistent in my utilization of my systems? Or is the system just flawed and I need to reinvent that wheel? Totally fine too, but it allows the space for that. And Kristy, the way you said it was it allows the person holding that metric to see it themselves and can to it, which takes training and it takes consistency from leadership to constantly point back to the metrics, to constantly be like, okay, ⁓ what what is your metric, your standard, and then what did you reach? And when there's questions that come up like, Kristy, like, do I call this lady? You're like, well, what is your metric? Does it get you there? And I think that consistency is that accountability piece that people are lacking. DAT Kristy (08:27) Yeah, I agree with you. ⁓ Just like you said, it's very easy once we've painted that clarity and we have understanding also for the team to report back to you. You shouldn't have to ask. But I also would say don't just report back. Report back and let them know your trend because maybe it is 90 % reappointment rate that we're looking at. ⁓ Literally, I was just on with an office that was It's almost embarrassing to say they haven't looked at their rates for reappointment. She's like 50 some percent and I'm like, yeah, that could be a problem, right? ⁓ Yeah, let's not focus on 50. Let's talk that the goal is 90 and let's start talking about your trend, right? So even if I'm reporting it talk about your trend where were you and where are we going? And then I also like to say with that TIF is recognize what's working well and reinforce the good. gets reinforced gets repeated, right? And then get team talking about what they will do to overcome any opportunities if we're not at the mark we want. The Dental A Team (09:36) Yeah, I love that. I love that so much. you just, you saying that about the practice, I'm like, my gosh, that's fantastic. Like 50%, that's not fantastic, but look at how much space there is to create something different. Like that's really freaking cool because practices come in and they're like, I don't know what to do. And I don't know why it's this way. And I just need this. And it's like, this is so cool because there are spaces. that are really, really simple to tackle that you just didn't uncover yet. And we get to come in and help uncover those. So it's like 50 % reappointment rate. That's fantastic because now we can implement two to three daily actions that severely change the projection in a company that you may have come to us thinking, and I don't know this client, I don't know what she or he was thinking like, but they may have been thinking like, my hands are tied, what do I do? how do I get more patients? I need more new patients. I hear that all the time and I'm like, well, what about the patients we have? It's so cool. So you just got me really excited about that. So I'm like, holy cow, I can't wait to hear these results. It's gonna be fantastic. But that's case in point. There's a couple of people that probably need that metric, right? A hygienist, hygiene team and scheduling coordinators, like they need these metrics because now they understand what their purpose is in the company and how they can contribute to the overall goals. DAT Kristy (10:40) Yeah. Yeah. The Dental A Team (11:02) Many doctors, I think Kristy, you and I both come across this, many doctors are really afraid, or business owners in general, to talk goals. And I think the piece that gets missed is that goals drive the courage to push forward in life. Without a goal, without a drive, we're just complacent. And so not talking about them and not talking about how each position can contribute towards those goals, I think is actually a disservice and holding people back. DAT Kristy (11:39) Yeah, I agree with you, Tiff. think a lot of times people get stuck because goals are related to a lot of times in dentistry, monetary amounts, right? But truly, it's no different than us at home. We have a checkbook and we have a bank account and we have standard bills that we have to pay. And it's not that we have to get nitty gritty on that stuff, but we all have to understand there's a cost of doing business unless we're a not-for-profit organization, you know? And so again, I love ⁓ how you and Kiera talk about the metrics aren't to beat ourselves up, right? It's not a stick to beat ourselves up with. It truly is just a measure of how healthy we're getting our patients. And the minute that we really get transparent about the numbers and what they mean and relate it to just like patient health and practice health, I mean, we always talk about getting our patients healthy. What about talking about a healthy practice too, right? And we need to let team know just because, I mean, we hear it every day as consultants, a practice could do $6 million and I could have another practice that does a million and the 6 million inevitably people might think is more healthy than a million and truly that's not the case. So we need to educate our teams and let them know those numbers mean more. And ⁓ truly it's a reflection of how healthy our patients are and how healthy the practice is. The Dental A Team (13:14) Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree. And your individual metrics then add up to those results. So those of you who are building out the job descriptions, like yes, you need like a how-to, we need to know what those systems and protocols are. But separate from that, they need a heading. They need to know how do I show up? It's like, what are our core values? How do I show up in this position? If we've got, I don't know, a check-in spot, right? We've got a patient coordinator who's at check-in. DAT Kristy (13:19) Thank you. The Dental A Team (13:40) and her job description does not say you sit up straight, you smile, and you greet patients with eye contact as soon as they walk in, you can't complain when she's got her head down on the computer or she's got her cell phone and patients are walking in and they're not being greeted. So get nitty gritty on those spaces because that's easy to achieve, right? If she reads that or he reads that, it's like, ⁓ that's the expectation, that's how I'll show up. And then now that feeds into your reschedule rate. DAT Kristy (13:49) I can't. The Dental A Team (14:09) Right? Patients are like, heck yeah, I'm coming back. I love seeing Sonia up front. Like it just all feeds into one another. So I think breaking that down into what is this position accomplishing for my practice within the goals that we have set. So if this is my vision, why do I have this position? Why do I have a scheduling coordinator? Why do I have a dental assistant? And then some pieces I think that I promised Kristy we would talk about some positions that you don't always think about. Right? So like sterile tech. come on guys, there are so many sterile technicians running around that don't know what the heck they're supposed to be doing, there's no job description for a sterile tech and we just kind of run in the mill, let them figure it out, that's the dental way. So like sterile tech or, Kristy, one I know is really big right now is virtual assistants and I have a client who has an entire team of virtual assistants and Kristy, how important is it for the metrics? the job description ⁓ just in the VA space, so for the VAs, but how important is it for the team to have that VA job description too and know what they can count on those people for? DAT Kristy (15:21) ⁓ 100%. ⁓ The cool part with it too, Tiff, I mean, yeah, they need to know the expectations of what's being handled so they can hold them accountable just as any other team member, right? But also, I love, especially ⁓ offices where we're looking to develop leadership, when you have in an OM or a practice administrator…
Full show notes at the publisherPart 2 of podcast guest Dr. Lauryn Brunclik (of She Slays the Day podcast fame) and her conversation with Kiera. In this follow-up to Becoming Business Savvy with a Clinician-First Mindset, the pair discusses seeking other revenue streams to obtain financial freedom. The chat includes fixing your pricing structure, living below your means, understanding the spender and saver mindsets, time management, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera and welcome back to part two of my chat. If you liked part one, you are going to absolutely love this. I am so excited and I can't wait to dive right in. Kiera Dent (00:10) Lauryn, I'm very curious. Like you've talked about it at length. Like what do people do? Like what's the how, how do we get into this? How do we have multiple streams because agreed all eggs in one basket? gosh. It's, ⁓ to me, that's like just a ticking time bomb. Like one bad day, one bad patient, one bad procedure. Like it's just going to explode because you're sitting like you're sitting on the edge of fear all the time to where you are in like cortisol adrenaline, like you are pumping. And then what you do is you go into complete shutdown because you can't handle it anymore. So your body and your system literally like just shuts down on you. You become apathetic to life. Dr. Lauryn B (00:23) Mm-hmm. Kiera Dent (00:44) things aren't exciting for you anymore. You become very numb to walking through the world. And it's like, I feel like the world of color goes into very like gray. It's very subtle. It's like, it's, there's no, there's no life left. It's just, are living life, but you're not actually being and living day in, out. So what are some tacticals? Like I'm so curious. I love to hear that. Dr. Lauryn B (01:04) Well, so, I mean, ultimately what you have to, I'm no cashflow expert. My husband would like laugh, not, he wouldn't laugh. He'd just be like, what's she gonna say right now? So like cashflow will multiply the more you start putting your money to work, okay? So it's very, very, step one is simple. It's exactly what you said. You have to have cashflow coming from your clinic. Kiera Dent (01:14) okay. Dr. Lauryn B (01:33) You have to. Like, you need to spend less money than you are bringing in. Okay? Kiera Dent (01:42) Ooh, love that. Ding, ding. All right, great. Got it, team. Got it all. Dr. Lauryn B (01:45) Like, so it's it's simple. what did you say? Like you said, there's only three ways to make it happen. Like lower your overhead. Yep. Yep. See more people. Yep. Kiera Dent (01:50) There are, either cut your costs, increase what you're producing. like for how many patients you're seeing and or collections, because a lot of times you're producing enough, but we're not collecting the money that we're actually producing. that then costs, people are have no money. And I'm like, you have 500,000 sitting in your AR that's not collected. So you actually have money. You just have a broken system of how to collect it. And to your point, my husband said this very early on when I started that company, he said, I care, don't lose money. He was like, yeah, I'm not going to give you any rules, any parameters. He's like, just don't lose money because that's going to cause a lot of strain on us. And I thought about that a lot. It's like, ⁓ I guess that's a great, a great plan. Like it's really been a good thought for me. But it's like, if you are going to lose money on having a business, go be an associate for someone else. Like it's a hobby at that point. It's not a business. So I'm like, if you're not going to have your business make money for you, like truly no judgment. Dr. Lauryn B (02:24) Thanks, husband. Yes. Kiera Dent (02:44) go honestly be an associate, go work for someone else so you're taking home a paycheck. When owners are working for themselves and making less than they are as an associate, I'm like, we have a big problem here. And now you're mad because you got way more problems. You can't just clock in, clock out and leave for the day. And I'm like, that's actually not a business. That's a hobby. And it's a bad hobby. You have no freedom. No, it's delusional. No. Dr. Lauryn B (02:57) Mm-hmm. And they're like, but I have the freedom when I'm the owner. You don't have freedom? can't afford a vacation. what? You have no freedom. Kiera Dent (03:11) Stop lying to yourself just because you own a business. People are like, I wanted this texture, have more time. And I'm like, yeah, tell me how that's going for you. Probably not great. All right, so we gotta have a business that actually cash flows. Simple stuff. Dr. Lauryn B (03:16) How's that working for you? Yeah. Yes, so step one is very simple, but not is you have to fix the pricing structure, the collections, your payroll blow. You need to look at the profit margins of your clinic. Very easy, very difficult, but very easy. Kiera Dent (03:37) And they're industry specific too. I don't know how it is in chiropractic, but I know in like dentistry, we say right now, even with all the things like I want 30%, we're talking all things, fringe benefits, 401k. Like 30 % for payroll, 25 to 30 is about average. And we aim for, I don't know how it is in chiropractic, but I aim for a 50%, not including doctor pay, 50 % overhead in dental practices, 30 % of doctor pay, because I'm like, that's what you're gonna get paid as an associate. It's like, let's at least pay you that. Dr. Lauryn B (03:45) No, that's pretty yeah, that's pretty healthy. ⁓ Kiera Dent (04:04) And then hopefully we've got a 20 % profit, but that profit debt services click in and that's a real fun zone and taxes. Like I love it. No, you're not getting your W two people are not taking taxes out. You own this business. All that money comes to you. So do not get trapped in that like tax trap. but like, like that's a very simple formula and you look, what is my supplies? What are my rent? Like, what are all those things? And if you figure out the benchmarks, then you know, which one am I bleeding money on quickly fix that hole. So we stopped bleeding it again. It seems so hard. And you and I are on the other side of that equation saying, no, actually it's like real simple. You just look at it real quick, figure out what it is. You can build your practice to support whatever numbers you need, or we cut. Usually it's easier to increase production and collections than it is to cut. But a lot of people are just overspending in ridiculous ways that I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Like I have a practice, I looked at their numbers. They shouldn't giggle. I did giggle, because I was shocked. They're like, here, we have no money. And I was like, all right, send me your P &L. Let's take a look at it. So I did. Year to date, they produced 528,000. So they're doing about 85,000 per month is what I calculated when I ran the numbers. But when I looked at their take-home pay, they're taking home, so it's 528. I'm super happy for them. Like don't, there's no judgment on that. They're taking home 250,000 of that 528 is going to the doctor, which again, I'm happy that they're taking home the money. But what's happening is the practice is not producing enough for that. They're running all their kids through it. They're running their cars through it. They're running everything through it, which again is not a bad thing. But if you don't have cash in your business to hire people, I was like, we're a little off on the percentages. Dr. Lauryn B (05:37) Yeah. One of my favorite things to teach people is because people are like, I just want to learn tax strategy. I want to learn tax strategy, tax strategy. And you're like, okay, here's the thing about tax strategy is you can only do tax strategy. Can't see I'm doing air quotes here. If you have money that you don't want to give the government, if you are spending Kiera Dent (05:47) you Mm-hmm. Air quotes, I see them. it. Dr. Lauryn B (06:06) much as you make and the government's like, yeah, you're good. You don't know anything. Like there's no strategy to be had. Strategy can only apply to profits. you know, like to money you've made. So, so that's where it's like, okay, I get that you really want tax strategy, but like you're, you don't need strategy yet. You just need to create more. Kiera Dent (06:09) There is no tech strategy. ⁓ That is a tech strategy. No. Yes. You just need money to then pay taxes on. Then we can talk about what it's gonna be. Yes. Dr. Lauryn B (06:37) Yes, then we can talk strategy. But yeah, so like that's where it starts. The next hard part, and this is where I kind of touched on like, we went into this career because we believed this career was gonna take care of us while we took care of other people. And so everybody's got a little different version of what that means. ⁓ What car they think they should be driving. Kiera Dent (06:42) That's a point. Ready. Dr. Lauryn B (07:06) once they have made it, what ⁓ their house situation should look like, how many vacations, their spouse, if they're buying their spouse, designer bags and things like that. Like we have in our head once we make it, what life will look like. And so after you fix your cashflow thing, the next thing is like, you gotta kind of continue to live below your means for a while. Because if all of a sudden you've fixed your profit margins and you have an extra $30,000 flowing into bank accounts a month that does not have a job, like, you're just like, we're gonna move into a bigger clinic, we're gonna hire another doctor, we're gonna do this. And all of a sudden that... Kiera Dent (07:58) Let's go! Dr. Lauryn B (08:04) that potential, but like you have to have money in excess to build wealth upon. If you fix the first problem, which is we don't have enough money, okay great, now you have enough money, and then instead of building wealth, you buy a Birkin, which I still keep sending my husband all of the memes and reels that like Birkins are apparently, you know, they are also appreciating, they're beating the S &P. So I'm just saying maybe a Birkin was a bad example because that would be an investment. ⁓ Kiera Dent (08:36) See? I why not? think there's a lot we could probably justify in the investment realm. Like it's fine. I'm here for it. Dr. Lauryn B (08:46) Right, right. But no, you know, if it's like one of those things where if you just lifestyle inflate after you fixed your cashflow issue, what's going to happen is, is you're going to still be, you're going to have like golden handcuffs where you're like, well, yeah, the clinic is bringing in 1.2 and like, yeah, I do keep 350 of that, but I still. like I'm paying off my student, because your student loan payment now is increasing and like this and like your mortgage and all of this stuff. And you're gonna, you have the potential if you're not careful to feel just as squeezed financially, even though you've gone to the next level of salary and income, but you can still feel that exact same financial scare. And so like that's another thing where it's like, okay, you have to figure out, the balance for you and your spouse because like my husband, ⁓ my husband is definitely, so this is from Garrett Gunderson. He's a really great financial wealth advisor. don't know if he's in your guys's world. Yes. Okay. Yes. So he was on my podcast and he was talking about how basically within all the Kiera Dent (09:53) I love him. Definitely. We love him. Dr. Lauryn B (10:04) that he's coached people through, there's basically, he used a different word, but right now I'll just call it the the saver and the spender. Okay. Now the spender tends to be the visionary, the CEO. It tends to be the person that's like taking the risks to build the things. They're like, we had a record year, we're reward ourselves, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this, life is fun, this is great, this is like a... And then they often marry a ⁓ saver that is just like... I don't need all of that. I don't need another vacation. I don't need a fancier car. I don't need this. ⁓ And it can actually make them very uncomfortable that, you know, so my husband is, we'll call it saver. ⁓ And we go, I mean, our travel budget a year is insane. we should definitely be putting that towards crypto and like buying a duplex and like building more. But Kiera Dent (10:57) you. But why? But why? Dr. Lauryn B (11:04) If someone told me like, no, no, no, here's the plan. You get one trip a year and then we're gonna just like all of this money and then you can start around 45, like, know, and then at 50, it'll open up a little bit more. Like, I'd like, well, that's no fun. I don't want that. And so you have to figure out, because there's a ditch on both sides of the road, right? And so you have to figure out like, when do you want to retire? Kiera Dent (11:28) Mm-hmm. Dr. Lauryn B (11:33) Like what is that number? What is that freedom number? How much money do you need coming in in like passive investments? Like how much do you need your crypto portfolio to be doing? Like your real estate portfolio. What's that number of monthly income or annual income? And when do you want to get there by? And this is going to be so dependent on whoever you're talking to. if you're 50 and you're like, I want to get there by 55. and you're starting, not great. Like, yeah, okay, you know what? Your travel budget, you just need to not worry about that for five years. Like, you got some work to do. But like, if you're sitting here at 35 and you're like, I'd like to retire by 50, and like, I still wanna take our kids on some vacations, but I do think we should be, you know, then you just gotta pick where are you pinching pennies? Like, because you gotta pinch them somewhere. So like, maybe it's... not designer handbag season. Maybe it's not getting the newest vehicle. Maybe you'd rather live in a bigger house, but drive a more reasonable car. Whatever it is, maybe you have no problem giving up vacations, but you need that pool in your backyard. Again, there's a ditch on both sides. think that as this couple, you need to come together and figure out. that equation where even after you're getting some of these doctor luxuries that you've worked hard for, there's still money left over that is being invested wisely. Kiera Dent (13:13) love Lauryn that you talked about Garrett Gunderson and I love that there's the saver and the spender in every relationship because this happens like it's a real thing. ⁓ And I love that you talk about like, okay, one step one is like, you got to make money and you got to keep the money. So it's like, make the money and keep the money. I have like, okay, if we could just follow that. Jocko Willings, he's got a quote. This is like discipline equals freedom. And it sits in my kitchen, which I think is a very smart place to stick this sign. I see it all the time. And I'm like,…
Full show notes at the publisherKiera is joined by Dr. Lauryn Brunclik (of She Slays the Day podcast fame) to take a good hard look at clinician burnout, different sides of the working mindset coin, generational styles of work, and so much more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I am so excited about our guest that's going to be on the podcast with me today. She is incredible. We're going to be talking about all things burnout, how to avoid it, how to just like live your best life. And so I have Dr. Lauryn Brunclik. She's an entrepreneur, chiropractor, business coach, podcast host, wife, mother, and sought-after speaker known for her high energy. You guys know that this is why I like her. mean, we're birds of the same feather, straightforward attitude and ability to make people laugh while discovering their truth. In 2010, she founded Blue Hills Chiropractic building into a thriving seven figure practice. But after years of relentless hustle, she found herself overworked, tied to her clinic and craving more freedom. Dentist, can you relate? Now you see why I brought her on here. Now you can see why I want her here. ⁓ she truly is very similar to all of you out there. She was determined to create a business that worked for her, not the other way around. Lauryn built multiple revenue streams, streamlined her operations and reclaimed her time without sacrificing income. She took that passion and launched She Slays the Day, a podcast helping professionals and clinic owners break free from burnout by creating multiple revenue streams, recleaning time and building financial and lifestyle freedom. So welcome to the show, Lauryn. How are you today? Dr. Lauryn B (01:07) Thank you. As you were reading that is so funny because like in this world of virtual assistants and AI, I'm always like, what bio is she reading? And I'm like kind of holding my breath like, ⁓ and I'm like, okay, yep, that's true. That's true. this is good. I did really get sad and burnt up. It's like, I just went on a journey with you while you're reading my bio. Kiera Dent (01:25) Usually both. You and me both. was on a podcast the other day and I had the exact same feeling because they were reading my bio and I was like, huh, I'm super curious. Like which bio did you get? And wow, yeah, like I did just get to go down memory lane. but Dr. Lauryn B (01:40) You're like, that's a good bio. Good job, AI. Good job. Which is like always waiting for like the wrong thing where it's like, no, I didn't do a stint as a clown or anything. No, that's not true. That's not true. So. Kiera Dent (01:49) Exactly. I, Shelbi got us connected and I was super excited and you know, I was looking up on it and she's like, here, I think you and Lauryn are going to have the best time on the podcast. She's like, you two are birds of the same feather, the high energy, the tactical, the like we talk about it's like life on purpose and business on purpose and not having it to where it's the other way around. I say all the time, like your business should be working for you, not the other way around. It should be supporting your life. So I'm just super jazzed. So Lauryn. Dr. Lauryn B (02:04) Mm. Kiera Dent (02:17) I mean, that was a great bio. agree like kudos to AI, virtual assistant, whomever wrote it for you. Kudos to you for living that actual bio and being the human on the other side of that. So anything else you want to add? I mean, we're here today to chat shop. We're here to ⁓ share with your audience, our audience, and just really collaborate together and talk about some things that you're super passionate about and that I am too. Dr. Lauryn B (02:22) Right. Yeah, so I think that one of the things is that, you you kind of address of like, I think you probably typically have more dentists on of thing and your audience is like, wait, what's happening? So I started as a coach for chiropractors, you Kiera Dent (02:51) you Dr. Lauryn B (02:56) this is, I see this a lot of what we do ⁓ as especially high achieving people, you know, we spend a lot of money and time getting this degree. And then we kind of, when we start to get bored, burnt out, ADHD, whatever it is in our career where there's this kind of a couple years in and you're like, wait, is this on repeat? What we tend to do is we repurpose our current knowledge set. And so it's like, I have this degree in this, so I'm gonna start a podcast for those people, right? And so that was kind of my experience too. She Slays the Day started as a podcast for chiropractors. But then I started to realize like as we were having these conversations and you you're just networking, you're meeting. And I started to talk to dentists and veterinarians and you know, realizing like, ⁓ you guys deal with the same shit we do? I had an ENT on a private practice, ENT ⁓ on the podcast, on my podcast because I was following him on Instagram because he was hilarious, but I was like. Kiera Dent (03:51) Yeah. Dr. Lauryn B (04:02) you're dealing with the same stuff we do. And ultimately, that's kind of where I expanded in 2023 to be more for healthcare providers outside the traditional hospital system, because it's like, none of us learned business. Like, we, while we were doing anatomy and infectious disease and all of this stuff, there were people outside in the college getting like MBAs and entire business degrees. Kiera Dent (04:18) Exactly. Dr. Lauryn B (04:31) And we didn't take a single class. we just, there's such this atmosphere of shameful entrepreneurship. What I mean by that is like, especially within chiropractic, and I've talked to vets and dentists as well, that's like, well, if you're not gonna own your own clinic, are you even like really that good? And so there's this forced entrepreneurship in a society where only 10 % of Kiera Dent (04:54) Mm-hmm. Dr. Lauryn B (05:01) people truly have the grit and resilience for the shit show that is ⁓ entrepreneurship. But you have like 80 to 90 % of a profession going into it. And so it's just so natural that it's like, we didn't learn this stuff. It's so natural that burnout is such a common thing. So that's where really it's like, I've realized that like, yeah, I promise you that the same stuff we're dealing with, you're dealing with too because I've had these conversations. Kiera Dent (05:13) Right. Amen. And it's actually funny, and I didn't mention this prior, but we actually consulted a chiropractic office and we've consulted eye clinics and ⁓ optometrists and we've gone into CPA clinic firms. And I realized business is business is business and healthcare business is very similar. I think we do ⁓ outside of mainstream medicine, which is our chiropractic, our vets, our dentists. We're not in the hospital setting. We have more of that autonomy to have our own practices and our own businesses and I agree with you. It is a I think I think the memes out there with business ownership are so accurate the ones where you're on a roller coaster and they're like it's the highs and the lows the ones we're like holding on for dear life and you're like giggling and then crying all within a matter of seconds and I'm like that is the role that is the realm and so that's why I really wanted us to collaborate together Lauryn to talk about because What you see in chiropractic, what I see in dentistry, what we see across the board of these incredible clinicians. like you, go to school, you learn, you, you have all this experience in this knowledge. And like you said, It does not train you to be a business owner. yet also, like you said, it's well, why not? Like, and I think that that is kind of the, it's like for team members, like you want to graduate to be the office manager. You want to be the regional manager. You want to get to that level. Like that's where you like it. There's a ladder ascension. And I think in business ownership and with Like you wanted to be a chiropractor because you wanted to help people. You wanted to be a dentist because you want to help people. You want to be a vet because you want to help people. You want to be an ENT because you want to help people. But it's, think that there's this unsaid natural ladder that people feel there's a push to go for a business ownership when it's like, but I just want to be a clinician. I just wanted to, to do my craft, but I also wanted to do it my way. And that's where I think the business ownership vibe comes in. But you're right. It's, it's stressful, not having profits, not having understanding cashflow, not understanding how to run teams. Like awful. Dr. Lauryn B (07:20) The number of people, doc, clinic owners that have been in practice for 10 plus years that I am teaching what profit margins are and what is healthy and how to calculate it is astounding. It's like, So, you know, I think that ultimately when you, you know, the different personality types, you know, when they find themselves in practice, Kiera Dent (07:31) Yes. Yes. Yes. Dr. Lauryn B (07:46) I feel like they almost burn out for two completely different reasons. So let's say that you have, know, so 80 % of humans are just more meant to be more like caregivers, supporter roles. I would guess that that's even higher in someone who's called into healthcare, right? That like, they went into this, believe me, if you are about to decide what you should do with your life and you are like, I'm an entrepreneur and I wanna be. Kiera Dent (08:05) Mm-hmm. Dr. Lauryn B (08:15) rich. Do not go into chiropractic. Do not go into dentistry. There is so much easier ways to make money. like 99 point whatever percent of people are called to this profession in healthcare because they want to serve. So let's say you start your clinic. There's a good chance you're going to burn out from one of two reasons. One, you don't want to run a clinic. You truly And that's what's burning you out, is that you're just like, I am here for the patients. I want to pour into the patients and I want to serve and I want to do that. But like, I have to hire another front desk person? Didn't we just do that last year? I don't know what the ad should say. I don't know what we should pay them. Or like there's office drama and you're like, I have to create a SOP on that, what? And so that will burn you out because so much of being the CEO and the clinic owner is like, pulling you away from patient care. So you either have to divide your patient care down or in half so you have time and now you're spending half of your time not doing what you wanna do or you just pile on the admin stuff on top of it so you're working 60 hours a week. So that person, obviously they burn out. Now the other one is I think a much more, like is much more my personal story and I'm so curious as to like why you started the podcast, why you started doing what you're doing but like. Kiera Dent (09:30) Mm-hmm. Right. Dr. Lauryn B (09:43) So this is, I was not someone that like was a natural entrepreneur. Like I never would have, you there's certain people you hear these stories where they're like, I'm kindergarten. was like, you know, I'm like, no, that wasn't me. Like I had no idea until really after I, you know, I started my practice, but that was out of convenience. Cause there was no job. Like I had kids and like somewhere along the line, the entrepreneurship bug just got me. Kiera Dent (09:56) Hahaha! Dr. Lauryn B (10:13) And then all of a sudden, that's what I wanted to be doing. Like I wanted to be scaling, looking at marketing strategy, looking at like growth projections, creating higher, like I wanted to do that. But then like Barb needs me in a room too. And I'm like, like I love, okay, I like serving. Yes, yes, yes. But like I really. Kiera Dent (10:36) Yeah. Dr. Lauryn B (10:41) This is what was exciting to me. And so then, and this is where I'll kind of like be vulnerable and share my story, because I know from stage that this helps people, people see this, but it's embarrassing to admit, but the patient care became boring. The patient care became repetitive. Like in the beginning, you're like, ⁓ how do I fix this? And like, you're not getting results, how do I do that? And it was this problem, like new problems to solve. But once you've been doing it, five, seven years, I mean, for everybody it's different, you're kind of like, I can do that on autopilot. And it wasn't challenging a part of my brain that wanted to solve new problems. And so there was a lot of shame and guilt that came with, because at this point, I've been in practice seven years. I'm in my early 30s. Okay, well, you're doing this for the next 30 years. And I was like, I can't. Kiera Dent (11:38) Right. Dr. Lauryn B (11:39) can't do this for the next 30 years. And so that's just like, whichever side a clinic owner sees themself in, like, you you're not safe on either. You have to figure out burnout on either side, but ⁓ they're completely different reasonings. And I think understanding what, why are you feeling that burnout is really important. Kiera Dent (12:04) Yeah, I love that you talked about both sides of the coin because I think there's guilt at least from what I see working with dentists working at myself. They actually got like I've heard I don't know like where this is coined but it's like the seven year itch or stitch like there's like you just kind of get into this and some people get it at five years some people get it at 10 years but there is ⁓ I also love Tony Robbins when he says like progress equals happiness. Dr. Lauryn B (12:20) Mm-hmm. Kiera Dent (12:29) And so if we're not progressing and some people love it, they love the autopilot of patient care is easy for me. But like when you first get out of school, all of that is hard. It's a puzzle. You're progressing. You've got to figure out how do you navigate and get patients to say yes to treatment? How do I run my books? Like how, like there's so much how, how, how to, how do I like serve my patients better? How do I make this for dentists? It's like, do I make that perfect crown margin? Like, how do get that perfect? I imagine in chiropractor, I'm actually a chiropractor. all the time. I love her. She's incredible. We do talk business often. She's a fee for service. And I'm like, let's talk shop on like going fee for service versus in network, like, just like dentists, right, the fee for service versus in network. And it's how can I make this body like looking at people that have weird symptoms and trying to figure out how can I fix that? Like, I know there's a way to fix this long term. ⁓ But also the like annoyance of running a business and also be like, need for growth. I really love and I never thought about those two sides of the coin until you mentioned that of that really is what causes people to stress. And I think that there is guilt on both sides. I think there's guilt of I want to be with patient care and I don't want to run the business, but I know I have to like, this is kind of the, the card I signed up for. And then the other side of I want to leave the chair. I had a dentist the other day and one of our masterminds say to me, I only want to work two or t…
Full show notes at the publisherFeeling stuck? Kiera helps listeners create a three-step framework to diagnose a growth ceiling and push through with strategy and confidence. The steps that follow can be done in order or reversed. Find your true cap rate (then get a second opinion) Rework your systems for scale Set a bold new vision Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and I hope today is just a great day for you. I hope that you're loving your life. Today's podcast date today is the day I get to share with you for whatever we're doing today. So whether we're driving to work together, whether we're driving home together, whether we're doing laundry or mowing the grass or traveling together or whatever you're doing today, thanks for taking me along with you. ⁓ it's truly something so fun. And today I think is going to be great for you to, what do do when you hit the plateau in your practice? ⁓ so reality is we like didn't build our practices to be stuck or to feel like we're stuck or like there's no like we don't know our next move. ⁓ The reality is like if you plateaued or you feel stuck, it's just time to evolve. It's an indicator for you to know what the next step is kind of like when our seatbelt buckle beeps in the car, it's an indicator to put our seatbelt on ⁓ or we get the indicator from the gas light. It's an indicator to go and fill up our car with gas. Same thing when we're practices like it's plateaued or it's stuck. It's just like Cool, let's diagnose, let's create a framework. Today I'm gonna help you have a three-step framework to diagnose your growth ceiling and how to push through it with strategy and confidence. So that's about what we're gonna do today. The Dental A Team is obsessed with you, I adore you. I'm so excited to be a part of your life or your practice. Our goal is to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible and we do that through helping you say yes to more. So you having a vision for you and your life and your practice, earnings to make sure that you're profitable and it's predictable profit. and then new systems and team development to ensure that everything you want to say yes to in life, you, your team and your patients is doable for you. And we do that with fun. We do that with ease. We do that with ⁓ creativity and love for teams. And we've been there, done that and done it successfully many times. I truly can hang my hat on the fact that I believe Dental A Team is the top notch consulting company. If you want to grow, if you want to do it with fun, if you want it to not just be directed at dentists, but you want your team involved in it and to do it from experts who have done it thousands of times successfully. And that's something I'm really proud of. Most of our offices see a 10 to 30 % increase in production or a decrease in overhead within their first 90 days. We track these stats, we're very obsessive with it, and we do it through really fun, easy dial turns. So if that's something you're obsessed with, rock on. Let's work together. Reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. And as always, thank you guys for sharing this podcast. The goal is to get this into every dentist's hands, every single practice's hands. So please share, like, leave reviews, whatever you can do to get the word out and to help me on my mission to truly give back to our community. 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So today when we're going to, a lot of times I see this in like a 1 million, a 1.5, a 2 million practice where they're just like, gosh, I feel like I've just like hit my level and I don't know how to grow beyond it. It's kind of like my hair. My hair grows to a certain length and it won't grow beyond that. Like I can cut it shorter. but it just grows and it has never once grown beyond that. It's like, I don't know how to get my hair to grow past this level. Well, some practices feel like stuck hair, ⁓ but I just want to help give you this framework of three simple steps to help you diagnose it and then figure out what the next step is. So number one is to diagnose your true ceiling. And ⁓ this is where we're going to figure out like what the true cap rate is. Now, why we'll put this with an asterisk though, because a lot of offices think they've tapped out capped out. but maybe they're just so used to sitting in there or they don't know how to have an eye for it. I went into a practice once upon a time. They had four ops and they're like, Kiera, there's nowhere else we could ever fit an operatory in here. So we're just gonna build out, we're building a building across the street. Well, within about 15 minutes, I was able to find another operatory. They added that operatory. They were able to add 200,000 to their practice just that year. just by adding that one operatory in place. And they were like, well, we wish we would have met you like even a few months ago before we started building this huge, expensive building. I have another client where they got huge design plans out to like expand the building. It's a huge, huge expansion. They sent me a video of their downstairs and I was like, gosh, we could add like six ops down here with less effort, less reno. ⁓ And so I think also before you like truly say you pick capacity. maybe getting a second set of eyes on it or a third set of eyes to see is there any hidden potential in here because we're looking at chairs, ops, providers, and hygiene days. That's going to truly be capacity of what can we do. Now again, getting creative because could we add maybe an hour in the morning? Have we maxed out all five days in the office? A lot of times people tell me we're maxed and I'm like, but you're not even working five days. That doesn't mean you have to work five days, but if you're practicing your building sitting empty, that space that we could actually grow that isn't the true ceiling. So if we are not maxing out all five days, if we're not maxing out ⁓ all the operatories or all the space that we've got, you truly have not hit your ceiling. You might just not want to do the things that are capable for you. So looking at that, could I add more chairs? Could I add more operatories? What about more providers? What about more hygiene days? What about more hygiene hours? Is there space to expand any of that? Before we truly go to expand, these might be some areas that might be able to help you get past this plateau of some other areas. Also, let's look at our leadership. ⁓ Is our owner acting as a manager and not a CEO? Are they managing the day to day? ⁓ Are they involved in all the meetings or are they truly as a CEO? And our office manager is acting as the manager within the practice. So looking for that because sometimes just freeing that owner doctor up to be a CEO actually can expand your practice very quickly with minimal effort. You actually can have all that in place and there's very little effort that you actually have to do because now the owner is able to look at things It's like, give me a day of nothing and I will create so many possibilities. And so getting that owner out of the manager seat and into the true CEO seat, if that's the right seat for them, can also help. And then let's look to see like, what are our gaps? are there scheduling apps gaps? Do we have block scheduling in place? Can we maximize our schedule even more? What about our case acceptance, our AR? ⁓ What are some of the other areas of bottlenecks within our practice that maybe if we look to see changing them, like I've added hundreds of thousands. including millions to a practice just by doing a different scheduling tactic, looking at the flow of the practice, just changing up the flow with pediatric practices, looking to see where do we put our ops versus our, our profis. You can actually readjust that whole schedule and actually squeeze out more juice in your practice, giving a better patient experience with little to no effort, just reworking how we're doing things. So I really, really, really love this. Like there's a practice. that cure were totally maxed out. Like we don't know what to do and should we like expand our practice? They already have the huge practice and looking at it, I was like, but we're only here four days. So why don't we even consider that fifth day and or evening hours a couple of days? Again, that does not mean your current team. We could hire other team members for this, but like let's just run some numbers and see just adding that extra day, those lower, those evening hours. We were able to add over 550,000 to a practice just by doing that one simple thing. no extra cost to the building. We were able to bring in two team members for that. Everything ran super easy. So I think I would go and look to see like in your practice when you're thinking I've plateaued, run a quick audit and say, where are we losing time? Where are we losing money? Or where are we losing energy? Like what are the true bottlenecks in our practice? And this is where like a CEO has to have that visionary time. Because if we ran a 60 minute audit on your office, Could we quickly find those? When I walk into an office or our consultants walk into an office, that's what we're doing. We're auditing your practice. We're looking for these bottlenecks. So even if you can't figure out that, maybe it is time to consider bringing a consultant on site to just look at your practice to see. And we can do this virtually or in person. In person is obviously a little bit easier, but virtually too. Take videos and we can diagnose that space real quickly for you just to see what are maybe some of the options that we could do for you. So then when I look at this, SIP 2 is going to be like, reworking all of your systems for scale. ⁓ It's like the saying is like, what got you here is not going to get you to where you need to go. So we've got to rework those. And like there have been practices that I walked in and they're actually too systematized. They're too in the weeds to be able to grow and expand it. And so for that, like, what do we need to upgrade? So like I said, for block scheduling or for handoffs or for our morning huddles or for accountability systems or reporting or KPI or tracking, like, ⁓ everybody doing a time audit to see what is on your schedule that should not be on your schedule that we could actually put into different people's spots. So often offices will tell me like, Kiera, we're so maxed. And I'm like, you're actually not maxed. Everybody's just overlapping. So we're like two or three people on the same task versus separating it out, delegating it out, getting everybody crystal clear. ⁓ That way everybody can see and can have clarity. And I don't necessarily do it by person, but by seat. So especially for an office, we've got chair one, chair two, chair three. What do each of these chairs, what are they responsible for? What are the numbers and the metrics that they're responsible to do? So really like separating it out, dividing it out, making sure our systems are very scalable. So think like, okay, if we're a five-op practice doing 1.5 million today, what would a $4 million business that's maybe an eight-op practice do? How would we have to change those systems and even starting to implement those systems now into your practice can exponentially help you go beyond this plateau space. So I really think like when you look at it, those simple changes like we're able to add 10,000, 20,000, 15,000 to a practice per month just by adjusting some of these systems, just by adjusting the KPIs, just by adjusting what people are doing because a lot of times smaller practices are more. Overlappy, I think is the best way to say it rather than the larger practices the larger practices do read a little bit leaner they have more ⁓ More clarity of who should be doing what because they have to and so really looking to see what do I need to do? And how can I optimize the systems? What what's outdated in our practice that maybe we could revamp refine? Do differently now on the flip side sometimes practices that are so large actually have so many old dated systems that they just keep bringing forward that they need to actually get rid of some of those dated systems and pick one or two systems to update. So like, are we so clunky in everything that we're tracking on our scorecard? Could we eliminate some of the things that we're tracking? So there's either, we need to track more or we need to track less. What is it and how can I actually update and rebuild our systems to be able to scale with ease? So that would be a quick thing to look at of like, what's outdated or what's to like, not like nuances. what areas, and again, these are hard things to see. So fair warning, you've never done this before. So you might not even realize something's dated. And there was a practice who was still using paper charts. And I walked in and I was like, I've worked with you for a year. You didn't bother to tell me you had paper charts. But for them being in the day to day, they didn't realize that that was dated. So sometimes for you, you do need a bird's eye perspective. You do need someone who has seen hundreds of offices of what should be happening or what could be happening in your organization. that maybe you're not even doing. So truly I am big on, yes, I am a consultant. So of course I have that. We do it within our company too. Bringing in people who are smarter than where we are. We know we've hit our ceiling and what we know how to update or what we think is outdated, we've already fixed. It might be time for you to also have that. And sometimes that's where the plateau happens is because... You've grown as far as you know how to grow. You don't know how to go to the next level. And I've been there. I'm in there in my company right now. Like we're getting ready to bring somebody in from large, large, large corporation to still keep our like our boutique feel, but allowing us to scale in ways that I don't even understand how to do. So truly like even myself, I do this for our company because I think it's so wise to see somebody else who can help me figure out like what's dated, what's not working to help us scale even more while maintaining the feel of. we are. Excuse me, step three. Step three is going to be setting a bold new vision. So ⁓ when we feel like we've plateaued, we gotta figure out like, where do we want to go? Where do we want to grow…
Full show notes at the publisherDentistry isn't always the front of the pack when it comes to innovation, but Tiff and Kristy tackle the topic with digestible takeaways from a marketing point of view. In this episode, they touch on easy questions to identify your practice's brand, why that patient avatar is so critical, and how to ensure your brand spreads through your office, down to the check-in staff member. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are back here with you today. This is Tiffanie, because I forget to announce myself, and Miss Kristy. I have Kristy for the long haul today. She's doing a couple of different recordings with me. And I can't wait for them to come out. Actually, Kristy, I have had so much fun. I think this one, I don't know what order they go out in. So whatever. If you guys have listened to the leadership ones we just did or have not, they're coming. You're going to love them. So Kristy, thank you for taking this ride with me today and just busting out a ton ⁓ with me on this beautiful, it's a Thursday morning right now. How are you doing? You holding up over there? You got your water? Awesome. DAT Kristy (00:40) Absolutely. It's always the day goes by fast when we're doing this. love it. The Dental A Team (00:45) Yeah, me too. I really do. I do love it. And I ⁓ love when we hear from listeners. I love when we get, you know, we get to go through the reviews below and see what people loved or I know a lot of people will leave like info of their own that there is suggestions I should say. And it's just a lot of fun. Always hearing from it. And I love hearing from my clients when they've listened to one. So I agree the podcast is fun and it's like a collaboration time for us. I enjoy it. this podcast topic, the subject, is something I really, really love. ⁓ I was talking actually, it's on marketing guys. So don't fret. I think you already saw the title, but it's on marketing. ⁓ I joined a marketing call yesterday with a client and it was a marketer I've not worked with before and she was fantastic and she was very collaborative. It was great, but she... She was like, is this something you guys do? You guys work, like you do marketing for them? And I was like, no, no, no, let's not get wild here. Like I don't do marketing, but I love it. And I know my consultant team loves marketing and internal is our jam. And we are really, really solid at that, but really finding different ways that we can leverage our skills to show patients and potential patients that this is the right place for them. I think is something that consultants on our team are really fantastic at. And I wanted to dive into some of that with you today, Kristy, is really just like how to just innovate a brand. And the most fun part about this for me in today's market is that I don't think that dentistry has always been in a space of total innovation. I think dentistry has always kind of innovated, like, my gosh, can we just talk about how long we've been using the same stuff for like root canals, right? Or whatever, like, come on, right? But there is a lot of innovation in like filling materials and scans and x-rays, the, know, CBCT scans, all of these different modalities, in-house crowns, like Botox, lip fillers, but I've got... Practices that are doing facial aesthetics, know having estheticians in the office We do have a lot of innovation when it comes to that space but something I think is truly innovating within the last few years is the understanding of a Dental practice and a dentist needing to have a brand. I don't think marketing Has been easy in the dental world. I don't think it's been understood and I don't think it's been super effective if I'm honest and the Idea of innovating is really cool to me. I love innovation. That's one of our, I don't think it's innovate, it used to be innovate or die, a core value of ours. I hated that. But innovate is just something that we live by at the Dental A Team. We're constantly looking for, okay, well that didn't get us the result we wanted. Let's do something different. Let's try this. And changing things and marketing allows for that in so many really cool ways. But really looking at it and saying, what's my brand? Who am I? Like how is my practice showing up in our community is something that I don't think that, Kristy, we've really ever spent a lot of time diving into within the dental world. And I think it's starting to come up. But what are you seeing, Kristy, even with the practices you're working with today, do you see a lot of practices really thinking, what's my brand? DAT Kristy (04:25) Yeah, no, I think we are still behind the time in that regard for most other industries. They've kind of dialed this in. ⁓ It's definitely an area I believe that we can do better. mean, obviously, I just moved from Idaho and there's like, I don't know, three or five dentists on every corner almost. Do you think I'm exaggerating? finding out and The Dental A Team (04:49) Literally. DAT Kristy (04:54) And brand again can be such a broad word, but to simplify it, I just ask doctors, what's your purpose? What's your niche? What do you wanna be known for? Start asking yourself some of those questions to identify and set yourself apart. Here's the thing, dentistry, it goes back to what you said, Tiff, we only offer so many things. And so how do we put ourselves apart? Like why do they want a filling from you versus your three neighbors next door? So yeah, again, one of those words brand, it's like, it's so broad. So narrow it down. What do you want to be known for? What's your purpose and what's your niche? And if you've been in dentistry for a while and you still haven't done this, go look at your reviews right now. The Dental A Team (05:28) Yep, I totally agree. DAT Kristy (05:48) and start highlighting some common words. If they're saying friendly or, I don't know, nice, kind, whatever it is, start highlighting them and see, does that fit you? Right? The Dental A Team (06:00) Yeah, yeah, I mean you could throw that into chat GPT. You could say chat GPT, go look at my reviews and find commonalities. Innovation guys, innovation. 2025 chat GPT, that's our best friend. No, I totally agree with you and ⁓ you said a few things there that I just totally resonate with and it made me think of a client, ⁓ actually a conversation I had with my financial advisor boyfriend who is just like, DAT Kristy (06:07) There you go. The Dental A Team (06:28) He works with a few dentists here locally in Arizona and Phoenix and he asks me a lot of questions and he's like, how is this possible? And I'm like, you know, he sees the profit and he sees the things that dentists are able to achieve and what they're able to achieve for their team members and being able to see like how, they're the 401ks and there's the different things that they're able to do and there he's not seen that in another industry. right, through the work that he's done at least. And the conversation we had was, we were talking about a cosmetic practice and he, I think I upset him if I'm honest with you, we just at the gym, right? And he was just like, I just don't understand how it's possible that one, because I said, don't know, it could be, you know, for this specific cosmetic dentist, it's probably $2,500 of an year, okay? DAT Kristy (07:11) ⁓ The Dental A Team (07:25) pretty average honestly for a cosmetic dentist like 2500 a veneer and his mind was blown right because he's looking at like cosmetic procedures um at a plastic surgeon right like you can get minor cosmetic procedures for similar amounts of money on your physical body right and not just one single tooth and i said well you know while i understand where you're coming from like let me tell you the hours it takes to do a cause, like what it actually takes and what a lab cost of one of those crowns could be, et cetera, et cetera. But long story short, he just was mind blown and was just like, that is wild. And I thought to myself, this is it. Like this is the marketing and the branding because you do have to set yourself apart and you have to reach the people that want to be reached by you, right? My boyfriend, I love him to death. He is not. DAT Kristy (08:14) Mm-hmm. The Dental A Team (08:18) this he's not a cosmetic dentist avatar, it's not their dream, right? Because you're going to be convincing him. Like nobody wants that. if you want to you want that number nine implant crown replaced by a dentist who's going to make it look 100,000 times better than it does right now, honey. It's you're going to pay money for that, right? But if you're not concerned about it, then you're not going to care, right? Who you go to. So My conversation with him yesterday made me really really think how important it is for practices to understand their brand and their avatar patient. So what is it that you want to do and within the capabilities of your surroundings I think is a good statement. I have practices that are like I want to do cosmetic dentistry and I'm like well you're in a like this you've got 20 miles around you of Medicaid. People aren't coming here for that, so we've gotta move your practice or change your avatar, right? So within the confinements of where you're at, of course, but what is it that you want to provide and then who are you providing it to? And Kristy, I think one piece that's missed in the branding conversation, one, we all wanna be like, I wanna do this, right? But it's like, okay, is that avatar here? So then looking at what your patient avatar Who is your patient avatar? Who is the person you're speaking to? And then what do they need, right? In our company, Kiera and I love nothing more than to brainstorm and innovate. Like we want to innovate. We want to change the world, right? And we get on these tangents and then thank goodness we have like Britt and Shelbi on these calls with us because they're like, okay, cool guys, this sounds like an awesome product. It sounds like something that is gonna be really cool and that you will love doing. Does it speak to our client's needs? And we're like, ⁓ yeah, that's right. We can innovate and we can do all of these cool things, but are we meeting a need of the people who need us, right? Of our client avatar. We know who we wanna work with. Are we just creating to create? Or are we creating something that meets a need of that avatar, of the person that we want to work with? And if it does, then fantastic, then let's move forward. DAT Kristy (10:14) You The Dental A Team (10:37) And so I think with the branding conversation, we're speaking to those needs. So who are we looking to work with? ⁓ Who do we want to inspire to have better dental health? And then what are their needs? And how can we show up and speak to that? Where our brand, Kristy, tell me if I'm totally off here, but we'll add to it as well. I think our brand... really is how we're showing up to speak to those needs, right? And how we're showing up in a way that those people who need those things find us, right? DAT Kristy (11:14) Yeah, I agree with you 100%. And to your point, I know people almost have a adverse reaction when we say buying dentistry or selling dentistry, but in the big scheme of things, guys, we are selling dentistry. what are they looking to buy? And it's usually they're not coming in saying, I want to buy a root canal, right? They're buying health or they're buying The Dental A Team (11:39) Yeah. Yeah. DAT Kristy (11:42) They're buying something it's going to give them. And so I think sometimes we miss the mark by speaking our language instead of the language they're looking for. Right. The Dental A Team (11:54) Totally agree. I remember one of the first like all on four over dentures, whatever that we did in my practice. I was like, ⁓ my gosh, I get it because the guy bought because he was like, I just want to eat a steak again. And I was like, that is brilliant. So that became our brand of our all on fours. Like eat a steak again because it fit our target audience, our avatar and our demographic. We knew. DAT Kristy (12:10) Hmm? The Dental A Team (12:23) the area that we were in had that need and those were the patients that we wanted. And so we took that as a brand of our practice and we were like, do you want to eat steak again? So it's like that, now we're speaking to their need instead of selling a denture, right? Like people might call the denture places, right? And I'm not talking about prosthodontists, I'm talking about these big you guys have seen the commercials, they might, those are not your avatar. Those patients are not the patients that you want. You want the patients that are emotionally tied to being able to eat a steak again. I had a patient that had regular dentures. I will never forget this lady. She was so sweet and so sweet. She just had dentures and she would not go for. the lower support adventure and we're like totally fine, totally fine. She came in like once a month for quote unquote adjustments because She couldn't eat lettuce. And she brought in a piece of lettuce and she put it in between her teeth and then pull it out. Her need was that she wanted to eat a salad again. And I get that, I eat a lot of salads, I eat a lot of steak. So it became the brand of that specific procedure. And it became one of our brands. Lettuce gets you healthy in all the ways. ⁓ speaking to what you said, right? So I think something action-wise that I have a lot of practices do is, and we do this in multifaceted, ⁓ is building that avatar. We help clients build the avatar of their ideal patient, and then, side-step, I love avatars, building the avatar of your ideal team member. Because within the brand conversation, If you, I like to think of companies who have a really, really easy brand, right? And kind of match up with, I think, what a lot of the dentists that we work with are kind of looking for, their style, right? Everybody says the Ritz-Carlton, but nobody knows what that means anymore, doctors. Please just know your team members don't know what the Ritz-Carlton is or how they show up, so it doesn't work. ⁓ But brands that do resonate with a lot of team members, and it's easy for a lot of doctors to understand the importance of hiring, DAT Kristy (14:44) Yeah. The Dental A Team (14:57) And emanating the brand that you want and I think Lululemon is a very easy one, right? Everyone knows there's not a soul who does not know what Lululemon is. They've done a phenomenal job. When you walk into a Lululemon, same, you could copy and paste that person. I've been to Lululemon's all over the country. Sadly, don't tell my boyfriend. I've been to Lululemon's all over the country and you can duplicate the way that they show up. They are a brand, they are a piece of that company and they are showing up that way. Dental A Team, we run the same way. We are speaking the company culture constantly and we all show up the same. Chick-fil-A is another one. Yeah, great training, but also they're hiring the personalities that fit within their culture that they can train. Same with Starbucks. All of these different brands who have and companies who have branded themselves really well are ensuring that tha…
Full show notes at the publisherKiera is joined by Dr. Hunter Bennett of Bonita Endodontics to dive into the ins and outs of dentistry partnerships, including hiring for passion, splitting tasks, going DSO, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and I am like beyond excited for this podcast. This is all of my worlds combining into one in such a beautiful, magical way. The guests that I have on today actually is a throwback to my Midwestern days. So I met Dr. Hunter Bennett at Midwestern when he was a pre-dentist ⁓ in the sim clinic of good old Midwestern University in Arizona. ⁓ That school is better known as the Harvard of the West and Hunter was a dental student there. And then he went on for endo residency at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in 2017. Following his residency, he returned to Arizona and practice in the mountain town of Prescott for two years. In 2019, he moved his family across the country all the way over to Florida. He is married to his beautiful wife, Lacey. They have five kids from 12 to seven months old, 12 years old to seven months old. Hunter is busy. And the reason I wanted to Hunter on is because yes, I love a good throwback to Midwestern. Like it is truly the highlight of highlights, but Hunter has gone through being an associate, being an owner, selling to a DSO. And I wanted him to come on and give perspectives of all of those, because I think so many dentists are questioning, what's my path? What's in front of me? And Hunter is kind of like, I feel like you're the buffet of dentistry. So like, which one was actually best for you? And I'm really excited for that. So Hunter, welcome. I'm so proud of who you are. I'm like, mama bear heart over here. Just so proud of you. Welcome to the show today. How are you? Hunter Bennett (01:25) this is so good. I'm so excited. I love the buffet of dentistry. That's like maybe the nicest name anybody's ever given me. I love it. It's so good. The Dental A Team (01:31) Hey, you're welcome. You're welcome. And how fun is this? As we were like prepping, told you, was like, Hunter, it's just like you and me, Sim back in Sim clinic. Like we're over there. Like you're prepping your like class ones, classes. I still remember you walking up with loops, gloves on. You knew I'd smack you with a ruler. Like not really smack guys. I was nice in that. But if those gloves did not come up at Sim, like take those off. Kiera, come on. Do I really have to? Yeah, gross. I'm training you. Do not have cross contamination. So welcome back to Sim. It's so good to see you again. Hunter Bennett (01:59) I haven't forgotten that I changed my gloves just literally all the time all the time so I appreciate it. It's how this has come full circle though truly I mean like and you haven't changed like you're still the same person just awesome and you're just always that bright personality that bright in the lab so and it's cool just to see how far you've come I'm really proud of you it's awesome. The Dental A Team (02:19) Thank you, thank you. I think it's serendipitous because the whole reason I built the company was for students like yourself. I think the love, I feel like emotions coming on and I don't wanna cry. Like I genuinely just love the Midwestern students so much. I like just so proud of you guys. I watched your journeys. mean, shoot, how long has it been since we graduated? Like I left Midwestern in shoot, like 2015, 2016 realm. Hunter Bennett (02:44) That's where I was. I think you got hired like when we got there. I think that that was your first year was my first year in the sim. And then you, I think you left with us too. So yeah, we kind of went to dental. We basically went to dental school together essentially. So yeah, you're basically a classmate. Yeah. 100%. The Dental A Team (02:47) I did. I think I did. We did and helping you guys learn x-rays. Honestly, Dr. Smith and Dr. Morrow did tell me that I care if you ever want to come to dental school, we don't even care. I didn't like confess this on like to the world. They didn't say all these words, but it basically was like, hey, we don't care what your death scores are. Like we'll accept you no matter what. I'll be that student. But then I decided I just love helping dentists. I love helping you guys. I love being that teammate to you. Like I was able to be in sim. I love seeing you succeed. I love being that support. Hunter Bennett (03:06) Yeah, they won't care. They won't care. Just get in. ⁓ The Dental A Team (03:23) that person that's there. Like when you're having those bad practicals or you need to chat shop or whatever it is. it's just real fun. And again, like mama bear proud of where you are and what you've done. and I ran into each other at the Dennis Money Summit together. And that was a throwback. You, Jeremy Mahoney, was like Midwestern crew was back together and just a fun time. Hunter Bennett (03:28) Yeah. You don't even, you don't realize how huge our little side conversations were to me. And I texted you a little bit about this, but like, we don't have to get into all of that, but like just those few conversations literally changed my life. And I'm not exaggerating. I'm not exaggerating. So we can talk about that later, but ⁓ yeah, I so appreciate you and some of your insights and watching your journey and your presentation was just so off the charts. The Dental A Team (04:03) Yeah. ⁓ Hunter Bennett (04:10) Everything about it was so good. Your stage presence, the delivery, ⁓ the message. I still can remember a lot of the stuff you said. So, ⁓ yeah, good job. It's just, I'm not surprised you are where you are. And like I said, it's been fun to watch and I'm just grateful for the opportunity to connect again. So, but yeah, you literally was life-changing for me. I'm not exaggerating. The Dental A Team (04:18) Thank you. Thank you. Well, that makes me really happy. And thank you. And we'll say that that's the dessert of the dentistry buffet here. So we'll save that conversation for our dessert. ⁓ But I think what you just said is what Dental A Team's purpose is like my purpose is life is my passion dentistry is my platform. And so I feel so blessed and lucky that dentistry brought all of us together and but able to help you have your dream life to be able to give conversations about that. Hunter Bennett (04:34) Okay. Sure. The Dental A Team (04:56) At the end of the day, if businesses aren't serving our lives, then what are we doing? And I'm really getting sticky on that. I'm really starting to hunker down on that harder because I think it's so easy to obsess about the profit, the numbers, like what route should I go? But at the end of the day, if it's not serving the bigger purpose of our life, of our family, of who we want to be, I really think it's a good time to question that and to ask to make sure the star we're headed towards is truly the North Star that we actually want to achieve. Hunter Bennett (05:01) percent. The Dental A Team (05:23) So I'm really grateful and yeah, I'm just excited for you to share with our audience of Hunter Bennett going through a associateship, residency, ownership, DSO, and then cherry on top of side conversation that we had. ⁓ and just know that all conversations, I think it's a good Testament. They're just, they're genuine. Like, I just want you guys to succeed in whatever path that looks like. And if I can be a guide in any of that rock on, that's what I'm here for. So just like I used to give you teeth. help you learn to take your gloves off. I'm here to help you make life choices and better practice decisions too. Hunter Bennett (05:58) Absolutely. You're crushing it. Well, so yeah, yeah. Pros and cons. So I think, you know, before diving into that decision, I think it's really important. Like the big part of my journey was I've just learned so much along the way that my first job was in a place where in Prescott, like that's where I wanted to like, was like, okay, this is, I'm going to be in this town until I die. Like I'm so happy here. The Dental A Team (06:00) Okay, take it away. Walk me through. Walk me through the pros cons. Let's hear about it. Hunter Bennett (06:24) And I was in an amazing practice. Like he was such a good practice. the guy that I replaced, ⁓ Nate Duesnup, he, my coming there sort of sparked his leaving because that he had been trying to get in that practice as an owner for quite a while. He'd been there seven years. so my coming sparked a lot of those conversations and they didn't really come to an agreement per se. so ⁓ Nate went and bought a practice in Florida. I, you know, I kind of found that out along the way and I showed up and then me and Nate became friends. But I knew within probably the first two months I wasn't going to stay at this practice like long, long, long term. Um, it was very clear to me that there wasn't going to be a pathway to partnership. I was a business major. I always planned on owning practice. Um, but this was a really good opportunity. I'm really, really grateful for, um, just that, that chance that I had, but I knew immediately, like I wasn't, um, I wasn't seen as a partner, you know, which is very like, wasn't, I was just an associate and I felt like I just had way more to offer. The Dental A Team (06:59) you Hunter Bennett (07:22) I was, I was probably as much of a gung ho person as, as you can be coming out of residency as far as trying to be an owner. ⁓ but I was willing to like sort of sweat my way in if that's what it took just to be where I, where I wanted to live. ⁓ so long story short, like I learned pretty quickly that wasn't going to happen. So started just taking a bunch of CE, ⁓ traveling and then became good friends with Nate. Nate's like, Hey, just come check out Florida, you know? And, ⁓ so yeah, I went out there and, and, ⁓ The Dental A Team (07:35) Mm-hmm. Hunter Bennett (07:52) If I've ever had a prayer answered as clearly as that, that was it. I mean, was, was clear as day. That's where my family was supposed to be. I actually served a mission for my church in Florida. I never planned to go back. ⁓ And that's ⁓ Tampa. So they actually, yeah, it was inside my mission, but I live in Naples and so didn't spend a ton of time in Naples, but yeah. So anyways. ⁓ The Dental A Team (08:03) No way. Same place? Yeah? I know Naples. I consulted a practice in Naples. It's a beautiful place. Yeah, it's awesome. Hunter Bennett (08:16) Yeah, yeah. It's a, it's an awesome place and, ⁓ coming here was, it was definitely not like what I envisioned, but the practice was and the partnership was, and we experienced just like when I got here, he had bought the practice and the old owner was staying on like 50 % of the time and Nate was just grinding, you know, expanded the office. He had already done a lot of the footwork to get us to seven ops and. We grew so fast, like we tried to find associates, like within my first six months, I didn't even bought in yet. We were already interviewing for associates and we couldn't find anybody that we just really wanted to send offers to. But yet we were just like in the chair all day. And I'm sure you hear this all the time. Like, I'm sure you get this all the time, Cary. It's like just grinding and grinding and then like you get done and then you're dealing with, you know, assistance and days off and they want to raise and, and just drama. The Dental A Team (09:01) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Hunter Bennett (09:12) Taxes, know workers comp I mean you name it like all the things that come after work that are so stressful and Having a young family and and then just like like responsibilities outside of work like, know for us like there's a lot of stuff going on at church ⁓ At home. I was coaching my kids. So again, I think a lot of people that are listening can relate to this lifestyle and I think The Dental A Team (09:14) Yeah. Hunter Bennett (09:36) I as as I prepped for this conversation, we had a couple options. One option was to bring in a consultant, which we had thought about, and we already because we both came from the same practice in Arizona that had used a consultant, we felt like we sorta. We already knew how to be efficient. We already had a ton of systems in place. I think we struggled a little bit culturally. And I think frankly, this isn't a. You didn't put me up to this, but like had we hired someone like you like honestly, we may not have gone to DSO route. Frankly, like. The Dental A Team (09:50) Yeah. Sure. Hunter Bennett (10:05) Cause all the things we were struggling with, think could have been dealt with in a different way. But we saw the DSO route as, as an option, you know, um, and there's, mean, we went back and forth and like, that's all we would talk about. We'd get done and then we talked about it for like an hour and then we'd go in cycles and circles. And this is the pro, this is the con. And ultimately we landed on, you know, um, this is just a really good way to sort of bring some balance in our lives. And I'll be honest with you. I, I hated, hated. The Dental A Team (10:10) Mm-hmm. Hunter Bennett (10:35) hated like the first six months, the transition period for us was particularly hard. We have a very unique practice. But I'm in almost four years now, and I will say like, I feel like it all happened for a reason. And it's really allowed me a ton of flexibility in my life, and my lifestyle has improved a ton. So kind of what you described as sort of your purpose and letting people The Dental A Team (10:40) Mm-hmm. Hunter Bennett (11:03) kind of see like what is your North Star? Like what is your real purpose? ⁓ I don't think that would have been, I don't think I would have been able to discover that had I continued on the path that I was on, honestly. So a DSO I think is good. First of all, when you talk about like a DSO, it's like a swear word, right? Because there's so many types of DSOs and there are some bad players out there for sure. And so like deservedly so, there's a lot of companies that should have a bad name, but there's also some really good ones. The Dental A Team (11:14) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Hunter Bennett (11:33) And that was one thing, like we interviewed around and we met with a lot of different groups and talked to people from different groups. And I think there's a lot of good groups out there, but I'm actually quite happy with our group overall. And it's been four years and I will say like a lot of the turmoil I felt in that first six months was just the change, know, the change in trajectory, like giving up. I still run my practice. The thing is like, no one knows that I'm in a DSO. Like people know like my referring doctors now, but like they don't care. The Dental A Team (11:44) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Hunter Bennett (11:59) Because nothing changes like nothing I run the way I want to run it and that's very unique to my group. I would say we hire we fire we make days off like we do pretty much anything we want we bought you know, we can get equipment so I Feel like my day-to-day really hasn't changed and I know that's not true for every DSO I think DSOs can be compared to like like restaurants for example. It's like ⁓ don't go out to eat b…
Full show notes at the publisherTiff and Kristy go into the DNA of an effective leader. These are the common traits that Dental A-Team has seen from the top dental practices, with Tiff and Kristy breaking down how exactly these leaders were able to cultivate such characteristics. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Awesome. Hello, everyone. Dental A Team listeners, thank you so much for being here. I had the pleasure of having an email exchange with a really, really well-rounded office manager, regional manager. And anyways, my point was that she mentioned that she is an avid Dental A Team listener, and she has been for many years. And it was just so special to hear that and to have this email thread with her and to hear how much it has impacted her professional life and I just wanted to give a massive shout out that came up this morning and I wanted to just thank you guys for being here because as much as this may impact your life and and hopefully add value to your systems, your practice, whether you're a dentist, whether you're a team member, office manager, and you know what I mean we've worked with CPAs, we've worked with chiropractors, we've worked with eye doctors. anyone who's here listening, you found value in this and you continue to come back or if this is your first time, welcome. And I just want to give a massive shout out to you guys and a thank you for supporting our team and our company through the podcast. We love being here and we love what we get to do with you guys every single day. So massive shout outs and welcome to today. I have the beautiful pleasure of honestly having a very relaxed and calming podcasting day and I have Miss Kristy here with me today and Kristy, know I've told you off camera, off mic, ⁓ how relaxing podcasting with you is and truly, truly from the bottom of my heart, you make podcasting very easy and stress free and knowing that we had a few today, really I was like, goodness it's Kristy, because I am just so excited to podcast with you. So Kristy, thank you so much for being here. and just for being you. You bring a sense of ease, a sense of joy, and a sense of fun to our company as well as a multitude of other things and I value you. So thank you, Kristy. How are you this morning? It's still morning here as we're recording. How are you doing? DAT Kristy (01:58) doing well and I'm with you Tiff. I mean we don't get to spend a lot of time with each other so whenever we get to spend time even if it's podcasting ⁓ I always enjoy my time with you so yep it's a good morning. The Dental A Team (02:10) Thank you. Thank you. I agree. I agree. The sun is shining. It's supposed to be cooling down. So I'll be missing it. But you should be able to enjoy some great Phoenix weather here in the next week and enjoy that pool of yours. And when I get back, we need to set up a coffee date because it just hasn't happened yet. And we need that time together. I'm really excited. In a few weeks, we've got our in-person mastermind that we've got a ton of our doctors. DAT Kristy (02:27) Yes. The Dental A Team (02:39) coming out to Phoenix to spend some time with us. And I know I have a few doctors, you have a few doctors that are coming. Each consultant has quite a few actually offices that are joining us. We're just super, super excited to host everyone here in Phoenix. I am, my clients, my clients know who they are. They are near and dear to my heart. They are some of my closest friends in my life. And I have a couple coming that I am so excited for you guys to meet. And one of them is just so special and she knows who she is and I'm just giving her massive hugs and massive shout outs. She is such a supporter of everything we do. She's a supporter of me as a human and you know, I just am so excited for you to meet her, Kristy. So I wanted to just shout that out and let everybody know what's coming up in our lives. We've got a lot of Dental A Team fun happening and part of that is this. course this mastermind that we've got coming up and the things that follow it that go along with that. mean we've got every month we have our doctors only mastermind for our clients and most of what we do is center focused around really truly building leaders and ⁓ within that I think I think something I tell my clients and my teams especially my teams when I'm working with teams is our goal is to create ease efficiency and joy. in your jobs. No matter what your job is, no matter what your position you hold in the practice is, I want you to love going to do that every single day or at least I say like 95 % of the time there's going to be those days where you're like heck no Tiff I don't want to do this. But a lot of that comes down to I think effective leadership and being able to create a practice that works for you, a business that works for you instead of you working for the business, meaning it's just like gosh I'm exhausted every day and Will this ever end? And new doctors, it does end. Okay, but not yet. Don't get too hasty. You gotta put your time in. You gotta do your time. But it does end. And Kristy, I think a lot of that, and something you're fantastic at, I've watched you do this with doctors. I've watched you do this with startup doctors. They know who they are. They're here listening too. And I've watched you do this with doctors who have been in practice for 10 years plus. You build incredible leadership. through really solid systems and efficiency and culture and team. Kristy, my biggest question to you, I told you I was going to ask you this kind of defining question. When you think of a leader, when you think of a practice leader, a dentist leader, an office manager, and anyone who is deemed a leader or wants to be, what kind of characteristics do you think of within that person that either they innately have or can be developed? DAT Kristy (05:27) You're going deep today, huh? ⁓ Yeah, I think number one, compassion because The Dental A Team (05:30) I am, yeah. I don't know what's up today, but I am. It's in me. DAT Kristy (05:44) With leadership, I think we owe it to our people to be brutally honest in a way, but do it in a compassionate way, if you will. the ability to be honest and share from that space of, want to better this person or I want to grow this person versus coming from a place of criticism. You know what I mean? Because you and I have talked about this before. I don't think anybody walks into a job on any given day saying, I'm going to make it heck today. I'm just going to come in and raise havoc. And I don't think anybody intentionally does that. And so having a leader that can come from a compassionate space and understand that people really are trying to do well and be able to deliver from that space. The Dental A Team (06:43) Yeah, I totally agree with you. think compassion's a fantastic word there. And ⁓ the way you described it, I think, defines that really clearly. Because I do think there's just so much confusion wrapped up in empathy, sympathy, compassion, being nice. And I think a leader is everything, is all of those pieces. But well-rounded and doesn't get lost in them is, I think, a good thing to say there. ⁓ They're all fantastic characteristics, but being able to navigate that and being able to navigate ⁓ clear and kind, like I really, I really truly love looking at the difference between kind and nice. And I think, you know, nice, even when you say like, ⁓ nice, it doesn't feel in your body as good as kind does. And when someone can be clear and kind, that's that compassionate side of I'm here with you. And I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you the way I'm going to show you the way. Right. And when we get off track, we're going to do it together. And I'm going to tell you when we get off track, when you're off track, when, things aren't being met, when the accountability needs to be put into place, I'm going to do that for you because that's kindness. I think a lot of leaders shy away from that because they want to be nice. They don't want to hurt feelings. They don't want to make someone feel like they're not a good team member or they're not doing a good job because they are doing a good job. They're just doing something that needs adjusting. And I know Kristy, you've had these conversations too. I've listened to you have them with doctors and office managers of the not saying something to someone holding back information and holding back what could inspire them or just make them a better manager and leader is actually hurting the other person. So where we're trying to be nice and save their feelings, we're actually making it way worse and we're doing damage. to the human, the person, and that think, Kristy, is where that compassionate side comes into play of compassionate kindness, of that joint. always say, ⁓ use words like I'm partnering with you, and can I partner with you in this? Are you open to me giving some feedback here? You really lay it out very well where it's open and, again, compassionate and kind. And Kristy, I think you do a great job with that. How do you help to coach leaders and doctors to have those conversations and with verbiage like that? What are your biggest suggestions that even if somebody could take one thing away from today, maybe it's a suggestion of a hard conversation. ⁓ How do you suggest to your doctors and your clients how they can do that? DAT Kristy (09:25) Yeah, I think there's a few things, Tiff. Honestly, in onboarding new people, I love to have the conversation before it even needs to happen. with new employees just opening the door that, hey, there's going to come a time when we have to address a few things. So finding out what their style is for addressing and always trying to accommodate in that way, I mean, you don't always have the room to do that. But if I can find out, hey, there's going to come a time when we have to have a conversation, what is the best way to address you? How do you prefer me to approach you in those situations, first and foremost? And that obviously works well for new team members. But as we're learning leadership, we might not have all new team members. So coming into it, for our existing team members just being vulnerable and honest and saying, hey, I'm looking to grow my leadership skills too, right? And so I may not always hit the mark, but I wanna open the door for honest open communication. And so just like what you said, asking permission and ⁓ I guess with that too is in that approach, always trying to make it from my point of view. You know, maybe referring back to a situation and being able to address it like, hey, you know, I need to clear the air. And earlier when you were talking about the story I'm telling myself is, I'm sure, you know, that may not have been your intent and that's why I wanna open this space for communication. Yeah. The Dental A Team (11:17) Yeah, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. And what that leads into is kind of our next chapter of this whole podcast. And it so succinctly goes together because that communication that you just gave and that openness. I always think of when I when I hear you speak and when I hear you speak of ⁓ verbiage to be able to use like this, I think of you said vulnerable and I think vulnerable for sure. We're open, we're vulnerable, we're honest. But I think you also bring a sense of ⁓ like humility and humbleness to the conversation. And when a leader and a doctor or anyone who an established team member who's been there for a while can be humble and say, you know what, don't know everything and I am growing and learning because I'm a human and we're doing that in every space of our life. Who I am today as a mom, who I am today as a girlfriend, as a best friend, as a friend, a coworker, who I am today is different. than even two weeks ago, right? We're constantly changing. So being able to be humble allows the space for the other person, for the other, and when you're a dentist and leader or office manager, having these conversations with the team, either individually or open forum, like allows them the space to know. They don't have to know it all either. And they can be in the space of learning and they can ask questions. So. Kristy, think one of the biggest things we get asked, well, number one thing we get asked when people call in and say, Dental A Team, please help fix my family, is systems, right? And I was actually in a practice yesterday with our consultant Trish, and it was so much fun. And we did the team meeting, and one of the things I said to the whole team was, listen, everybody says we need systems. We need systems implemented. And I'm like, for sure, you need systems. But systems without communication and without leadership, you already have systems. You know why they're not working, why they're quote unquote broken. You have systems. You're doing a lot of the things I'm going to tell you to do. You're just not doing them consistently and you're not talking about it. So if we can fix the communication and really bring that sense of humbleness, think what you've done there, Kristy, with that conversation that I hope people will take away and go spread is you have inspired. a culture of positivity. Because whenever we're in a space, we've hired consultants, we have people on our, we have team members on our team right now that have said, I have never worked in a place that I didn't feel like I had to know everything. And when I didn't know a thing, I was scared to say it and I had to like go find it on my own. So we're like behind the scenes trying to track down information and hoping we're right. I remember in my dental practice, Kiera talks all the time about how she didn't know the definition. She didn't know what KPI stood for, right? She knew it was important. She didn't know what the actual acronym meant. I only knew, and I tell her this all the time, I only knew what KPI stood for because when I became a leader in my dental practice, the office manager wanted me to come into the KPI meetings. And I was like, yeah, of course, I'll be there. Sure thing, no worries. Meanwhile, I'm over here Googling. What the heck is a KPI meeting? I had no idea, but I also wasn't comfortable enough to be like, yeah, sure, whatever you want. What does that mean? How do I show up? What do I bring? How can I be valuable to that meeting? I Googled it, and then I sat there like, none of this makes sense. I sat in those meetings with the CPA, and I'm just like, I am not, I'm not the same as you guys, and I feel so small right now. But I was not in ⁓ an environment at that time that felt, and it wasn't because, DAT Kristy (14:34) you The Dental A Team (15:03) she wasn't supportive or helpful, I just didn't feel seen, heard, and ⁓ like I could be vulnerable, right? I had to just be, you had to put on a face and you had to do the thing. And I think, Kristy, what you've done with that communication is you've opened up space for the culture to really be what our clients are constantly asking for. They're always asking, Tiff, how do I fix the culture, right, Kristy? Help me fix my culture. How do I get my team engaged? And it's like, you just did it with one sentence, right? Have you seen that, Kristy? DAT Kristy (15…
Full show notes at the publisherKiera shares with listeners how to run quarterly meetings to get clarity, alignment, and accountability. She touches on the creation of 90-day plans, creating a definition of done, and why instilling a traction cadence is so helpful and practical. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:02) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and welcome to the podcast today. I hope you're having an amazing day. I hope today's a great day for you. And today we're going to dig into quarterly meetings, ⁓ traction style. So this is based on the framework by Gina Wickman in traction. I've talked about them before. I used to talk about them a lot more and I feel like it's been a hot minute since we brought this up. There's tons of episodes on quarterly meetings. Quarterly meetings are one of my favorite things in the annual planning. and how to do this because practices who run like this, who operate like this, they truly do so great. Like honest to goodness, so great. And I'm so excited for you to learn how to do these quarterly meetings. ⁓ To me, they're like the guiding principles of a freaking successful practice. So I hope you're excited about it. ⁓ A lot of practices skip these or they run them very loosely. And I want to help you learn how to run these. very effectively, very efficiently, what they should look like, what you can have. I've been running these for, gosh, I don't know, seven years plus. I've learned a lot through the ways. I have somebody who helps coach our meetings, because I used to self-implement myself, and it's been so beneficial to have somebody help and how much my perspective has changed by having somebody help run them who knows how to do them so well. I love doing this. Yes, we've been trained by traction. We are not traction ourselves. We do portions of it, but we do Dental A Team's version of it. ⁓ And what I've heard from offices that work with us on them ⁓ is they love that we have the dental background too. So we're able to help solve a lot of their issues, a lot of their problems, but to give the clarity, to give the confidence in these. So I'm excited. We're going to kind of go through how to run a quarterly meeting to get clarity, alignment, and accountability. And that's what it's ultimately for. And two, I feel like give simplicity too. Because once you know like what you're supposed to work on for the quarter, ⁓ Everybody's now aligned, everybody's rowing together. So for that, ⁓ I just want you guys to, I'll kind of walk you through a whole journey of how to do this. So number one, I want you just to go back on last quarter and how did last quarter go for you? What worked, what didn't work, what got done? I think right now you don't even know what happened. Well, it might be time for you to start looking into adding quarterly meetings to your plate. If you do know, rock on, how did you know that? Does your whole team know how you did? Does the whole leadership team behind it? And then what is like, what are you working on this quarter? Do you know, is there a focus? Is there a plan? ⁓ And so what we're supposed to do is, and I do this with lots of offices and honestly, offices that get this, the leadership team gets more ⁓ honest conversations, more accountability, more peer to peer accountability, more ownership, and the whole organization goes. So the way I break it down is your annual goal is like a mountain. So it's this huge mountain that we're trying to climb and each quarter are the big boulders. to build up that mountain, so the rocks, and then we have little pebbles and to-dos of the day in, day out. And so every quarter we need to dedicate a full day, yes, a full day, where we actually break away, the leadership team does, and then the leadership team builds what they feel the next quarter needs to be, and then they take it and break it down per departments. So that's kind of like my favorite way to do this. So what we do is we have our mountain, our annual goals, where we're going, we know where we're headed, and then from there we're gonna break it down and build those smaller rocks. When we're going into a quarterly, we look at where we are based on where we want to be for the year. How did last quarter go? What were the wins? What were the losses? We started having people grade the quarter in the leadership team and that's been real fun. And that's just to see if everybody's aligned. So how do we do on an ABCD? Did we accomplish the things that we set out to do? Are we on track for the year of where we wanted to be? What are we seeing from all that? And what lessons did we learn that we should either do again or not do? I think that's so paramount when I'm going into leadership departments and working on them with these quarterlies is to see like, what did we do really well and what did we not do and what should we do again and what should we not do again? And when you break it down like that, it's so incredible. And then you go into building your next 90 day plan, if you will, is what these quarterly meetings are. What are the most important three to five things that have to get that in this next quarter that are going to take us three months that are big boulders to help us reach the top mountain point that we've all agreed to is where we want to get to by the end of this year. So if our goal this year is to produce 3 million. We've to break that down by quarters. We've got to have projections. Obviously, not every quarter is going to be the same based on the ups and downs within a practice. That's something very common. ⁓ Usually, December is not as high. September is not as high. So let's make sure that we're on track for that. Then we're looking at our overhead. We're looking at big initiatives. So maybe it's an operations manual. Maybe it's hiring an associate. Maybe it's getting all of our assistance CPR certified. Maybe it's getting all of our assistance to where they can do oral surgery, whatever it is, there's big initiatives. Maybe we need to bring billing in house. Maybe we need to outsource billing. Maybe we need to figure out medical billing. Those are big initiatives that are going to move an organization forward exponentially, depending upon your practices needs. So then we break it down. And what I love to do is when we build these 90 day plans, not just have people like what I used to do, and this is something I've learned that I think can really help you out a quarterly is I don't just set up a like, we need to get an operations manual done in 90 days. No, no, no, no. What is, and this comes from the book Come Up for Air, what is the definition of done? So that means that every department needs to have a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly skeleton. We need to have 20 protocols done per person for all the different departments. That's what the definition of done of getting this operations manual done in 90 days looks like. What does onboarding an associate look like or onboarding a front office team member? It means that they know our company core values, they know our company mission, and that they're able to independently do X, and Z. Well, what's awesome is when we have a definition of done, now everybody knows what that goal is. Is that realistic to get done in 90 days and what the focus is? Now, when I started working with teams and depending upon the size of it, a lot of times rocks are individual and they're individual department focused. But as organizations get larger and larger, sometimes we do what's called like a rallying cry or like a centralized focus. So maybe it's that this whole quarter, the focus is getting everybody up on par for operations manual. And that's what we're all gonna focus on. If we just got that thing done amongst all departments, the whole organization would move faster. So there's no right or wrong way to do it. I've just found that depending upon the size of the organization and where they're located and what they're focused on, sometimes that whole collective initiative is the right thing to do. Other times the departments need individual focuses. So once we get those rocks or these big boulders with a 90 day plan with a definition of done, who's doing what, is this realistic? Do we have the capacity to do it? Then from there you move into like solving issues and resolving. And if you set really, really good rocks and quarterly 90 day plans, what I found is a lot of times the issues actually break apart and there's not as many issues and we solve a lot of the issues because they're fixed in our 90 day plan. And it's so incredible. And so like really having solid, solid ways to solve issues. to set this up and then we work through the issues. That's one thing I love about being a consultant running these is because we have so many resources. So it's like, oh, we're struggling with scheduling. Great. We have scheduling templates. We're struggling with hiring this person. Great. We already have that. We're struggling with this 30, 90, this 30, 60, 90 onboarding. Great. We already have that for you. We're scheduling with hygiene capacity. Great. We have solutions for that. So helping offices then learn how to solve issues independently is also really beautiful. what the process is for that and how can we do this in different ways that we can make this even better for the offices is something so good. So when you walk out of your quarterly 90 day plan, you should have one, how did we do last quarter? Two, where are we at for the entire year? What does that look like? Are we on track? Are we off track? And if we're off track, do we have a plan to get back on track with our 90 day plan? what every person and every department is doing for these next 90 days and their specific, measurable, attainable, realistic with a timeframe with a definition of done on all of them. And they're truly the most important things. We've solved issues, we have massive clarity and all of us agree to have healthy debates. And then what we do is we track it every single week. So it becomes so clearing, so clarifying, and especially for practices that are, I think more obsessive with. ⁓ trying to get so many things done, what this forces you to do is to prioritize, to focus. Now, owners, lot of times, like myself included, I have so many great ideas. And I always think like, this is so great and I want to do X, Y, Z and all these different things. Well, what I found is that actually is really hard for my team to ever feel like they're making progress, they're making traction, there's nothing for them to really do. And so with the quarterly plan, all my great ideas get like pinned for next time because the 90 day plans rolled out. Now, sometimes things happen. Like we might lose a team member unexpectedly. We might have other things that come up. But if I do this really, really well and my quarterly plan is really set up right, then we shouldn't stray even when things happen. And the goal is that 80 % of your boulders or your 90 day plans are accomplished every single quarter. And your office manager, your regional is responsible and accountable for making sure those like get across the goal line. And so I love working with offices on this. love setting up. It takes eight hours. So you start out, you start out with some fun like trust building or leadership growth things are how you start. We review the quarter. We look to see how that goes for everybody. We give it a rating of how we did it. Then after that, we go through our vision of where the company is going, our core values. Are those all in alignment? We check to see if our team's all in alignment. Do we have any people we need to? ⁓ rise up or rise out. We review that. We look to make sure our accountability or org chart is correct and that we've got right players, things are clear for all of it. So to me, it's just a good like housekeeping every single quarter. Then we build our 90 day plan. We overcome obstacles, we solve issues, and then we go to work that next quarter and we check it every single week. And saying that seems so simple. And that's actually why I love traction. That's why I love this model. It's why I love ⁓ the cadence of it. But what's really amazing is if you pair it with Patrick Lanzioni's five dysfunctions of a team and you really start working on that trust and vulnerability and then healthy debate. But what's really amazing is when you build the clarity with the quarterly, with the plan, ⁓ and you're working on those healthy debates, the peer-to-peer, the ownership, that's when you really start to win. That's when you start to win as an organization. That's when you start to build trust amongst your leaders. That's when you start to make sure that you're really focused on where you wanna go. And so I'm just so obsessive about it. This is what people do in large organizations and... When I go to conferences and I talk to really brilliant businesses, they're all running on this. And so I'm like, if this is what the best of the best are doing, and I do think it's the easiest, the most consistent, the easiest to follow. But when I said at the beginning, I used to self-implement and I used to run these meetings and having somebody come in and run them, who's not me, has allowed me to sit in the owner seat, to sit in the CEO seat where I don't have to sit here and think about running it. But I can actually sit back and I can look and watch my leadership team evolve. I can watch the different pieces. I can ⁓ really truly observe. can think I'm not having to sit here and make sure we're putting things together and I'm pushing my own initiatives. But I have somebody who's there that can see my team from a perspective I can't see them from. And it's such an amazing experience. And so I just strongly recommend if you haven't done it, start, start implementing it. If you need help, reach out Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. We do this for so many offices and it's something just really magical to be able to help you get the clarity and offices that have implemented have told me like, we just feel alignment. We feel traction. We feel clarity. ⁓ Quarters are not as hard. It's easier to hit goals and expectations. All of that becomes easier. And so I just encourage you to try it, to commit to putting it into place. And this is something where if we can help you guys set it up and to run in for you. something that we do. So reach out hello at thedeadlyteam.com but truly, this is something that I think you, your organization and every team member deserves. And then you go break it down in departments and we make sure that it's clear, it's tracked, it's measured, and it's focused. And you're actually able to like move the company forward so much. So all those big to do projects that you've always wanted to get done, this is how you get them done. So don't hesitate. Don't wait. Be sure to commit to your practice. Start with the quarterlies. This is how to like a quick overview of how to run them. There's more in depth. You can reach out, ask questions, but truly you, your practice and your whole leadership team and your whole team deserve to have this. Now, if your team's small, that's okay. You can actually start with your whole team. We can get alignm…
Full show notes at the publisherIt's book club time! Kiera talks about The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins and how the method can propel leaders into the best versions of themselves. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today is book club time. It's been a hot minute since we've done a book club and there's a book club that I feel like is just a really good one. It's a popular book right now. If you've read it, great. If you haven't, well, welcome. I'm excited to share with you and it's from Mel Robbins and it's the Let Them Theory. I was very fascinated by this. I'm still fascinated by it and I think it's something of like when Mel Robbins said that you do not need to control everything. and that peace might come from letting go, not holding tighter. I thought, hmm, I might know a couple of dentists, CEOs, business owners, AKA myself, which means that there's probably several of you that might be struggling with some of these pieces. So whether you wanna read the book or not, just giving some highlights of how you can truly reduce your stress, lead with more confidence and stop micromanaging team and patient behavior, like that might be something worthwhile today. So I wanted to just. Bring that on today, share with you some quick tips and tricks on how you can even apply this principle in your practice that I've been seeing. As always, Dental A Team is here to grow leaders that are not just successful, but truly like having sanity and happiness in life. ⁓ Today, our podcast is going to be giving you tactical practical tips. Our mission is to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. And we do that through expert consulting for dentists and teams. I am not. Shy to admit that I think Dental A Team is probably one of the top-notch consulting companies out there where we don't just understand you But we are you that we don't just sit here and tell you doctors what to do But we actually actively work with your team to help them We have grown practices 10 20 30 percent within their first 90 days of working with us. We've added multiple millions We've added hundreds of thousands to offices and we've done it with ease simplicity fun teams actually love to work with us they enjoy working with us and that's something I'm really really proud of as a company of We don't just come in and like dictate to your team and force them to become robots. We literally help them, ⁓ give them some tools and then elevate them to be their best selves. And doctors, we teach you how to be successful owners for your path, for what makes you happy. And we do it in such an easy way. People are always shocked at the gains and the growth that we're able to do in such an easy, non-confrontational, non-stressful way. So that's what we're about. And I'm super, super excited about the let them theory. ⁓ Because the let them theory I think works so well for leaders. So anybody listening today this is really is leaders and I remember in the book she talks about how like She just has to let them like let people be who they are and it's actually helped me with my family So today I don't think it's necessary just solely for your practice But also pieces for you within your personal life and that's something Dental A Team were really big on is growing you as a person not just as a practice I just got a a voice memo from a doctor I worked with a couple of years ago. And this doctor said to me, they said, Kiera, ⁓ the year working with you was actually one of the most impactful years in all of my dentistry career. ⁓ This doctor is doing incredible things. And the doctor told me like just the mindset shifts that we were able to help them have ⁓ of helping them become more efficient of, they said, you pushed me to do certain things like hire an assistant and to Be accountable to you. And this doctor was really, really, really, really brilliant doctor. And to hear that compliment that ⁓ their time working with us was something that was the most impactful in their growth of their business. I just took as such a huge compliment to what we do because we're not just shaping you as a business owner, we're shaping you as a human. My background is marriage and family therapy. My passion is dentistry and my love of all things is life. Dentistry just happens to be the platform that I get to talk about it on. And so for this within the let them theory, it's let people be who they are. Truly we can't control other people's actions, but we can control how we are responding. And I know that sounds so simple, but ⁓ in there, like if we let team members show up late, it tells you who they're going to be. We let a patient cancel last minute. It's information for better boundaries in the future. Letting an OCA ignore feedback, it reveals growth readiness. And so like for that, I'm not here for you just to like... allow people to walk all over you. do believe that there is a standard within a practice that you should maintain and that is perfectly acceptable. However, you can allow people to be who they want to be and that doesn't mean that they need to be on your ship. It's allow them to have the opportunities outside of your location that are perfect for them, but you don't need to try to control every person's actions. ⁓ With my mom, my mom and I view the world so differently and when I read this book, I realized what my mom wants. Now she's not an employee. Employees for me, there is a code of conduct and there is a way that we show up. That's the standard of Dental A Team. And if you choose an elect not to be there, rock on, we're going to coach you through it. And then we're going to coach you out of it. Like it's one or the other where they're going to coach up or coach out. Both are amazing because I want you ultimately in your dream space. ⁓ and there is a, there is a code of conduct that Dental A Team will operate by. And so with that, with my mom, I realized in my personal life, my mom just wants to be loved for who she is. She doesn't want to be coached. She doesn't want to be corrected. She just wants to be loved for who she is. And so for me to let my mom do things that make me absolutely crazy, there actually is this whole relief. And when you realize like, can allow team members to be who they want to be in, that just means that there's isn't a place for them. Like that's okay. I can allow patients who don't want to follow our processes, like allow them to find another practice and to have that. Now there's ways that we can coach them through this. There's ways that we can do this. But I've had practices when they finally decide to stop having patients just show up, cancel last minute, and they're like, no more, this is how it's going to be. Here's the rules of the game. And patients who do like not to, they get to leave the practice. Their production actually exponentially increases. Their patients exponentially become better patients. Like all of it rises up. The ones who decide that they're going to allow team members to be who they are, this is how we're going to operate. And if you choose not to, that's okay. Their practices actually start to thrive. And so The question is, who are you trying to force right now to change? And what if you let them and focus on our... The word boundaries is so obnoxious to me, because I feel like people put boundaries up of like, this is what I will or won't do, which is great. And for me, it's more like, what are the standards? What are the standard processes? What's the culture of our company or our patient base? That's I'm going to enforce. That's what we're going to focus on instead. And then I'm going to allow people to be who they are. And I'm going to attract the people that I want in here. Like what would be, who am I trying to force to change right now? And what if I let them and just change my focus to the standards and the processes in our company? Question number one. Okay, number two, stop micromanaging and start leading. So micromanagement's rooted in fear, not in leadership. And so what they did is they said like, let them miss the mark once, they'll learn faster. Let your office manager handle the upset patient, it builds ownership. Let your hygienist structure their day ⁓ that's within, again, the parameters of our company culture. That way they'll be happier. so like ⁓ micromanaging, do feel there needs to be a foundation first in place. And then once we have that, we don't have to micromanage everything. And for me, something I found, there's the founder's theory too, and something I've been learning is as a founder, as someone who started a business, you tend to hold onto so many things because you've had to. Like you've been in the day to day. And so being able to let people and stop being obsessed with every single detail because we've got the foundations in place. Now, if you don't have the foundations in place, it becomes a lot harder and a lot scarier. But if you have those things in place, what we can do is we actually see a team rise up and what we're telling our team is they're empowered. Like here's the rules of the game within our practice. Now go create our consultants. Here's how we consult. I want you to go be the most autonomous humans and I want you to figure out how to help these practices. And it's crazy because the consultants rise up, they take ownership, they love to be able to do that. anything within your team being able to see that as well is really something beautiful for them. looking at the call to action on this would be look at your life, look at your practice and where are you holding on so tight? And let's figure out what protocols or processes need to be put into place so our company standards and expectations can be met. And then can we put into practice the let them this week and observe what shifts. Two questions for you to consider. And don't worry for those type A's who are just like gritting. They're like knuckles right now. Don't worry, that's me too. So I'm not here to say that I'm perfect at this. I just think it's a good perspective shift to help us have more space, more happiness, more peace, and also to figure out where we can like set up the parameters within our company. Number three is let go to grow. ⁓ And so when we hold on tight, just like I talking about, like the white knuckling. Like even my body, there's stress, there's resistance, there's burnout. Like this is what causes it, because we're trying to hold all the balls in the air. We're trying to do all the pieces and literary practice will outgrow you. ⁓ I watched it happen time and time and time again, and doctors will either learn to let them and like build the processes, build the structure, allow the team members to grow, or they're going to hold on and they're going to shrink. It's one of the two and it happens every single time. There's no right path. It's your path. ⁓ But like let your leadership team run the meetings. Let your team opt in and out of culture. Don't force it. If they choose not to rock on, they can go find another dream job. That's okay. Let other opinions be theirs. It doesn't define our worth. Like what can we allow like letting go of that? So when we, ⁓ when we stop obsessing about this, like, for example, we stopped trying to hold onto a toxic team member. watched this constantly in offices where it's like, no, I have to keep them and I need to have them like, let them not be great and let them leave because they're not fitting the culture. And what's crazy is like even that, like my whole body releases, like let them. And I know we're so afraid of like, yeah, but then I won't have team members. Or could it be like, yes, and I've created space for the ideal team member. I will tell you when I have done this every single time. There's not been a single time when I've been like, and we release it, we let them. Someone just as good, if not better has shown up every single time. And so looking at this of... Where are you maybe holding on too tight that you could allow team members to rise up that you could allow them to take ownership that you could allow them to start to put into place the things you've done. And what's wild is like, tell doctors all the time, like you have to go on vacation. Like that's it. That's a necessity to see where are things broken in your practice? Where do things need to shift and change? ⁓ where can you let your team rise? And if they choose not to rise, that's okay. You know, you don't have the right leaders in place. Like all of it's just data back for you. There's nothing wrong. There's nothing broken. There's nothing that you need to be mad about. It's just truly data and information to help you then set better foundations, put better protocols into place and to hire team members that more align. ⁓ You will outgrow your team and your team will outgrow you or you will grow together. It'll be one of those three things. And so looking at that and all of that's okay. So I think for this, as we look at it of let people be who they are and stop micromanaging and release what's weighing us down. This isn't a passive theory. It's very powerful. Letting go is leadership. Letting go is ⁓ truly putting the parameters in place and allowing team members to grow and to thrive within. And again, me coming on here, I feel a little like imposter syndrome because I don't feel like I am always here. I feel like I'm holding on so many times and I'm having the control. But when I like, I make lists, you guys, I feel like a crazy person. Like it's a beautiful mind. That's my office. I have... papers everywhere and I'm looking at different things. And when I look at what causes me the most amount of stress, it's because I'm trying to do it all. And I'm trying to hold on to everything rather than saying, okay, what's the protocol I need in place? What are the things that truly I need to care for? And as a founder, again, I think that this is, this is a stripping of identity. It's a stripping of things you've always done, but it's also freeing and it's also creating and it's also allowing you to flourish versus just survive. And so for this, ⁓ think like, Let it looking to see where can I let go and where should I let go? What parameters do I need to put in place? And how can I allow my team to flourish and thrive? I promise you autonomous people and great team members want you to let go. They want to know the rules of the game. They want to know how can I excel? And then once I know the rules of the game, let me like get out of my way and let me show you, let me do more than you ever imagined I could do. ⁓ let me, let me blow your mind with the ideas that I have. Those are great team members. That's what we want all of our team to be. And so I think for this of possibly, if you haven't read the book, go read the book. If you've read it, maybe read it again and look at yourself to see where am I holding on that's holding us back? Where could I let team members or patients be different and maybe create space for people that I want that have a d…
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