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It's time for a Dental A-Team office spotlight! Dana shares with Tiff how she's worked with a practice that started off with room for financial growth, and began adding in auxiliary procedures without losing control of the business. Episode resources: Sign up for Dental A-Team's Virtual Summit 2025! Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript The Dental A Team (00:01.415) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. I am so excited to be here. This is, I think, Dana and I, we get our like, alone time, our us time when we come in here to podcast. So I love, and I love that it switched to videos, however long ago that was. I remember in the beginning I was like, dang it, I can't wear my like, comfy leggings anymore, but whatever. Here we are, we gotta have our hair done, we gotta have our makeup done, it's great. But Dana, I love getting the time with you, so thank you so much for being here with me today. How are you on this beautiful Friday? in Arizona. Dana (00:31.822) doing really good. It's a little bit chillier, but I'm learning to like, you know, find some happiness in that even when I'm freezing outside of softball games. The Dental A Team (00:34.928) No! The Dental A Team (00:41.702) Yes, yes, and you're colder down there than I am up here in Phoenix. But I had a client the other day, well, actually it wasn't, was Eve, our marketing gal. I don't know if you were on that call, but she was like, I was like, it's cold, because honestly, in the mornings here in Phoenix, it's like 35 degrees. And that's cold to me, right? And she's like, you can't complain that it's cold. It's eight degrees here, whatever it was. And I was like, actually, this has been my whole week. I've been saying this to people. I decided, I chose, to live somewhere that's supposed to be warm. So when it's not warm, I get to complain. I don't complain when it's 120 outside and I'm like, I chose this. I wanted warm. So when it's freezing cold and I'm getting breeze warnings on my freaking phone, that's when I'm going to complain. Same with Florida right now. I saw it snowing recently on the beaches in Florida. anyways, thank you. That's our Arizona Girl Tangent. Dana (01:27.896) I The Dental A Team (01:38.169) We like the heat, that's why we're here. And Dana grew up in the cold. So I feel like if you're saying it's cold, it's freaking cold. Dana (01:45.9) I will say, you know, I always use the excuse that like, you know, my body acclimated to the heat. So now 32 degrees is in fact freezing for me. The Dental A Team (01:55.466) It is. It is. It is. And my son always says like the Arizona, the desert, like there's just not a lot of insulation in the desert. And so desert nights are freaking cold. They are wild and it drops so quickly. As soon as that sun gets on the other side of the mountain, it's freezing cold. So he's always like, yeah, it's the desert nights. That's fair. I appreciate it when it goes. when it drops the 30 degrees in the summer to 90 degrees at 8 p.m. I appreciate that, but the 30 degree swing in the winter, a little bit rougher. So happy Arizona girls. So I'm excited Dana today because I really wanted to client wins, client pieces. And I feel like we're always dedicated to systems and I love that. And we're dedicated to growth, which I think this conversation falls into both of them. But really, you've had some really impressive growth with a lot of your practices, all of your practices. But one in particular we were chatting about earlier this morning that I think would be a really fun conversation for a lot of our doctors because the growth that your doctor has seen within this practice and practices has been really, really fun. And I think what we chatted about earlier, you hit on a lot of different areas that I think a lot of practices are actually in. at the same time. know what you were speaking on. I had some practices there and I really want to just pick your brain on some tips and some tricks on that. So Dana, your practice, I think you mentioned a few things, right? But one of the biggest pieces I wanted to like hear from you, one, obviously like financial wins. has that grown? Because I know that was a really big space for profit. The profitability of this dentist was fairly low and you were able to help that increase, but then also this specific dentist has added in a lot of auxiliary procedures that I've seen a lot of doctors going to courses for Botox and tongue ties, lip ties, all of those different pieces and separating those out from our GP stuff, which I think also helps the profitability. The Dental A Team (04:05.878) So the way you guys have done this practice and taken those spaces, always focusing in on the profitability and the growth of the practice, but figuring out how we can create it into like quote unquote departments to increase the value and to increase that profitability is really cool. So slew of questions within that, but take us through Dana first steps. Like how did you figure out where the profitability was lacking and how did you figure out how to increase that? because then that led into her being able to add more procedures. think adding more procedures before we know where the profitability is and before we know where the money is going, adding in those extra procedures can be really, really difficult. So it's already hard enough. And how did you help her figure that out and then slide into being able to add more procedures? Dana (04:55.596) Yeah, this is this is just been a really fun practice for me too, because it helped to show like, when you truly focus on comprehensive dentistry and all the things that you can provide for the patient, not only is it great for your patient, but it massively helps production too. And so this was a really fun practice to kind of highlight that and to kind of take, take them through it. And I will say like the first part of it really was honing in on their systems and making sure they were most efficient block scheduling was huge and being able to say, okay, this is how you're scheduling now if we block scheduled everything out and we follow the schedule pretty much to a tee look at the growth that you could have just by Maximizing the things that you currently do. So that was where we started kind of in year one So year one was really developing systems to make sure that the new patients that we were bringing in we kept The Dental A Team (05:24.383) Thank you. The Dental A Team (05:34.867) Awesome. Dana (05:46.082) Right? And the practice actually continued to truly grow in patient number too. So, you know, making sure that we honed in on re-care systems, making sure we honed in on reactivation systems. And then it was really cool that once we got systems under our belt, now let's focus on big picture things. And so let's focus on, we've maximized kind of, one cool thing that we did is we separated out, she does a really heavy load of, The Dental A Team (05:46.345) Yeah. The Dental A Team (06:03.232) Okay. Dana (06:15.948) you know, there's tongue ties and all sorts of adjunct procedures. And, and so we actually separated those things out. And it's actually a business within a business, which then really helps her see numbers as far as general dentistry and some of her adjunct services that she provides. And so that really helped bring in a lot of clarity because we could start to look at individual numbers separately. We could start to separate new patients. So new patients for this avenue who were more fluid patients. So they would come to those things. And yeah, we worked on a whole lot on converting them over into The Dental A Team (06:18.675) Yeah. The Dental A Team (06:23.56) Awesome. The Dental A Team (06:41.584) Yeah. Dana (06:45.874) the general side, but that we could really look at those things independently to hone in on. growth for each side. And what's been really fun is as we've separated them out, we've actually even separated out the days. So she now has like, you know, more like tongue tie days and general days and it helps her team to and we now are to the point where she actually gets to do more of the things that she loves, which are those adjunct things and bringing in an associate to The Dental A Team (06:53.661) Mm. Dana (07:20.184) helped continue to grow the general dentistry side. So it's been really, really fun. But I think the biggest thing is mapping out your schedule to make sure that it works, mapping out your schedule where you can add more of the things. What does that look like? And being able to look at those numbers consistently. The Dental A Team (07:36.957) Yeah, I love that perspective in most pieces and I know there's been a heavy push for the associates and making sure that the people who are there, the doctors who are already there and the doctors who are coming are really making sure that their schedules are in alignment and that they make sense. one thing that you said was like a business within a business and I just love that model. I've done it for a few practices as well where It's like, this is the thing that we love and we want to do. This is our passion project business. How do we supplement now our practice that's already thriving and doing well with our passion project business? And I think that might be a space that some dentists going to the CE and they're like, I'm passionate about this thing. I think that's sometimes the space that gets overlooked is we've got to have the profitability and the thriving on just practice, like we're doing really well, we're getting the new patients, we're getting the pieces because we want that to be supplemental. And yes, you're going to decrease your GP work. So it's going to take some of that load, right? So we're just kind of shifting some of that production and collections every now and again, but it should increase as well because it should be higher value, right? So watching you do this with this specific client and watching you add in those tongue and lip tie for sure, but the oral surgery pieces that they're doing and all of the different modalities, the Botox and fillers, and like there's this practice has a few different avenues that they're working towards supplementing that GP. So it is really cool because in my opinion when I've done this with practices, you now have two different pools of patient avatars to pull from for one single practice. And when I think about it from a marketing standpoint, it's super awesome because now we've got two avenues to take this and I have I have a dentist that I work with who wants to do a ton of practice or cosmetic dentistry, right within his practice. And he's definitely gotten to the point where his GP is pretty well oiled over there. And so now what we've done with his marketing dollars is really switched some of that funnel to focus in on consults. The Dental A Team (09:49.658) So it's a new patient, but we're categorizing it differently. We're tracking it differently. And I think that's likely what you've done with this practice and the doctors who are there at that practice doing all of these other pieces is funneling in those consults, smile makeovers. A lot of practices are doing those because we're looking at new patients on a GP side and 25 to 30 new patients on a full-time doctor on the GP side, standard. That's what we want. But when we're part-time on a GP side, we're looking for, you know, 12 to 15. And then when we're part time on a a oral surgery, a cosmetic, whatever is going on over here side, now we want to see how many consults do we need to get to our case acceptance. So then it's like it's this big spiral when we're adding these new pieces in, because now your case acceptance is in play as well. And your consults, especially for bigger procedures, higher value dollars like longer appointments, just a different set of pieces. Your case acceptance is not going to be the same as your GP. So having a consultant on your side that can help separate those pieces, separate the information, separate the understanding, separate the marketing of it and strategize how to get those to work together feels like a no brainer because I cannot imagine being on the business owner doctor side where I've just taken all this CE. super passionate about something. I already have a business I'm trying to work in and then trying to get home, train my team, get the patients. Like trying to do all of that as one human being, the person who's doing it feels really hard. So when you see when you came in or this client came in, right? I think if I remember correctly, this specific client already had some of this stuff under their belt and they already had providers like trying to generate this within the practice? So how did you, as the third party, the consultant looking over the overarching pieces, how were you able to kind of almost slow it down and speed it up at the same time to extract those pieces and allow it to be so fluid? Dana (11:59.938) Yeah. And I really think that it really comes down to, we've got to look at these in two different, we've got to make sure that we look at these things as two different things because a patient that's coming in for general and a patient's coming in for the other side, they're looking for different things. They value different things. Their experience needs to be different. Our systems need to be different. The way we schedule them needs to be different. And when this client first came in, it was like, there were all these providers providing this, all kind of at the same time, right? So we're running this side at the same time we're running this side and providers are hopping back and forth. And then, you know, an adjunct provider that was in there to do another specialty service had to hop in and it was, it was, they were doing well at it, but it felt so stressful for them. The Dental A Team (12:32.02) Yeah. The Dental A Team (12:46.547) Yeah. Yeah. Dana (12:47.17) And it felt so like we're never gonna grow any of the pieces because where we're living right now is so, so stressful and chaotic and a little bit discombobulated, rightfully so. And so when we decided to say, okay, no, let's separate the two, let's look at them very differently, let's build the pieces that work for both. The Dental A Team (12:58.389) Yeah. Dana (13:06.808) places and let's understand that like you said, two different patient avatars, two different patient flows, two different patient experiences. And when we actually separated them out, looked at how we could streamline both sides, general and the other side, and we built out a schedule that worked to have them both. The Dental A Team (13:23.06) . Dana (13:27.278) be there. And I mean, this client even went on to create just an even an amazing separate space for these patients. And that does help create all of this. But it really took at like, let's look at both of these take different things, right? They take different The Dental A Team (13:28.514) Yeah. That's awesome. The Dental A Team (13:42.52) Yeah. Dana (13:43.246) Conversations they take a different amounts of hands-on approach they take a different way of treatment planning and presenting things and outlining consoles differently and so until we separated them It was functioning and they were doing okay, but it felt really hard Yeah, figuring out a way to make them both feel easier The Dental…
Full show notes at the publisherKiera walks listeners through easy but critical accounts receivable systems to implement in your practice so you never have to face a financial crisis again. Episode resources: Sign up for Dental A-Team's Virtual Summit 2025! Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript Kiera Dent (00:00.932) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today I just wanted to ask, are you struggling with cashflow because of overdue payments or you don't know how to do your AR or billing just fills out of hand? Well, great news. Healthy AR is an incredible way for you to keep your practice profitable and successful. And today we're going to dive into it and give you some really incredible systems to help you actually keep this on top so that way you don't ever feel like you're in a financial crisis again. So hooray, hooray. I'm so excited. I hope you're ready for it. I hope you're just having an incredible day today. I know talking AR is not always super fun, but honestly having a well-managed AR system, being able to track to follow up to figure out where the gaps are really can give you confidence. So I wanna give you guys three quick actionable tips to be able to take this and have a healthy AR. You guys know the Dental A Team's all about practical tactical, making your life easier, making you super successful and happy. doing it with ease, having a fun time with doctors and team members. So we are able to possibly impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. So let's kick it off you guys, because honestly, AR is one of the most overlooked areas. It feels taboo. feels like we don't really know. So what are we even going to do? So like, let's just dive into this and really get it there. So number one is to set up clear payment policies and make sure that we're upfront with our patient. And if you don't have this, adding it onto your treatment plans, adding it into your practice, Don't worry, everyone has this. So it doesn't need to feel scary or daunting or my gosh, like we're changing everything on our patients. You're not, we're just being very clear upfront. And what this does is it actually makes it easier for your front office to be confident with their treatment planning, to be confident with their scheduling, because now we all know the rules of the game. We know what we're doing and we don't have to be rude about it. We don't have to be mean about it. We just need to be crystal clear so people know the rules of the game of our practice. So a couple of quick tips are. we do require payment at the time of service. I know back in time we used to not, but this is something that we do for routine procedures. And yes, we estimate and we go in, we try to maximize everything that we have within our practice by getting insurance estimates. But the reality is sometimes we aren't gonna be able to get that correct. Insurances aren't even accurate until we bill out. And so we don't crutch on that and bill out and then collect money. We collect, we estimate the best that we can. We collect at the time of service. Kiera Dent (02:18.604) and then we're able to let them know if they have a balance or if they have a credit. Hopefully we're getting close. I'd prefer credits more than I'd prefer balances. I don't like to chase money, but you choose how you want to do that. And then making sure we have really good payment options like Cherry or Sunbit or some of those other ones are really great ones. We actually have some offices that have a really beautiful spreadsheet where we have all the different payment options that we can offer. I only like offering one, two or three max of payment options. but for your practice to know all the different carriers, like I said, Cherry and Sumbit, Cherry tends to be really high right now of a great financial one, Care Credit always is the top one, but having some of those options so that way we as the practice aren't carrying the bulk of this debt, but we're able to have options for our patient can help you get that better case acceptance and also keep us out of that financial pickle. So, and then also helping our patients have a clear financial policy and I actually have a practice that worked on this and They were saying like a couple of things like they had six steps on it. And I really loved this of one is like no future scheduling until the payment, their balance is paid. And I think that really helps because then we're not just adding to the debt and we help our patients know like we've got to get this taken care of before we're able to schedule you for more treatment. Then we expect full payment on the first day or we're able to go like two payments half and half. So sometimes for crowns we'll do 50 % today, 50 % upon crown seat. Those are some great things. I don't go beyond two payments within the practice. Otherwise they go into third party financing. You also, if you are struggling with this for larger payments or treatment plans, so you can decide is it 2000, is it 4000, is it 10,000, you choose. But I usually do a deposit and some people will have higher deposits, but let's say it's a 2000, you can do 10 % of that. So that would be $200. I like a 10%. I think it's easy. I think it also for a patient who wasn't expecting to do treatment, it's not as daunting for them. So giving that 10 % down payment could also help out. And then really making sure that we are staying on top of our AR, which is going to lead into the next point, making sure that our accounts aren't going past hopefully 60 days in general. I know we might have higher AR right now where they're into that 90 days, meaning we've done treatment and 90 days have passed since we've made payment. And then making sure that we have a good collection policy as well. Kiera Dent (04:39.266) really making sure all those pieces are there is going to help. And we communicate this to our patients. And if we'll communicate it to our patients, then they know the rules of the game. So for that, when offices start to do this, they start to have patients understand that we make payments, that we only do two payments in-house, that we are collecting at the time of service, that we are making sure that they have these financial policies written. We're not allowing more treatment to stack up on delinquent accounts. What happens is that practice actually starts to become profitable and they start to get more cashflow. Patients start to pay their balances and it's crazy because just asking for the financial money really actually helps a ton. And it's weird because you just think, all I did was ask for the money. Well, yeah, I have a practice that I was able to add over $20,000 per month to their schedule. And they said, Kiera how are you able to do that? One, it's through some tactics, but two, it was just stopping at the front desk and collecting the money before the patient left. Like it sounds so simple, but really, just collecting and a lot of offices are even putting credit cards on file, which can really help. So number two, so that's like step one is like, let's collect the money before it goes back. Let's make sure we're checking upon check-in to collect the balances. Let's make sure we're collecting on checkout so we're not following up with all this money. And then number two for this healthy AR is we've got to have a strong follow-up system for outstanding balances. So what I like to do is I like to run the AR report at the beginning of the month. I like to put it into a Google Sheets file. And then I like to actually have it color coordinated of what area is this account at? Are we on statement one, statement two, statement three? Before I ever send out statements, we always, always, always call. Hey, Kiera great news, your insurance paid. The balance is left, remaining is this amount. I can do Visa or MasterCard over the phone, which do you prefer? This way I'm collecting balances instead of just sending statements. I know a lot of offices love to send statements. It feels really great. We love to. send it out, send it through the mail, make it feel like we're really moving the needle forward. But if we would just pick up the phone and call, I even tell some offices like we're going green, we're trying to save on paper and stamps, so we're collecting this. There's also a lot of companies like Mula, I really love Mula, and you can actually text the statement to your patient, which can help. But please, let's not lose the power of calling them, because calling and collecting payment can really, really help a lot. So making sure we have this where it's automated. Kiera Dent (06:58.168) Patients can pay online if we don't have that, that's going to be something that they really need to do. Like I said, Mula is coming in as one of my top companies for processing right now based on their fees and also the availability to send electronic statements to have it link into the patient ledger. I think they're doing a really great job. And then making sure we're actually tracking that entire scorecard of the AR on our Google Sheets or whatever you wanna do. But I like it color coordinated and then I like the doctor and the billing representative. To meet together at the end of every month, we see how many first statements, how many collections we made, how many 60 day, how many 90 day, and then are there any that need to go to collections or do we need to figure out what to do with that account? I am not here for an advocate of whatever is right or wrong. You get to decide what's best for your practice, but we've got to have a way to follow up on this. And insurances should be receiving statements 15 to 30 days. Following up on them more consistently can actually help us get payments quicker. So making sure we're also sending clean claims. So everything's attached, everything's put together. So we're not getting things back because we didn't do our part, making sure everything's being submitted on the first run, I really think can help it out. And so when offices do this, what's interesting is we've been able to actually pay for all of our consulting in very quickly because we've taught the office how to go and collect the money that is already in the accounts. And so, and it's crazy because I'm like, you already did the work, let's just collect the money. And so sometimes it is on sending statements, sometimes it's calling the patients, but it's crazy how just even. connecting in with your patients really can help them realize that like we just have this money that's outstanding, let's get it paid. So right now I would figure out, can you get with Mula, can you have an automated system to be able to send out statements and then have someone who oversees AR and they follow up on it every single week. That's something we're really gonna need to make sure it's taken care of. I like Tuesdays and Thursdays for billing days, you do it whatever you need to do. Not the full day, usually a four hour chunk is probably pretty good for. Most practices, every practice is different, but that would be a good one. And then step three, pretty simple, is we've got to review our AR metrics and take actions. So this is what I was talking about, the doctor and the billing representative meeting together, and we've got to monitor our 30, 60, 90, and over 90 days where we're at. So the zero to 30, 60 to 90, over 90, we've got to make sure, and what I like is of all of those accounts, we're never over one month's worth of collections. And so I try really hard to get that down. Kiera Dent (09:16.868) Over 90 should be less than 10 % of total AR. I even like it to be chipped down to like 5 % of that. So if you know the metrics that we need to do, we've got to be collecting. And if our team knows our goal is to collect in 30 days always, we get better at insurance verification, we get better at collecting, we get better at watching our AR, we get better at all these different things, then we truly have a system that works. And then making sure that it's in there so the doctor can take a look at it so you can see how many first statements, second statements, third statements, you can even make a little dummy codes that you attach to each patient's ledger. So at the end of the month, you can actually run a report to see how many statements really went out of first, second, third. I don't go past three. I do not want it going past three. And if you call on the first one, usually we're not getting to a second one. We're setting up options. We have payment options if necessary that are external, not internal, that really, really can help you. for me, I would, if I was a dentist, I would have my billing meeting set up. I would expect my team to get through that entire AR list within a month. I don't care how many accounts are on there. We might have some cleanup to do, but getting through that, and I have an office where we were able to take them from about a 65 % collection ratio. It was really drastic, all the way up to 98%, but we had to go back three years to clean it up. And there's a lot of them that we weren't able to collect them because we'd waited too long, but it was a process. I think we had about 10,000 accounts we had to go through, but this team was diligent. They were dedicated. It was hard, but we were able to actually make progress. And it was so fun for them to actually build the system and for the doctors to understand and the team to understand and they'll never get into that position again. And so really going through these three steps, like I mentioned, of clear financial policies with our patients and collecting before they go back and also when we do time of service, we have a full follow-up system of how do we have it? How do we submit our statements? Do we call for it? How do we have this? And then we review it every single month with our doctor and billing. a team member meeting, it's really gonna help you guys stay on track and be able to get this healthy AR. So the reality is we've got to enforce this. We've got to make sure that we're following up on it, that we're expecting to be at 98 % collection and that we actually go through with this because right now is the time like you've done the work, let's collect the money. And so if this is something that you are like, gosh, like Carrie, you're just speaking my language, reach out, DM us, I'm happy to show you some AR tactics that we've done for other practices, give you some resources and tips. Kiera Dent (11:36.32) or head on over to our website, TheDentalATeam.com and just book a call. And I'm happy to go through it with you and give you some, some complimentary value and practice assessment to see where you're at, the great things you're doing in areas that we can help out. This is what we're obsessed with doing. And Dental A Team does this. This is what we do for our practices. This is why we have the systems. This is why we have the systems for success for you. And I'd love to help you. So when, when you're ready and if you're ready to boost and master your AR and cashflow reach out, we're ready for you. And I'd love to help you, but truly commit to being a master of AR and having that healthy cashflow, you're doing the work, get paid for the work you do. You deserv…
Full show notes at the publisherIt's not difficult to enter a practice and feel whether a team is synergistic and they love each other versus if they have animosity and do not get along. Kiera gives advice for spreading love to team members and patients, and establishing a culture of appreciation beyond Valentine's Day.
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Transcript:
Kiera Dent (00:01.23)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and it is the season and the month of love. And honestly, Valentine's Day and February isn't just about hearts and chocolates. It's truly the perfect time to show appreciation to your team and patients if you desire. So today we're going to teach you some simple, impactful ways to spread love in your dental practice, because why not? One of my favorite quotes is to spread love like confetti. And I think in today's world and in Dental A Team's mission to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible,
Why not spread love, spread kindness, spread joy to our team and our patients. So just wanted to give you guys a couple quick tips on how you're able to do that. You guys know that this is something that I'm really passionate. I'm really passionate about you loving your job, you loving your life, loving your patients, impacting your community and your team to ultimately live the most fulfilled and impactful life. Showing love and appreciation increases our morale in our practices. It increases retention and the overall practice culture where patients feel that love.
crazy because when I walk into an office when consulting, you can feel if a team is synergistic and they love each other versus if they're animosity and they do not get along with one another. And so really just something for you to highlight that people can feel the energy. And so let's spread that love in a quick action packed episode for you today on the season of love. So number one, step one is show love to your team. I do believe that it comes from when we
recognize and appreciate our team's hard work when we show that love to one another. That's really how we're able to highlight and enhance in some quick easy ways that I think are love appropriate within the workforce, our right personal thank you notes to each team member, maybe once a quarter, we we bust out the thank you cards and we write them. It's crazy how a little pen and paper can really make a big impact for people. You guys could also have like around Valentine's Day, maybe have a Valentine's Day themed lunch or treat where
We really do maybe exchange Valentine's Day gifts with one another, like go back to the time where we wrote Valentine's for one another. And also like we've talked about in other times of creating a shout out board where you can write kind notes to each other. I've seen offices where they just have a whiteboard there where people just write a quick note of like, here you crushed it today or Sarah, you crushed it today and we just leave it. And it's almost like our wall of love. And you can even create a wall of love where we just like stamp them up there or on shout out jars. We post those up there because again, showing love to one another.
Kiera Dent (02:25.7)
It creates a habit, creates a pattern. creates a way for us too of how we operate. And so just again, thinking of that. And so my suggestion for you is pick one of those ideas. Are we going to do thank you notes to one another? Are we going to have a lunch of a Valentine's themed? Are we going to get those little Valentine's boxes back out? Are we going to have a shout out board for one another? What are we going to do to implement kindness and love within our practice? And then step two is now we've done it to our teams. We've taken care of ourselves.
Now we're going to spread this to our patients. And so what can we do to show love to our patients? And what's crazy is when people feel loved, they're actually very bound. There's a retention piece. There's a loyalty piece because people feel that love and that genuine appreciation. And so little things for them that we can do of you can send heartfelt emails or text messages to patients. We could even have little hearts this month and write little love notes to our patients of how much we appreciate them. You could highlight one patient.
that you just every day to have them be the patient of the day. We could actually create a social media post highlight, make sure it's a HIPAA and you've got consents for it. A patient appreciation and highlight the patients to like why we really love them and why they love their smile. So lots of different ways where we can show them. But I think that intentionality, there's a book called Unreasonable Hospitality. And I loved in there where they had like this whole little like craft kit is how I imagine it. I've never been there.
But where they were allowed to, they really encouraged their team to create magic moments for their guests, for these people who would attend the restaurant. so having a way for your team to produce this unreasonable hospitality, if we know someone's having a baby or we know someone's getting married or we know someone's it's their birthday or like just having a little, like I said, a little craft station where we can do these things on an intentional basis every single day to really create magic and to spread love to our patients. It's crazy how just a small little intentional thing
I mean, I can't imagine it's never happened to me, but could you just imagine if your hygienist in your little goodie bag wrote you a handwritten note, like again, like a little heart or a little card, like, Kiera, I just really always look forward to when you come. You're one of my favorite patients. And I just want you to know how much I really appreciate you and do it without any expectation other than just giving the gift of love to this person. I think that this would actually really truly grow your practice, grow your,
Kiera Dent (04:47.136)
retention, grow your patient base. And then another idea is think about our online reviews. Yes, we respond to those reviews for Google Analytics and for different pieces. But what would it be like if you actually wrote a personalized letter to each person who left your view, thanking them for that review, or a personalized letter to each person who referred someone to your practice? It just seems crazy how this intentionality of personalization and creating magic for our patients and spreading the love.
really would be able to be something. I think in the month of February, it's a fun time for us to pick one patient focused, like idea where we can show them the love and implement it, whether before Valentine's day or after Valentine's day you choose, but really like how can we create this magic for our patients? And then step three is foster the culture beyond Valentine's day. Like how do we foster this culture of appreciation and love beyond? And I think a lot of the pieces for this were,
talking about things of creating the magic moments, creating the shout out boards, but maybe for this ideas are we start a monthly recognition program for team and patients. How can we recognize somebody every single month that really we just love and we want to like shower them with love, sprinkle them with the confetti of love. Maybe we also do positive feedback, like the shout out jars, the kudos jars, keep the board going of how much we love each other. Maybe these things like that. And what you can do is even like rotate. I like to have systems and cadences. So maybe it's.
Kiera's day is on Monday and Kiera goes and writes love notes to each team member every single Monday. Every Tuesday it's Britt's turn to do it. Every Wednesday is Tiff's turn to do it. But really like finding a way to have this where it becomes, yes it will be quote unquote forced at the beginning, but then becomes automatic in the longterm. We could also do quarterly patient appreciation events. So I've seen offices, one of my favorite offices that I've seen is they had donuts on the corner. offices like patients would be driving all the time for high school.
and they had donuts and they just like gave a little like, love our patients and they would do it. And people in the community knew about this all the time. I have an office where they're gonna start running promos of if your name is blank, come in and get free whitening. We love our patients. We love to have them smile bright and something like that where it's just fun things where we're showing appreciation, we're showing love, we're able to give back. These are ways that we're able to make this not just be about Valentine's Day and the month of love.
Kiera Dent (07:00.9)
But like I said, spreading love like confetti all year long. And so I would plan one appreciation initiative. So what we're gonna do this year of are we doing recognition for patients and team? Are we going to have a quarterly event? Are we gonna do donuts? But the goal is not to cost a lot of money, not to create more busy work for you, but to really be in the habit of adding love for our team and our patients. I feel like our world has become such a world.
where we've forgotten to be humans. We've forgotten to be, we've forgotten to love. We're so automated, we're so into AI and automations and doing and maximizing and optimizing that we've forgotten to just love. We've forgotten what our center is, what our core is, what it means to be a human being, not a human doing, but a human being, being intentional, being in that spirit to really create magic. So I think a good book is Unreasonable Hospitality.
to just think of how can we create magic and love moments more often, to have that be the culture and the feel. And I know families who have love, you can feel it when you walk into a home, relationships that are very centered on love. You can feel that when you're around them, why not make your practice a space where people feel loved, they feel accepted, they don't feel judged. They feel like they're special, but they're important. Everyone in this world is looking for that, whether big or small, they're looking for that. So like I said, we've got the three steps of number one, show love to our team.
Number two, spread love to our patients. And number three, have that culture of appreciation beyond just Valentine's Day in the month of February. This is how we're able to change the world. This is how we're able to create magic. This is how we're able to change people's lives just by coming to the dentist. And if we see that by, we're not just changing their smiles, we're changing them as a human. It's what we do in consulting. Yes, I'm here to talk to you about profitability and systems and consulting, but I believe in changing the human. I believe in impacting the soul.
I believe in having you have your dream life as team members and as owners to really give you the best life you can possibly have. And we do that through love. Love is the connector. Love is the bridge. Love is what makes us so happy. So I encourage you to truly like, if you're ready to spread love in the practices, like share, tag us. Like that would be my, my action for you is go spread love and tag the Dental A Team. Um, on Instagram, I would love to just have like it flooding of
Kiera Dent (09:22.358)
an initiative of all the podcast listeners. Let's just make it this month of love where we're tagging, we're spreading, we're saying hello. Can we add love into Facebook groups? Can we share this podcast with someone that we love? Where can we do that? And truly, this is a way that we're able to give back. if this is what you want and you want a team that's not just about systems, you want consulting that's not just about the dentistry. Yes, that's what we do, but it's more about being, it's more about intentionality, it's more about love.
reach out. This is what we do. when we are ready, we're ready for you. And so reach out Hello@TheDentalATeam.com or just go click and book a call for a complimentary practice assessment for you and your team to just show you value and insights and help you. Because at the end of the day, the mission of Dental A Team's podcast and Dental A Team is from love. Loving my Midwestern students when I worked with them to give them resources to then loving our dental offices and loving them as people to give them the resources.
to change their lives, to change their communities and have this impact that goes far beyond our dental practice and our space. It blesses our families, it blesses our teams, it blesses our patients. And so really, that's what we're about. I'm so happy you're here. So go spread love like confetti. Know that I love you, that you're doing better than you think you are. Give yourself the grace, the kudos, make magic moments for those patients and let me know. And I cannot wait to see you guys. Tag me, DM me. This is where we're at. I would love to get Valentine's from you.
I love Valentine's, so send them out, spread them out, give those love bombs to people around you, inside and out, and so truly, this is the time. It's your time to spread love like confetti to change the world. And as always, thanks for listening, and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.
Kiera talks about the power of 'state of the company' meetings, how to set them up, how to roll them out, and how to continue having them quarter after quarter.
Episode resources:
Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast
Schedule a Practice Assessment
Transcript:
Kiera Dent (00:00.802)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera. And today I just wanna ask you the question of does your team know where you're going and what you're trying to achieve as a practice? And if the answer is not absolutely 100 % yes, if you came into our practice, Kiera, and asked every person, then today this episode is for you. And it's something beautiful that we've just recently learned that I'm so excited to share with you to make your life easier, to get your team aligned, to get them all rolling in the same direction.
and I just tested it on my team and we're testing it with offices and the feedback has been outstanding of better team buy-in, more clarity and easier ability to row in the same direction. Dental A Team is here for you. We love to support you. Our mission is to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. And I'm so honored that you're here as part of our podcast family. All of our consultants, we work with you virtually or one-on-one, in person.
or on the screen, we make sure that you are thriving and that you are living your best self. It can be hard, it can be lonely, but it doesn't have to be. And that's what Dental A Team was created. And that's why we created the podcast was to give you tactical tips to make sure that your world is easier, more efficient, and that you're able to feel not alone, but supported in the world of dentistry. All right, so today we're gonna rock this out. This is something from Traction. You know that I'm a huge fan of Gina Wickman and I'm gonna break down three simple steps of the state of the company.
The state of the company is something to do after your quarterly meetings. So you go as a leadership team, you meet, you have a quarterly meeting. We do this with our clients. We work with this within our mastermind group. It's so fun. And I'm so excited to help people really deep dive on the businesses. I've done a lot of research over the years to make sure that I'm able to deliver the best of the best to you. So we meet with our leadership team. We work on our action items.
We're able to figure out what's the focus. What are our annual goals? What are our quarterly goals that we need to do? And the leadership team gets crystal crystal clear. We're able to have the uncomfortable conversations, solve the issues. That step one is you've got to have your annual meetings to make sure that you are then focused on where are we going? And then also breaking it down into our quarterly meetings. So step one of the state of the company, getting your whole team rowing in the correct vision is number one, leadership team needs to meet annually and quarterly to set the vision, to set the focus, to say where they're going.
Kiera Dent (02:13.454)
I love it to be leadership teams because I feel like that's where we can really get to the nitty gritty, the juicy. I have an office and they're truly remarkable and I absolutely love them. And what's really fun is the leadership teams able to come hash it out. What does hygiene want? What did dental assistants want? What does front office need? What did the doctors need? What does the practice need from all those different perspectives? And it's been amazing to watch them go from a $3.5 million practice up to a $6 million practice in one year.
by simply getting their leadership team aligned and then rolling this out to their departments. So step one is leadership team needs alignment annually and quarterly. Step two is now you prepare for what the team needs to hear and this is called the state of the company. The state of the company feels like I should have a top hat on and that I should be Abe Lincoln and it felt really funny to me. But really what it is is it's a snapshot of where is the company at? What has happened? Where are we at and where are we going? And it was crazy because as I was doing it, it's a one hour meeting with your team.
but you need to prepare for this. So that step two is prepare for the state of the company meeting. And on that, what we do is, like I said, where have we been, where are we going, and what do we need to do to change? What are updates on the company? Where are our goals? What were the quarterly rocks that we just set in traction terms that we then are going to be able to take to our team and deliver in a clear, concise manner? This is usually done by your office manager. Office managers prepare it, they put it together.
Doctors, you're going to be the one who presents it or whomever the lead of the team is ultimately. So for me and my company, I'm the one who gets to deliver the state of the company. So step one, leadership team needs to work together. They need to create the annual and the quarterly goals. Step two is office manager and doctor need to combine together to figure out what exactly are we needing to do to make this state of the company report there. We build it. Britt kudos to her on our team. She built it in the most beautiful format. So we had it at the top. We have it mapped out.
Here's where we were, here's where we're going. If there's a gap, so if it's Q1 and we're behind, what's the gap? What have we learned and why are we here? It was a really beautiful conversation between Britt and myself where we were able to really assess how did we get here? Why are we here? And what are we going to do moving forward? For me, I don't believe in failures, I believe in results. So what are the results and why did we get here? And what are we going to do to move forward and to learn from that? Step three is now hold your state of the company meeting. I plan and prep an hour with our team.
Kiera Dent (04:31.564)
We do it at the beginning of each quarter. So we roll it out to them. And what we do is we actually show, I share screened this document that Britt and I had put together. I go through it I really empower the team and I talk to the team, this is where we are. This is the nuts and bolts. These are the facts. This is what needs to happen in order for us to move forward. This is the reason that we're doing these goals. And it's really to me, the state of the company addresses more giving the why behind along with the tangibles of what needs to happen. So it's why did we get here?
Why are we wanting to implement for our company this year? It's marketing masters and AI innovation. We're adding that in because I believe if we look down the line dentistry is going to be shifting heavily. And so we need to be ahead of that. We need to be ahead of the curve. We need to see, we need to build different ways for people to be coming to our company. We need to be having a way to truly, if our mission is to reach out to all the dental practices, we've got to be building different funnels, different methods, different models from what we've been doing and be ahead of that.
but me educating my team and teaching them, this is why we're doing it. Now the team has what I call the lock and loaded buy-in because now they're clear. And I had no clue how this would land. We ran it for an hour, gave them all the information. had it prepped. We asked them for questions. And then I actually wasn't there the next day. And Britt actually asked the team for feedback of, you want this every quarter? Do you not? And it has been an outstanding resounding. We loved that. And it's been so interesting to hear throughout the week, throughout the trickling.
of Kiera, feel so much more clear. Kiera, I feel like I understand where we're going. Kiera, I'm so grateful that you took the time. It was broken down in such simple steps for us. And what was great for me as a leader was I was able actually to do a deep dive on my practice, my business to see what were the strengths, what were the weaknesses, why did I get here? Ask the hard questions and for Britt and I to align and then lock and load our team in the synergy and the energy of having a team drive this forward for you is there.
Teams often just need clarity. They need to understand the why. They need to understand why are we doing this? Where are we going and what is the purpose of this? And then like I said, they lock and load and they're rock solid with you executing, taking ownership. I have seen teams that do this, elevate the ownership, elevate the clarity, elevate the synergy of them all rolling together. So my question is, do you want a team that's rolling together with ease, efficiency and effectiveness? The state of the company, the quarterly address.
Kiera Dent (06:51.916)
is something that I would strongly recommend with these three points to add into your practice. Feel free, I'm happy to share a sample of what we've done so that way you can see it so you can kick it off to share it with your team. Like I said, we pulled this from Gina Wickman Traction and built it up Dental A Team's version of how we wanted to do this, giving you the resources because my goal is to make dentistry easy, to make running a practice easy, to make it to where this isn't hard for you because really running a practice can be easy. Being a profitable dentist can be easy.
being fulfilled and not having to do it all can be a reality. Having a team that rallies and is so incredibly accountable can be a reality. And that's what Dental A Team does. So if that's of interest for you, reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com We do a one hour free practice assessment for you, where I literally deep dive with you, your practice, where you're at, some of these huge hits that need to happen in order for your practice to flourish and for you to have the life that you're wanting. So reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com
You'll get a ton of value. You'll be able to have clarity of where your practice goes. And if we're a great fit for you, I'd love to work with you as always. Thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.
Tiff and Dana share common pitfalls that scale back your practice's production — and what to do to address them. Included solutions are Dental A-Team's scorecard and a fixed cost spreadsheet, which you can reach out to the DAT for help on: hello@thedentalateam.com. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01.967) Hello, Dental A Team podcast listeners. I am so excited to be here with you today. This is Tiffanie. I never introduced myself, which is weird. Hopefully there's like some sort of intro that goes to that. just thought of that. Anyhow, here we are. Another day, another podcast. And first and foremost, I want to thank all of you guys who listen. I know we get a lot of practice assessment. schedules from people who listen to our podcasts. That's how you guys are finding us. And it just means a lot to us that you're here, that you're with us, that you're supporting us. We want to support you and we are doing forever. As far as I can tell, we're doing new free practice assessments for practices all over, all over the country, all over the world. Sometimes we get Canadian practices and it's super cool. I know we've worked with practices all the way in New Zealand and it's just really cool. And these complimentary practice assessment tools. are fantastic because we really are helping you deep dive and figure out where your focus should be or could be to get you to the results that you're looking to gain, whether you're gonna work with us one-on-one in a group fashion or just continue being a listener no matter what. We love doing these complimentary practice assessments with you guys. And it's just really fun. It's so cool to see where dentistry is at and where you guys are at. wins and the struggles you guys are having and it's just, it's super awesome. So thank you to everybody who's here with us today. We are excited to take you on this journey with us and doctors and practice owners, leaders, whoever's here today. I really wanted to chat here. I've got my girl Dana with me and I wanted to chat about projections, scheduling, reaching goals. I think that's a huge focus. for everyone always needs to reach goals, right? But I think in 2025 so far, Dana, like we need to heavily focus on this because 2024, there was a lot that happened in 2024. It was a weird, it was a wild year, right? Like was so weird. It felt like, okay, we're getting momentum with everyone. And then it was like two steps forward, one step back, five steps forward, three steps back. And it was like, gosh, we're getting momentum. But it was an uphill battle in 2024. I don't know what happened, but holy cow, this year feels cleaner already. It feels different. Dana (01:57.805) wild. The Dental A Team (02:17.795) And I think everyone's kind of shifted their focus to the areas to be able to see what's the most important. So I'm excited to chat with you about that today, Dana, and I hope our listeners are excited for this one. I wanted to just have a conversation around what impacts production from a schedule standpoint, not technical scheduling, right? Not our blog scheduling. We've done a million freaking podcasts on that. Dana and I are not doing that today. Dana (02:45.276) No? The Dental A Team (02:47.601) But really those other pieces that impact it and how doctors can and practice owners can look at these factors and project. It's still early enough in the year that if you haven't done this yet, get on it. It's totally fine and look for those pieces. So I wanted to pick your brain a little bit Dana and I think let's take it in the space of let's talk about the things that can impact and then let's talk about how we can. project that and fix it and work it into our goals. So what are the spaces Dana that you have, your clients, and I think we likely do this the same, but what spaces and what do you have your clients look for when they are getting prepped for that next year? We're into the year and we're trying to figure out what's going on, what things impact production goals from a scheduling standpoint like that that you guys are taking a look at. Dana (03:37.388) Yeah, I love this topic because I do think when we think about production and impacts on production, we go right to scheduling, we go right to those pieces. And so I love that today is a little bit different. And I think that sometimes we just forget that like taking a vacation is going to impact production, having holidays in there, holidays will sometimes fall on work days and sometimes not. you know, yearly, they're different. so looking at how many holidays do we have in there looking at, if we're going to take CE, how much of that is time away from the office, team meetings and quarterly meetings and admin time, knowing all of those things, right? All of those things impact your production because then that isn't necessarily time spent taking care of patients. It's definitely needed. It's time spent working on the business. It's time spent training and, working on all of our processes. So The Dental A Team (04:21.495) So. Dana (04:27.664) let's not not do it because it affects production, right? Knowing it will impact your production and being able to combat that is definitely super helpful. The Dental A Team (04:31.174) Yeah, yeah. The Dental A Team (04:40.57) Yeah, I totally agree. think CE is something that a lot of doctors will find on a whim or be like, I need to take this course. You need to block me out these days. And if we're not projecting and planning for that or accommodating the schedule in other places, it really impacts it. I had a client that I was chatting with last week, an office manager, and she's like, Tiff, what the heck do I do? Like they want to make XML this month, but they took between the two doctors, they took two weeks off. And I'm like, well, This is the shared reality, right? So their reality is they're not looking at that. They're not thinking about that. Your reality is that you have to get it on the schedule. And so that's the first place you look when they come to you and tell you to shut down days is you're like, well, what am I supposed to do with this? So coming to that shared reality is huge and trying to project as much as you can the CE that you want to take this year or estimating how much CE you're willing to take time off for is always huge as well. I know I've got a few doctors that don't know when they want to take vacation or where they want to go or if they want it. And I say, you know what? That's totally fine. In the perfect world, how much vacation time do you want to take with your family? And I have one doctor that said four to six weeks. I said, great. Then plan for six. I want you to take six weeks out of your productive numbers, days of work, right, take those six weeks out of that productive time, now estimate what you can do and how we can bump those goals. Because the reality is we need to increase production and collections by seven to ten percent every year to keep up with inflation. And team members that are listening, every year, no matter what, you're going to get a new goal. It's going to be different than it was last year. And guess what? We're doing things on the other side to help you with that. just FYI, you're going to get a bigger goal every year. Soap. Soapbox. The days of the year that we're willing, that we're able to work, right, impact if how easily or how difficult it's going to be to get to that goal. So we've got to say, okay, this is our goal, this is the number of days we're working with, what do have to do every day to get to that goal? So it's not necessarily, this is how many days I have to work, what is my goal, it's, this is what I need to do, this is how many days I The Dental A Team (07:03.878) I have that I'm working, how do we fix that? So I love that. And I've had a lot of doctors in the last couple of years that have really learned to just say, okay, well, I don't have it planned yet, but I would love to take three CEs this year, because I want them and I need them. And I'd love to take this much vacation with my family. Great. Swipe it off, figure it out, we move on. Other pieces that I know have come into play, in the dental industry. So Guess what, guys? We've got a lot of babies that come along. Maternity and paternity leave is a real thing. Like, we're family. We're healthcare providers, so we are family-oriented beings. So making sure that we're considering that as well. I know a lot of offices that are like, shoot, I didn't even think about the fact that my hygienist is going to be out for three months starting in June, and what am I supposed to do? And it's May. And I'm like, my gosh. Dana (07:59.95) you The Dental A Team (08:00.052) Why didn't Oyrin want this information? You know, it's just like those pieces we forget about. So I love that. Like, Observed Holidays, which 2024 taught us a lesson if we were not pre-planning for Observed Holidays because Christmas and New Year's landed on wild days for that year, and it really, really messed with December production. 2025, it's similar. It's at least towards the end of the week, so you can work the beginning of both. Dana (08:03.246) Yeah. The Dental A Team (08:29.897) but observed holidays and how much time are you gonna give yourself and your team off during those holidays? CE, how much do you want to on vacations? How much do you want to take? How much do you aspire to take? Always go big, because you can work extra days. Team vacations, especially when it comes to providers, so associates and hygienists, you've gotta make sure we're prepped for that. Maternity and paternity leave. making sure we're prepped for all of those situations and scenarios, and I'm sure there are some that I didn't even think about, that impact it. I do have doctors that will take some time off and then they'll work maybe extra Fridays or they'll work extra long on Thursdays where they normally would have done some admin work, which I don't love you guys getting rid of admin work. and you said, know, admin hours and meeting hours, things like that, making sure we're accounting for those things. But if you can, pick up extra days for sure. I'm never gonna turn that down and neither will your schedulers. But making sure we're prepping and planning for that. some tools, Day, let's talk about some tools that we have that we have our clients utilize and then also that you guys who aren't yet clients, your listeners, use tools like this or reach out and we can help you with tools like this. Really narrowing in and making things easy is... what I love in life. I hate... doesn't mean things are never going to be hard. I hate hard forever. I want hard right now, so maybe it's time consuming right now, but it's going to save me pain later. That's what I want to do. So, Dana, we have our projections sheet, so maybe talk about our projections sheet a little bit and our scorecard and how those combine and then how you're using that now two months into the year with your clients to really assess and see. Dana (09:59.5) Yeah. The Dental A Team (10:21.856) how their goals are going for them as we're rounding out middle of Q1. Dana (10:26.092) Yeah, so I love our projection sheet and I feel like in 2024 I used it more than ever because 2024 was wild so let's prep and make sure 2025 stays a little less wild than 2024 was. The Dental A Team (10:32.031) Yeah. The Dental A Team (10:37.896) Absolutely. Dana (10:38.766) And so really, it truly is it's mapping out I go through every month of the year with the client, how many working days are we going to have for each provider, including hygiene. And some of that does take prep work as far as hey, I need you to get that information from your heart to can they do they have any idea when they're going to take vacations? Do they have any idea and then honestly, if we don't, okay, well, how much PTO do they have and we build that in just saying like, okay, well, we know they're probably going to use their two weeks of PTO somewhere. So if we even it out throughout the The Dental A Team (10:53.716) Mm-hmm. The Dental A Team (11:01.909) Yeah. Dana (11:08.72) quarters, at least we kind of have the number of days that we're working with. And so we'll go through and we'll say, where do you want to end up next year, right? We'll base it on this year, we'll look at all sorts of things. And then we go through that sheet together and we basically say, okay, if these are the number of working days, if this is the number of providers we have available, this is what it's going to take every single day from each provider to get you to your ultimate goal. So it's kind of some reverse engineering, but it also is some planning and prepping. The Dental A Team (11:34.315) Yeah. Dana (11:38.83) And I love that meeting with clients because a lot of that goes like a lot of things go into that projection sheet. And I love that you said, okay, well, how many CE days do you want to take? Sometimes actually CE comes down to what do we have for a CE budget next year? And then of that budget, okay, well, that can likely get you two to three CE courses, which then helps with our projections that way. So it is a lot of planning and prepping that goes into it. But I think that it really helps. got them down to the penny what needs to happen every single day in each month and really gives them a roadmap that then as the year starts going and we bring in our scorecard we're constantly paying attention to where are we to getting to that and following that roadmap that we set out at the end of the year prior. So it's a really cool combination of tools and and I love to see especially this year is like we're The Dental A Team (12:21.32) Yeah. The Dental A Team (12:30.802) Yeah. Dana (12:38.704) really customizing and tightening of the scorecard that it constantly has them assessing gaps, it constantly has them going back to that initial roadmap we set, and then like you said, really just looking for opportunities of what is the thing we need to focus on right now. The Dental A Team (12:56.073) I love that. think you nailed it with those. The projection sheet is huge. And then coupling it with the scorecard and a piece that made me think of that's on the scorecard. And we purposely put it on the scorecard because this made a massive impact on goals being reached last year. I think every year, but last year, it really showed its face is the number of hours that were left. open on the schedule, so they were not filled with production either in hygiene or on the doctor's schedule. So when you look at the projections, you're like, great, this is awesome. This is if I were full to 100%, this is what my estimated production could be by provider. But then when you get in there and you start utilizing the scorecard and you're looking at the production, you compare the two, you're like, why am I off and why is it hard to reach these goals? Or why am I just not there yet? Why am I not reaching this goal yet? A lot of times it's lost in those pieces that we haven't always paid a lot of attention to, or just like we could, we should, why isn't it happening? I'm not sure. Looking at those open hours and even taking into account maybe, know, w…
Full show notes at the publisherKiera is joined by Mike and Stephanie Walton of Walton Family Dentistry in Bardstown, Kentucky. For the past almost year, the Waltons have not had a hygienist in their office. They talk with Kiera about why they were struggling to keep one staffed, what led them to stop having one in the first place, and how they efficiently and profitably operate to this day without a hygienist. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:05.844) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera and today is such a special episode. I am so excited. I am being joined by our incredible clients. I've got Mike and Stephanie Walton. They are running such an incredible practice. They are doing something so different, so unique, and I just wanted them to come on and share just about themselves. I think they're just a great example for so many offices out there. So Stephanie and Mike, welcome to the show. How are you today? Mike Walton (00:30.602) Doing great, doing great. Thanks for having us on. Stephanie (00:33.948) Thank you so much. Kiera Dent (00:35.114) Yes, absolutely. And I'll do better. I'll ask like Mike this, Stephanie that, because I know when there's three of us on here, can get a little funny, I'll just have Mike, I'll have you kind of kick this off. You two are incredible. I finally met you for the first time. We've worked together for so long. Tiffanie's your main consultant, but it was really dreamy when I got to meet you in June at the Dennis Money Show with Dennis Advisors. Stephanie (00:39.209) . Kiera Dent (00:59.07) So super fun, I'm excited to see you guys in person really soon too, but Mike, I'll have you just kick us off, kind of tell us a little bit about your practice, where you guys are at, kind of the dynamics of what you guys do in your practice. So the audience gets to know Mike and Stephanie Walton's office. Mike Walton (01:11.809) Great. So we are central Kentucky, little south of Louisville. So we're in a town called Bardstown. That's the bourbon capital of the world and the most beautiful small town award that we've received as well. Stephanie (01:27.244) In America. Kiera Dent (01:28.69) I agree. And you also bring the best candies and treats with you. Like they loaded us up when they came and met us. Bourbon Central, it was amazing. It was great. I was so like, it was so, the Carmel Stephanie, top notch, incredible. That was my favorite. So thank you. Mike Walton (01:43.318) Well, and Kara, have to say, you know, when I first saw you there, you know, of course we've seen each other on the think tank and, I saw you across the room and I was like, Hey, there's Kara. And I was like, she probably don't know who I am. We've never met before officially. Stephanie (01:44.759) You're welcome. Majestics. Kiera Dent (01:46.961) Exactly. Kiera Dent (02:01.086) I did it. Well, cause you know, you guys can see Mike, like there's video of him, Mike always, so we have, meant in think tank, which is our doctor mastermind every the first Tuesday of every month that we have. And Mike always wears his Yankees hat. Always. He always has a hat on. So even tonight I'm like, Mike, what are you doing? I'm not even going to recognize you. And you're right. I was like, where's your Yankees hat? That's fair. All right. So you guys are in Kentucky. Mike Walton (02:19.4) I'm saving it for next season. Kiera Dent (02:27.103) Tell us kind of the dynamics of your practice. How long have you been practicing? What does this practice look like? Mike Walton (02:30.026) So I've been practicing, it'll be 22 years in June. Started out in partnerships and then went out on my own about six years ago. So we are a small office where you are about five operatories. It's one doctor. And then right now it's four assistants, two front desk and then office manager. Stephanie (02:35.246) you Kiera Dent (02:56.552) And did you hear there's no hygienist, which is what we're going to lead into of how Mike went from a hygiene practice where he had hygienist to the shortage. was crunch time. Like he couldn't figure out how to, like it was so hard to hire. And so that's what I'm super excited to talk about. There was literally four assistants, no hygienist. Stephanie, tell us about your place. How are you in the practice? How did you get involved? I mean, you must really love Mike to be working there. You're even like scrubbed up over there, girl. It's not like you just shop. Tell us kind of how you. Stephanie (03:07.129) you So I could tell that he was kind of unhappy at the last place and I was like, you know, it doesn't have to be that way. And so we started doing some research about how to open an office because they don't tell you a lot of business in dental school. And I had my own career and we had three little kids, but I wanted him to be happy. And we found ideal practices and they helped us open the office up and it was well worth the money. And so that's how I got in there with him. And it was just he and I and an assistant and a hygienist when we started. And now we have two wonderful girls at the front desk. And so they do the majority of running the day-to-day stuff and I get to do the stuff that expands the practice and things like that. So we've come a long way, especially with your all's help. Kiera Dent (04:16.54) amazing. Tiffanie loves you. She raves about you. guys, every time you're on her coaching call schedule, Tiffanie is like, I get to talk to the Waltons today. Like truly, it has been such an incredible relationship. She adores you. And Stephanie, I love that you love Mike so much. And I think that that's just so telling of who you two are as a couple, what your practice is, the vibe you have, really just coming together as a couple. So now everyone is wondering and I'm wondering, like, how did you guys even come to this decision to have no hygiene? And how is that even like operating. Like I need to know this because when you mentioned it on think tank, I didn't realize because I'm not on all of your calls that you literally had zero hygienist in your practice and it's been that way for a little while. So whomever wants to like take this on, I don't know whose brainy idea it was, like how did you guys even come to this decision and how is it going and give me all the things. Mike Walton (05:04.002) Well, I think what kind of led to, know, after COVID came through, you know, the number of hygienists went way down and, you know, it was constant turnover. It was, you know, they were in such demand and every office needed them that it was constantly training and getting them adapted to how we like things done. And then Stephanie (05:19.492) Okay. Mike Walton (05:30.66) somebody else would make a better offer and then they would go. And you know, their schedule would be booked out six to eight months and they'd give you a two week notice. And it was super stressful because you know, then we're faced with, well, we're running an ad, there's no way we're gonna get somebody to replace you in two weeks. And it got to the point where it was like, do we reschedule all these people or do we squeeze them in? And we were squeezing them in. Kiera Dent (05:34.666) Mm. Kiera Dent (05:42.377) Yep. Mike Walton (06:00.778) And it was stress and stress and stress and more stress. And then we got to the point where we're like, we can't do this anymore. and you know, you'd go through the cycle where you'd finally get somebody to bite on your ad, you'd get them in the office. And then, you know, I think about every maybe three or four months, it was turnover. And we were going through the same thing again. And we finally got, we're like, how do we, how do we get out of this terrible cycle of. Stephanie (06:19.136) you Mike Walton (06:30.441) of one, having to train, and two, having to deal with a six month schedule that's booked out for a two week notice. And the team was feeling that too. It wasn't just us because they were picking up a lot of the slack. And so we were like, gosh, if we keep doing this, they're going to get frustrated. We're going to lose the whole team. And then what are we going to do? Stephanie (06:53.736) And we have a wonderful team. The assistants are wonderful and the two at the front desk, shout out to Haley and Jessica. They are great. Kiera Dent (07:03.346) Yeah. Stephanie, how did you feel going through this? Did you agree with Mike? Were you like, let's just cut bait and try and see if we can figure this out? Or were you like, let's not do that. I mean, the traditional model is we need hygienists. We know we need two hygienists for every doctor. Like, Stephanie, what was your take? Because I think if I was in your shoes, I have a reasonable level of risk, but I'm also very risk adverse. And so how is it for you? I mean, this is your livelihood. You two are a couple in this. You went away. You've given up your career. You're in this now. Stephanie, how is that for you? making this decision to go hygiene-less in a practice. Stephanie (07:36.508) you end up with kind of your opposite when you marry you know and so I'm the kind of like let's don't miss the boat and he's like that let's not rock the boat kind of person so so this was my idea like I was like Kiera Dent (07:48.042) Okay. I love it. I knew it was. I didn't even know, but I was like, I bet it was Stephanie's. Just knowing you two, I'm like, I bet. Mike Walton (07:54.627) But that's what I was gonna say is that I think you're directing this question to the wrong person. Kiera Dent (08:02.612) Yeah Stephanie (08:03.274) So I'm always like, well, what about this? And what about this? And what about this? And they're like, you're wearing us out. And so I try not to change too many things. But at the same time, I'm like, if anybody has any ideas, that's the great thing about small business and not having anybody to be your boss. You can try it. And if it doesn't work, you try something else. Kiera Dent (08:26.47) Exactly. Stephanie, what was your career prior to joining the dental practice? Where did you come from? What were you doing? I know you had three littles. So what did you do beforehand? Stephanie (08:34.462) was an occupational therapist. So I did, you know, worked at the hospital post, you know, rehab for strokes and hip replacements and things like that. So it comes in handy telling him about ergonomics and protecting that because I had patients that were former dentists. And so I can help the assistants and hygienists. We had one when we switched to this model and assistant that was having some ulnar nerve impingement because she was doing so much of the same task. And so I was teaching her about ulnar nerve glides and ergonomics and stuff. So that's what I did before. Kiera Dent (09:13.564) I love it. And so what's fun about that is I wanted to highlight that because I think so often having a fresh perspective like you'd have Stephanie of we're running a ragged race and Mike, I think we're in dental. We're so ingrained in dental. That's why it's really fun to have consultants or have other business people or have someone else's perspective. So Stephanie, how did you pitch this and what was your reasoning? Like walk me through, how did you even say like we're getting rid of the hygienist? Like forget it, Mike. We're going to go for this. Walk me through kind of your thought process of even how you thought to do this and then I'm excited to hear Mike how you guys actually ended up doing it. Stephanie (09:46.832) You know, I don't even know if I'm on a lot of different forums and a lot of just to learn podcasts, consume, you know, and I don't know if somebody else was doing it or if it was like a hybrid from like accelerated hygiene or if it was just the fact that can we entertain the idea of not having that position in the office. and then boost the wonderful people that we do have, you know, could we make that work? Because I'm kind of like, you know, out of the box, you know, well, have we ever tried this before? And, you know, I watch a lot of Simon Sinek, you know, you can have anything you want as long as you don't hurt anybody else in the process, you know? So. Kiera Dent (10:29.224) Yep, yep. Kiera Dent (10:33.13) Mm hmm. All right. So Mike, she pitches this to you. Let's get rid of hygiene. I can only imagine a dentist's worst nightmare is, hey, you want to start scaling teeth again? So I'm just dying to know, Mike, how did this pitch go? I'm imagining Shark Tank. Stephanie's got the like white boards. Like we could do this. We can think outside the box. And Mike, you're like, but this means I have to scale again. So Mike, how did this go for you? Give me come because I guarantee you dentists listening are like I'm hanging up. Like I'm not even gonna listen. How did this dentist even say yes to wanting to do hygiene again? Because I imagine that that's how it's rolling in your practice right now. Well. Mike Walton (11:04.144) Well, you know, we've been married. We've been married for it'll be 24 years this year and together for 31 years. And I learned a long time ago that I say, you're right. you know, it doesn't take a lot of fight anymore to kind of get me to go along because Kiera Dent (11:13.374) Wow, congrats. Kiera Dent (11:22.942) Yeah Mike Walton (11:28.956) She does a lot of that research and a lot of that background. You know, I've always been more of the technician and she kind of says, hey, if you think about this, you think about that. And she's got a good way of presenting it to where it makes all the sense in the world. You know, I think there were some logistical things that were kind of popping in both of our heads of how does this work? But also from her background as an occupational therapist, she is... Stephanie (11:38.526) . Mike Walton (11:57.744) incredibly structured and organized. And so it, you know, she took a lot of that on and kind of said, Hey, what if we do this? What if we do that? And I was like, I couldn't find anything to argue with other than, you know, in dental school, I remember graduating dental school thinking, well, that's the last prophy I'm ever going to do. and you know, I kind of dreaded it going into it at first, but you know, it's not, it's not bad. know, right now I'm still like, you know, Stephanie (12:02.157) . Mike Walton (12:25.787) I'm not gonna do any scaling and root planing. you know, I say we're hygienist-less. We do have one of our old hygienists that does come in and do our scaling and root planing for us. And we set her up every couple of weeks and with a full schedule and she's fantastic. And she comes in and takes care of us with that. But we do all the paramedinance and all the pro fees. you know, it took a little time to kind of get into that groove because we were trying to figure out, we do it all? all hygiene in one day and all restorative in another day or do we mix and match it? And we decided and figured out that it was more efficient and profitable to kind of break it up and do it day by day. we got one day or I guess we work four days a week. So in a two week span, we got eight work days and we'll do several days of just hygiene and several days of restorative. Stephanie (13:22.5) Three. Mike Walton (13:24.859) and we kind of alterna…
Full show notes at the publisherArtificial intelligence is steadily growing as a presence in our personal and professional lives. In this episode, Tiff and Dana talk about how AI can be used effectively in practices, game-changing technology in recent years, and the never-out-of-style human interaction among it all. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript The Dental A Team (00:01.681) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. I am so excited. We are second month of a new year, and that means you should be tracking your goals. If you're a Dental A Team client, you have this amazing new scorecard that we've introduced that my personal clients have freaking loved. And being able to see where those goals are so quickly in the month and being able to track along and see what we need to do to pivot or change or continue growth has been really cool. So welcome to new month, new year. knew you. Dana, thank you so much for being here with me. I know you have a ton of clients that have been onboarded with that scorecard and doing super well as well. How is this new year treating you? This 2025, how's it going, Dana? Dana (00:46.03) Oh, it's going pretty well. Happy New Year to you and everyone listening. Yeah, I'm super excited about the scorecard. Clients seem to really like it and I think it'll just be a game changer for 2025 to keep everybody just intentional and focused on the things to move forward. So I'm really looking forward to 2025. The Dental A Team (01:04.136) Yeah, me too. Me too. I have a client that I talked to actually this morning that was like, well, we needed to make some adjustments to the scorecard to fit their practice, which is why we say that we're customizable because anything that we do, it's got to be custom fit to that practice. So we had made some adjustments in there and then. I was like, you know, you guys, know that you're tracking everything. Like this office manager is meticulously tracking everything in the practice. So I said, this is like an overview. Like my meticulous tracker is like an overview for you guys. So make it your own. Let's figure it out. But I told her there's so many practices out there that don't know what to track or how to track it or how to see the trends within the numbers. And her mind was just blown. She's the wife, they've owned the dental practice for years and years and years and years. They've been in dentistry forever. So she's learned all of that along the way, but she was just mind blown at how some people just don't know. And I didn't know when I first started managing, I was like, what do all these numbers mean? And we all have to learn somewhere. So it's just been really cool to watch everyone continue that growth in the new year and really, like you said, track along with those goals and see. what can be done to manipulate and change the results to create something magical. Whatever it is that you want, can change those tracking metrics and change those results to create something really cool. Within that conversation, I'm excited about today, because today, Dana, we just prepped for this. And I think your track that you're thinking for this conversation today is so beautiful. We talk a lot about new dental tech is what I'll air quote it as. kind of like new things on the scene. And it's really easy to talk about scanners and lasers and all of those CBCTs and all the different things in the practice that we can implement kind of in the clinical aspect. I really love what you are talking about now with all the other pieces. There's so much AI coming into play. And that's what you had mentioned Dana. And I really want to chat about that because it's so cool. The Dental A Team (03:06.342) I know I chat GPT, especially on my personal side. like, I create and think of so much stuff, you know, for Dental A Team, I'm sure you do the same, you create so much for us and our content. I know on my personal side, I'm like, Ben, chat GPT, tell me what to do. that, like, AI has really come into play strong, I would say in the last year. And this year, even a month and a half or whatever into the year feels like Like it's a do or die. Like you're using AI. There's just no two ways about it. So how have you seen in your practices currently, the AI bots come into play and all those pieces aside from chat GPT that can help with the patient response. But how have you seen those AI tools really be being implemented? And then I want to think about how do we see like the future, what that's going to look like as well. Dana (03:58.528) Yeah, I think it's actually pretty incredible some of the new like dental AI stuff that's coming out essentially now you can use AI to be almost like a receptionist or a part of especially your front office team. Lots of dental tech companies coming out with They can, you know, the chat bot or the AI bot can take care of missed calls or after hours calls. So now patients can have communication with you 24 hours a day, not just when your office is open. Being able to log into your system and actually schedule the patient without you there. The Dental A Team (04:35.067) Mm-hmm. Dana (04:38.23) and doing it really actually pretty well. And then sending, you know, a lot of the AI, the reception, it's like, then they send you, you know, an overview of the call so that you know exactly what was said, you can add in any notes that you want. So it truly can be as if they called while somebody was in the practice. And so AI is really coming in strong this year, especially in the dental world. And I'm excited, you know, I know a lot of offices in my calls, it's like they struggle with call volume, and they struggle with The Dental A Team (05:06.285) That's nice. Dana (05:08.685) getting their team members to be able to handle the volume of calls that are coming in and still get their tasks done. So when you have something that can easily handle that overflow and keep you going and keep you moving forward and you can still have a pulse on it, I think it's actually really cool. The Dental A Team (05:14.163) Yeah. The Dental A Team (05:23.313) I agree, and it makes me think of vacation time too, because there's so many practices that don't have 20 team members that if people are taking vacation or if doctor wants to take vacation, there's not two associates to take over the schedule. And so it's like the practice is closing down. But one of the biggest fears I think a lot of practice owners have is shutting down the practice means there could be a week or how many other days of patient calls and patient interactions that are missed. Sometimes we don't have the staff to be like, hey, sometimes they want to take vacation with you, know, or the same time as you. So that's what it made me think of too, is, well, grab a bot for, you know, that we have somebody maybe checking in on it and looking at it. Obviously, we don't fully trust it yet. They haven't taken over the world just yet. But having somebody monitor it, but for vacations, things like that, you said the after hours kind of extends into that. Or Fridays, a lot of doctors, and it's a lot of new patient opportunities on Fridays because... dentistry. You know, we love being off on Fridays as often as we can as well. But a lot of companies are actually off on Fridays or have flex Fridays. And so sometimes I think for the just humans in general for the population, Fridays are kind of a catch up day where we're making appointments, we're calling in, we're asking questions and we're getting appointments done. And so we miss a lot of opportunities there. And the dreaded Monday fell apart. Dana (06:44.91) Mm-hmm. The Dental A Team (06:45.046) So, you know, it might still fall apart. You might still get those calls, but at least it's not walking into 30 voicemails on Monday morning and then being like, oh my gosh, everything we talked about in huddle is just completely destroyed because everybody fell off the schedule or whatever. So I love that. I love that. Have you seen to I know there's a lot of third party companies, Modento and Dental Intel and Diversion, all those companies. Have you seen to I haven't like looked into it. So I'm asking. For reals, if they're using any of those tools yet within their stuff, think Modento had some stuff like on the wire. I'm not sure, but, any opportunities or anything for like confirmations, right? Cause I know, I guess like Modento has done voicemail jobs. So it's like, we're already partially there with like voicemail jobs and the automated, voicemails or phone calls for re-care and things like that. So how do you think that'll affect having the AI bot I feel like is so much more. customizable and you can like give it rules. can give it lingo and verbiage and just kind of different things. So how do you see that transitioning for companies like that too? Dana (07:55.734) Yeah, I can't say that I've seen any of the companies integrate it yet. I do think it's coming, but I do think some of the newer companies that are doing AI really well and are coming out, they are offering those things like confirmation calls, like re care calls. You can get your basically AI receptionist to do those things for you. And truly, I think because it is customizable, it also does feel more as if it is a human versus those automated text messages that as much as we try to make them warm and The Dental A Team (08:19.937) Yeah. Yeah. Dana (08:25.592) friendly and specific and just from our office, right? AI, think is a little bit of a step above that. The Dental A Team (08:33.717) Yeah, I agree. I agree. think it's caveat, I know I said chat GPT and I know a lot of people love verbiage. think Dana and I get a lot of, and the other, other consultants as well. But I know Dana and I for sure get up so many text messages or emails of like, how do I say this? I want to say this to my team or I want to tell my doctor this. How do I, how do I do this? Give me words. I have a couple of practices that just call it like tiffisms and like what would tiff say? And I'm like, holy cow. which I love and I love verbiage and I love communication. like, warning, I guess, or a reminder, if you are going to chat GPT or whatever AI, any of that stuff, just make sure that you guys are still looking at it and personalizing it, especially if it's you throw some, I've seen a lot of people throw things into a program like chat GPT. that spits out like a patient response. And sometimes it is robotic, because it is a robot. It's not a human on the other side. They did as good as they could so far with it, and they do really great job. But sometimes those things can still come off, like you said, Dana, a little cold or harsh. And so I just stress the importance of taking it, making it your own. I say the same thing about my verbiage when I give it to people. This is a template. I love giving templates, and I want you to make it your own, because it should sound like you. It shouldn't sound like... a robot a shouldn't sound like a script, it should sound like you still. So no matter how you're getting those verbiage tips and tools or what you're choosing to do with it, just make sure there's a human interaction side of it, and you're bringing that humanization back to it. That's my warning, my caveat there, because I do use it occasionally, or sometimes my brain's just dead at the end of the day, and I'm like, my gosh, how do I make this recipe? Gosh, I'm... ChatGPT is becoming a best friend in my personal life, feel like. But aside from the AI stuff, or you're in transition with the AI stuff, I think that pulls into that teledentistry side as well. Because I know a lot of practices that are still doing a lot of teledentistry. Obviously, it was huge during quote unquote COVID times. But I think it spurred something for us in the availability to create more opportunities for our patients. So a lot of practices are doing the cosmetic The Dental A Team (10:50.787) consults virtually. And it's really cool smile designs, smile makeover, all of these different variations of a teledentistry appointment. And I'm thinking with that kind of AI kind of smashing those two together, because that's an easy opportunity to allow an AI bot or someone to schedule those appointments and have someone who's like over the cosmetic consults when you don't have the opportunity or availability in the practice. So teledentistry is still really, really a fantastic idea, I think, and something that we don't consider tech in our brains, but it kind of is. And it's kind of cool to be able to say, let's take a half day Thursday and take three hours in the afternoon and bust out three cosmetic consults or more. And I've seen a lot of success with that. Dana, have you seen that as well? You still have a lot of clients who are using teledentistry or considering it. Dana (11:45.036) Yeah, they do definitely do for different types of consultations and even I have one office that will do teledentistry to like pre-screen for limited right to see if this is something I just need to refer out or do we need to see you in the office? So they'll use it for that to end some PEDS offices using it for like surgery or sedation consulting and I have one office that's even trying to do some just case presentations or treatment. The Dental A Team (12:14.493) yeah. Dana (12:14.786) presentations if the patient left the office, right, and they can't come in, just doing that too. So I think using the technology at your fingertips that make it that it's convenient for the patient, that it's easy for you, I think take advantage of it where you can within your practice. The Dental A Team (12:31.234) Yeah, that's a great idea doing the consults because a lot of practices will have those monster treatment plans. So it's like, okay, let's have you back in for a consult. And we know that's difficult to get patients to come back in, especially if we're not accomplishing something, right? They're not getting treatment that day. So I always tell clients who are doing that style of treatment planning, it's totally fine. And I love it. But just make sure maybe we do fillings with that. treatment console, but I think that's a great idea to doing it by zoom or Google meet or any of those platforms really are a lot of them have free up to while Google meet is free, right for however long you want it, but even zoom has up to I think 35 or 40 minutes of free information that you don't have to pay for. So that's a really great idea because then it just locks it in and I think we've all become accustomed to this being like being in person, you know, I think virtual. has become the norm. It's almost weird to constantly be in person with people. Again, thank you, 2020. And I think it's worked out well for the dental industry. So that's a great idea to be able to do those bigger consults. And I too have some pediatric practices, even the moms who are moms and something happens and we're like, I got to get my kid in. Like right now you got to look at this. And a lot of my pediatric practices will. do the same thing where they'll take a picture, send it in, or let's hop on a Zoom call or Google Meet, and they'll kind of tell the parent how to angle the camera or what have you to show whatever it is. I mean, I remember one time I brought Brody all the way in and I was working in office an…
Full show notes at the publisherDo you ever feel like there's too much happening in dentistry to keep your head on straight? Kiera talks about 4 ways you can stay up to date without being overwhelmed: Listen to podcasts Attend conferences Join a consulting group Find what you're passionate about Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00.554) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and welcome to the podcast. I hope today is just a magical day for you. I hope that you're having just a great time and I hope that you just remember that we're in the greatest space possible. We get to be in dentistry. We get to help people. We get to literally help people have greater smiles and greater happiness in life. And I think that that is one of the most incredible things that we get to be a part of. So thank you for being a part of our family. Thank you for being on the podcast with us. Thank you for listening in, get ready. We're gonna actually start to have a lot of you join us on the podcast. I have a new idea that's ready to trickle out and I hope you are excited for it. I wanna get to know more of you. I want to hear from more of you. So get ready, it's coming for you. Today is going to be kind of a funny topic. I thought it was funny. I have our team, they're super kind, our marketing team, shout out to them. They actually go and they read Facebook groups and they read. different areas, they read a lot of dental information and they're constantly watching things and they listen for what you guys are emailing in on, which you could always email me a podcast topic. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. I love to hear from you. love pen pals. and so our team, they go out and they scope and I read this one and I said, I don't want to podcast on that. and then I read through, they have a nice list for me of about seven pages of topics for me, which is super nice. And this topic was on there like, It was here. And then I looked on the list and it was here again. And I thought, okay, fine. I will talk about a topic. And I hope that this is helpful for you. And the question is like how to stay updated on all the new dental technology and how to keep my team educated and up to date with the latest techniques and technology. And to me, this feels like a no brainer, but I realized this is obviously a question that you guys have. So let's answer it. All right. So welcome to the Dental A Team Podcast. I'm going to teach you how to do this, how we do it, how we help other offices do it. And again, something that I thought was so just everyday knowledge isn't. So here we go. That's why we had the podcast. That's why we share. And if you love our podcast, please do me a solid favor, go like, review and share with somebody today. Okay, so ways that we were able to do this. Number one, you're doing a great job. You're listening to a podcast. So high five there. I try really hard to bring people to the industry that I've met, that I talk to, but it is tricky. And it's like, how do we know that these people are the best? So find somebody who's a trusted source. Kiera Dent (02:19.774) within the industry that you can trust. I have prided myself for years that I started Dental A Team because of Midwestern students. Shout out to all my Midwestern students out there. I noticed that in dental school, they were gonna get freaking eaten alive coming out into the world of dentistry. And it's like, how do you trust different reps? Because people are so good at selling you on the latest technology and the latest this and the latest that, that it's kind of scary. And so that was something that I wanted to do is to be a resource, to be a beacon, to help you know, these are people I've vetted. Just so you know, any sponsor I bring on, they have to work with us. They have to do different pieces. They have to let me beta test on them of other practices before I will even introduce them. So I have quite a few people in the back burner at all times that I'm testing, that I'm vetting, that I wanna make sure that they're getting results before I bring them onto the podcast. I got burned a little bit early on. And also if you listen to past podcasts, that company might not stay the top of the list. I'm constantly looking for it and I tell offices like you might not get to be or sponsors. I will always be looking and if someone comes in better than you, they will get promoted from me. So I think that that's one zone. Like I've told Zeke at Swell, if anybody comes onto the market that's better doing Google reviews than him, I will definitely promote them. As of today, Zeke is still the number one way that I get Google reviews for clients. They tell me all the time, Kiera, but we have it in this software, this software. I say, guess what? Zeke does it for, think like 149 or 199 a month. And I have offices who I literally beta tested on who got over 50 reviews in one month from using Swell. They have grown their practice from having like three new patients a month, I'm not joking, to having over 45 new patients a month by using Swell. People ask, how did you do it, Kiera? And I'm like, honestly, it was Google reviews and time. That's it. And so for that, I will promote them. And so when you're curious about how do we find this up to date of new technologies, I think listening to podcasts and listening to trusted sources out there, like AI and different pieces, I also think going to conferences. So the way I actually meet a ton of our sponsors and speakers and different people are through conferences. I go to these conventions and I go meet people and then I go test their products and then I work with them and I figure out and I have a lot of our clients are beta testers for me and they'll try them out and I get free trials for them. Kiera Dent (04:35.566) but going to your conferences in your areas, not only is great for a CE, but go meet people. And I know it can be annoying to be sold all the time, but it can be helpful. And so for example, like right now, the greatest AI on the market is between Overjet and Pearl. Those are the top two for adding AI onto your X-rays to help you co-diagnose, to helping you with that. They're the best on the market. I love Pearl. That's the one we've selected to go with. We have an affiliate relationship with them where I get the most preferred pricing for all of our clients. So if you're interested in that, be sure to reach out. We can help you connect with them and get that discounted rate. But this is how we do it. Also, I think online, like watching reels as silly as that sounds, but there's a lot on Instagram and TikTok and things like that. But then questioning it as well of is this really real and what really is needed for my practice? So right now AI is hot. So let's be looking at AI and what things could we implement into our practice. And it's one of those things I don't like to be the earliest adopter, but I also don't want to be the person who never adopted and I actually got left behind. So when we're looking for this new technology, we're looking for these new things, attending those pieces, watching it, and then doing our own individual research. Like you can email me anytime, hey Kiera, have you heard about this company? I love it when people do that. Cause one, you expose me to other companies and two, I'm able to then go research them, vet them, and then bring it to the podcast and share. Because my goal is within our community, within consulting, I love it. We bring our offices together. And this is actually how I also learn about a lot of things. And that would be my third point of like, join a consulting group. I know I'm a consultant, so hopefully you want to choose the Dental A Team, but join a consulting group that brings people together, that shares. We bring our doctors together every single month, and then we meet in person actually twice a year. And it's because I want you to mastermind and I want you to talk to each other, and I want you to figure out what are the best ideas, what are the best resources, who are you using for this, who are you using for that? Because just hearing and talking with other people, it's like, my gosh, I didn't even know that. In our company, we call it Tip Tuesday. And every Tuesday, our team member brings pieces to the tables. Like today, Shelby brought like a window cleaner. And it seems so silly, but I think back to community, right? Think back to back in the day when we didn't have technology and we weren't all connected virtually, we were connected in person. And when you're in person, you chat. And when you chat, you share your secrets and you share the best things that work for you. And so like Shelby sharing a glass cleaner that's $2.89 on Amazon, life-changing. Kiera Dent (06:59.234) But without community and without chatting, that's something that I would have just gone on my merry way continuing to buy Windex that is the strongest being promoted product out there. And it sounds so silly, but it's tips like that. What are the little things you're doing in your practice? What are the elite practices doing? What are other offices doing? And let's all share. And it's not just the elite practices. It's a lot of startups. Startups are scrappy. They've got other resources. But like I talked to my gym trainer and we used to virtually coach. And then I went in person with her. And instantly I'm connected to people for the podcast and people for social media and different people for whatever it is because I'm with her. And so getting together with a consulting group that meets in person or meets virtually that shares ideas, our community goes wild and it's incredible to see them all sharing, hey, what cosmetic group do you want to go to? Or, hey, what's a great resource for this? Or what's a great thing for that? But being a part of a group of community of trusted colleagues, I also think is a great way to stay on top of it. Now, how do we get our team educated on it? I think that there's other ways like you can take them to courses. So look to see, I usually try to do things within our team that I want to learn. So let's say we wanna learn marketing. We're gonna take our team to marketing events. We're going to find coaches for marketing. We're gonna find events around it. If you wanna do cosmetic, let's do cosmetic. Let's bring it to the office. Again, that's why I love consulting is because we literally fly to the office and we show you guys what you can implement within your practice that can help with it. So finding those things, but... Also on your leadership team, get them fired up. Hygenist will go and look for research and information and see E that's going to make them so excited and so fun that they're excited about with laser and PRF and PRP and what can we do for snoring and different pieces like that. But find what you're passionate about. And that's also another way, because I think sometimes we get so inundated with technology that we miss what we're actually passionate about. And so really helping you realize this can be fun. You don't have to be. over the top and like, my gosh, I'm missing out on all of this. I would say in a simple form of number one, plan to go to at least one dental convention every single year. I don't care what it is. I don't care where you go. I don't care if wanna travel out of state, but that's gonna be your best way to bring those people in because those conferences are constantly looking for sponsors and people and a lot of the newer companies, a lot of the OG companies. Kiera Dent (09:13.528) they tend to attend these conferences. If you're not in a big area where maybe a lot of people won't come to it, go to some of the bigger ones like RMDC in Colorado, Chicago Midwinter, Dicama. Some of these are really big ones that will bring more people in for you. And you don't have to even go for the CE. Just go walk the vendor halls, go see who this is there, and then go do some research on it. Next would be, would say, listen to podcasts and attend free webinars. Our company puts on the third Thursday of every single month, we do a free CE webinar. And I do that intentionally to bring great people to the audience, to share with you other people that are out there, to get all these different pieces of technology and sponsors and vendors and different things that will make your office easier, attend those. So I would pick once a year, go to a conference every month, find some sort of CE, whether it's a book, whether it's a webinar or something that's going to get you educated. And then the third thing I would say is to join a group, a consulting group, because honestly, that's where it's the networking, it's the community, it's sharing. that you're going to learn all these different pieces. It's too hard to do it on your own. And so find someone. And of course, I would love Dental A Team to be your preferred consultant. I'd love us to help take you to the next level. I'd love to expose you and your team. We have virtual, we have in-person and we have in-person events and we have in-office visits as well where we come to your practice and we also meet together as a community, as a collective group. We do it on Friday and Saturday. It's really fun. It's really exciting. And it's a really great time to just connect to to share and I think that you doing those items, you will stay up to date. There's no way you can't stay up to date as long as the consultant is innovative. And of course, I'm going to like toot my own horn. We're one of the youngest consulting companies out there. I'm nervous for us to become an older one, but I've tried really hard to keep myself young. Being a millennial, I'm very tech savvy. I'm very aggressive on research and knowledge and innovating and implementing ideas because I know that if we don't, be dated very quickly. And so, also finding someone who is maybe a little bit younger on that. Like I look for social people that are in their twenties because they're going to innovate even better than I will. And so those would be some of my suggestions of how you can stay up to date, how you can stay current, how you can make sure that you're gathering all these research, these resources, and then realize I'm not going to catch them all, but I'm going to focus on the ones that turn my practice to ease efficiency in the areas I want. And that's what I'm going to do. And I guarantee you, if you do that, you will be so happy. So Kiera Dent (11:36.386) Hopefully those gave you some ideas. Like I said, this was a topic that I thought everybody already knew, but in digging into it, I realized this can feel daunting and it can feel like I'm always behind, but I think breaking it down to your annual, your monthly, and then also joining a group. Again, like I said, I'd love you to be a part of it. I think those three things will keep you current and will keep your team current as well. And as always, if we can help you reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com You guys are incredible. We're doing an incredible work. There's amazing things coming into dentistry. And I would say do not get left behind. but stay current. And then I guess my fourth final tip for you would be commit to implementing at least one item of new technology every single year. And I…
Full show notes at the publisherDid you know you're losing $600,000 to $1 million by having open time in your schedule? Kiera talks about what is likely impacting your schedule and how to fix it (without working overtime). Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Join Dental A-Team Consulting Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00.974) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today is just a great day and I hope you're having a great day. I hope that you remember you are changing people's lives through dentistry. Like what you're doing, know billing, hygiene, hygiene checks, dentistry, doing the exams, doing the numbers, looking at the profitability, running the business doesn't feel like you're changing lives, but you are. You're giving people the confidence of their smiles and their healthy mouths. You're helping them have long-term systemic health. You're saving them from period disease. You're helping them have like preventing the risk of cardiovascular disease. You are doing such a great service in this world and you're also helping more people smile more confidently, changing their lives exponentially. And just remember you're doing so much good. So let's keep it up. And I'm here to give you all the tactical practical tips, infusing your world with positivity and changing this world in the greatest way possible. If you love the podcast, leave us a review, share it with a friend, do something of goodness today. You guys just stay here and listen on your own. Share with someone, send it to a doctor, send it to a team member, send it to a colleague, whomever it is, put it in a Facebook group, tag me. I'd love to see a picture of you where you're at. Tag us. It makes me so happy to get to know you instead of just talking to you. So share, I'd love to hear from you. And thank you for being a part of our family. Make sure that you guys are sharing though. keeps us at the top of the list. And my goal is to bring you massive value that you naturally want to be sharing. And so today my massive value is... how to give you back like 600 to a million dollars to your practice. You on board with that? Does that sound dreamy enough for you to share with someone to listen in to take some notes? I hope so because Tiff and I were actually talking the other day and she was like, Kiera, it's so interesting. I talked to practices and like, I'm not hitting my numbers. I can't afford these things. I can't do this. And the answer is that's true. But there's a simple, simple, simple solution. And then we're going to, I'll give you two. That's actually helping you. miss this money and it's so simple and yet we look at over all the time and it's your schedule being open. I know, I know. I took you to the top and brought you down to the bottom. What, Kiera, you want to tell me that? Yes, your schedule being open because if we take your hourly production and your hygiene's hourly production and we go and look at your open time in your schedule, if you just filled your schedule, it's like we calculated it. It's 600 to a million dollars in most practices by just having open time in their schedule. Kiera Dent (02:24.216) which then you're like, well, I can't afford these things. can't do it. Well, yeah, because your schedule's open. And so I want to give you some tips. Like I said, it seems kind of like, gosh, OK, we're going to do this. We are going to do this because 600 to a million just with an open schedule. So what impacts our schedule being open? Cancellations, not closing treatment, not getting patients to schedule, not reappointing our patients, not having a cancellation policy within our practice. Those things create open schedules. And then also I'm going to lovingly and directly say not having our team focused and obsessed on filling the schedule. Offices who are obsessed with filling the schedule, meaning we have it to 90 to 95 % to goal every single day are the offices that are freaking killing it. The other offices are like, we tried our best. See you later. It's five. No. As a front office team member, the expectation and the agreement we made was I was not allowed to leave for the day. unless my schedule for the next day was full. Now people tell me, Kiera, we fill our schedule, it's full at the end of the day and I come in in the morning and I have voicemails canceling my whole day out. Well, phenomenal, you don't have a cancellation policy. Number one, don't let them leave a voicemail to cancel. It's way too easy to break up with someone on a voicemail. So let's eliminate that. On your voicemail, can say, thank you for calling, if you have an emergency here, this is. Also, we do require. Kiera Dent (03:56.866) Also, we do require a 48 hour notice for any appointment changes and we do not accept those via voicemail. Give us a call back during normal business hours to move your appointment or reappoint your appointment. That was really, really clunky. Call back during business hours to reappoint or reschedule your dental appointment. Also, text messages, I do not accept them via text message. I tell them, hey, thank you for reaching out. We can't take any appointment changes via text. Give me a quick call and I'll help you get this taken care of. Amazing. They text you. So we don't have to worry about that. My dermatologist literally has no voicemail. I kid you not, there is no way for me to leave them a voicemail after hours for cancellation. They don't have it and they have a policy that if we don't have a 48 hour notice that we have a credit card on file and it's a hundred dollar fee, you can choose whatever you want. I'm not here to advocate that you should charge fees. I'm not here to say you should have a credit card on file, but I am saying you need to have a policy that your whole team is behind. I'm very big on you are a specialist, you are a doctor's office and patients should value your time. So whether we're having them leave you on, they put a deposit down, there's a credit card on file, but every specialist, I'm talking IVF, dermatologists, doctors, like everybody in healthcare has a credit card on file. And if you choose not to show for that appointment and you don't give them a 48 hour notice, there is a deposit that's non-refundable that they do take. Now you don't have to do that, but you do have to have a policy. Some offices, if you choose to cancel or reschedule your appointment, I never use the word cancel, they just reschedule because I have no one who cancels on me. They reschedule their appointment. If they choose not to do it within 48 hours, that's okay. We push them out six weeks or 12 weeks, whatever it is, and then we move them forward after they've waited for about four weeks. If they continue to do it, so it's a three strike policy for me, if they choose to continue to do that, then they actually get put on what's called our walk-in. list like, Hey, care, it sounds like you're super, super busy. We're actually not going to reschedule this appointment for you. just give me a call and you'll be on a same day walk in, that we'll be able to get you in if we have availability that day. but either way, there's a set policy and we're going to start to train our patients. So our patients stop canceling off of our schedules because remember 600 to a million, just by having open schedules is something we need to stop. And so looking at this, you can also have them sign that they understand that these things are happening, but really Kiera Dent (06:18.958) getting super clear on what our cancellation policy is, having everybody follow through on it and making sure, and you're not being a jerk. You're just saying like, these are the rules of our game. We want you to play the game with us. These are the rules. Do we agree that we're both going to play by them? Absolutely. Yes. Phenomenal. Come to our practice. We're going to be on time for you. We're going to get you back and we're going to make sure that we see you and we have the adequate time for you. That's how we play the rules of the game. So number one, keeping our schedules full. We don't take those cancellations. We make sure that at the end of the day, our schedules are always filled, filled up to goal. We call, you guys, I used to call all the time and I got so good when patients called to cancel and I'm like, my gosh, Mrs. Jones, tell me what's going on. like, I hope you're doing okay. Tell me what's going on. And I find out what her problem is and then I find the solution. Mrs. Jones, doctor was so excited to see you today. I understand you have a work meeting. Like thank you for letting me know. We do require a 48 hour notice for any appointment changes. Let's see, I could actually like if we could get you in and out by two o'clock today, does that work for you? Yep, that works great. Amazing. Mrs. Jones is in my schedule. I just move her time. We move along. There's so many ways that we can keep patients on the schedule. We can let them know like, hey, like I have people that like I can't make it send an Uber. If they're a big case, send an Uber to the patient. But you've got to have some solutions for them to where patients are staying on our schedule. And I feel like this is where if you own and your friend office owns that the schedule will be full and that's what their agreement with you is. Excellent. Hold them to that level. And people are like, but Kiera, patients are canceling for sure. Let's count for a 10 % cancellation. Like that's normal, but guess what? We've still got to keep 90 % of it full. We still have to go through that open time. Hygienist not hitting their goals. does it do to open time? Anytime we have open time on the schedule or if we like finish with a patient on time or like, let's say it's an hour and we finish at 45 minutes. For every 15 minute increments, let's have people make five phone calls. So we've got outbound calls going all the time to make sure our schedule is always getting full with people coming in. This is how we keep our schedules full. This is how we own it. This is how. And then the next thing is doctors needs to be diagnosing. I shouldn't share our secrets. We have a question for consultants interviewing for our company, and I'm always looking to see if they can catch it. It's the hardest one for them to catch. It's the schedule is so busy, but we're not hitting goal. Kiera Dent (08:42.052) Well, usually that's because doctors not diagnosing enough. So let's check at that. And doctors, this is not me saying you're doing anything wrong. But what I am going to say is, we being comprehensive and are we diagnosing comprehensively for that patient? Are we doing quad dentistry or are we like watching a lot of things because we don't want to have the conversations of treatments needed? That's a question you get to answer. I'm not your dentist. I'm not a doctor. You get to tell me that. I'm just here to ask you the question. So when we look at that, if we're not able to hit goal and we don't have these schedules filled, Is it because we're not presenting enough treatment? Is it because we're not closing enough treatment? And are we not calibrated between hygiene for an office and doctors to make sure that all of us are actually on the same page with each other and that we're closing all these cases? Are we reviewing our cases together? Are we looking to see what's going on with these cases? Are we looking to find out why is it not closing? We presented it this way. Are we recording ourselves and listening to them back to find out what are we saying that's not having these cases closed? Because patients are the dentist. They want dentistry. And I want you to remember that. There's an office that I coach in there. team is incredible. We have added so much to their practice and helped so many more patients. And one of their treatment coordinators, says, she's like, Kiera, when people come to the dentist, they want to do dentistry. So they want to do dentistry. My job is to make sure that they get the dentistry done. Like they're here. And I was like, that is the most beautiful way to think about this because you're right. They're at the dentist. They're here. They're giving up their time to be here. Let's make sure that we're giving them the information that they need. We're helping them. We're guiding them. And we're actually helping them have good, clean, healthy mouths. That's what we're here for. And so for you guys looking to see these are easy ways for us to actually add money to our schedule. We can afford things, but money is being lost because the team's not unified. So if all of us know no one gets to leave, it's not just the front office. No one leaves until our schedule is full. Well, hygienist, reappoint. You should be at 98 % reappointment. Let's not ask like, Hey, Kiera, do you want to schedule back? It's Kiera, we're going to schedule your six months. I've got you on May 5th at 8 a.m. same time as now. Can't wait to see you in May and then I'm gonna walk you up to the front if May 5th doesn't work for me I'm going to let you know we always remind them like we do require 48-hour notice for any appointment changes 48 hours and then I also really big on unconfirmed appointments because the schedule can look totally full But if they're not confirmed, they're probably not gonna show and so what's our policy for that? I do have some offices where we call the patients and say hey I've got to hear from you today If not, I am going to need to reschedule your appointment. They scooch off the appointment Kiera Dent (11:07.914) we fill it with someone who's guaranteed to come. If that patient comes, I get to have the fun conversation with them. Notice it's fun. Hey, awesome. Again, these are the rules of our game. We called you, we told you we needed to hear from you. And because we didn't hear from you, we did pull you off the schedule. If I have time that day, I'm going to scoot them in. I'm not going to do the whole thing. If I don't, I'm going to say like, I am going to reschedule you. Let's get you back at this time. I do need you to confirm your appointments because we have, we have so many patients that we want to see that every patient does need to confirm their appointment. Great. They know the rules of the game. You can even tell your patients new year, new start. This is what we require. So patients do need to give a confirmation. Otherwise we will be moving you off the schedule. It's totally fine. But these little areas and people are like, gosh, Keira, is it really worth it? To me, 600 to a million is definitely worth it. I'm not working any extra days. I'm not working any extra hours. I'm literally working the exact same time. I'm just making sure my schedule is full every day. If you wanted to change one thing in 2025, Keep your schedule full and have the entire team unified on this. I guarantee you, you will see results. Guaranteed. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Guaranteed. You can have it there. But it's a whole team effort. And I promise you, goals will be hit easier. Your team will do better. You'll serve more patients, and you will work less. People are like, Kiera, how do you c…
Full show notes at the publisherKiera gives insight into how CEOs and office managers (or dreamers and task-drivers) can effectively work together to run the ideal dental practice — without stepping on each other's toes. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Join Dental A-Team Consulting Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:01.646) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today I am so excited to be on the podcast. I'm excited to be podcasting with you. I hope that your new year is rocking and rolling and I hope that you are just enjoying your time working in dental practices because remember, we are so blessed and so lucky to be working in an industry that literally changes lives. I believe that dentistry is the best possible industry for us to be a part of and you get to make people's literal smiles come true. So as always, Thank you for being a part of our Dental A Team family. Please be sure that you are always leaving us review, sharing us with other people. That is how you keep us as the top dental podcast out there. And I just want to say for every one of you that has done it, truly thank you. Thank you for sharing this podcast with others. Thank you for being on our journey. And for those of you that are new, welcome. I want you guys to remember we are getting up there on our numbers of podcasts. So we are in the 900s, almost breaking about a thousand episodes. I cannot believe I have made that many episodes. That's a lot of episodes. And sometimes it might feel daunting or you might forget that this is a resource in your back pocket. So always head on over to TheDentalATeam.com click on our podcast page and you are able to then go search every episode. So if you have like, wanna know information about cancellations or I wanna know about partnerships or I wanna know about buy-ins or I Kiera talked about Pearl AI, but I can't remember where that was at. go search our podcast in any episode that I have ever recorded for you of all those thousands of episodes, because there'll be more coming, you will literally be able to go find any one of them. So just be sure put that in your resource pocket. A lot of people want to know like, how do get our hygiene? How do we do perio? How do we do fluoride? How do we run effective meetings? How do we run quarterly meetings? Any of those things literally, I want you to think about this as your Google or your AI for you. It's all there. There's a ton of it. have verbiage for you. I have information for you. So be sure that you're always using those as resources for you because I believe in working smarter, not harder. And I'm always here committed to sharing the top tips and tricks for you. So today I just wanted to dive into a really fun topic that I think is great for you guys. I think it's something that I get asked a lot. It's something that I'm excited about and really helping you understand kind of what a CEO visionary Kiera Dent (02:14.816) and an office manager, implementer or integrator role should look like and how you can have this in your practice. Because as I'm watching offices and as I'm coaching practices, I'm noticing that dentists, when they start to move into this CEO role, they actually don't know what the heck they're supposed to do. It feels very weird. It feels very awkward. It feels like I don't even know what I'm supposed to be doing. And so giving you guys some tips of what does this relationship even look like? So. There's a great book. guys know I'm a huge faction, a huge fan of traction. Merged those together and had faction come out. Huge fan of traction by Gina Wickman. We help a lot of offices, Dental A Team's version of traction where we actually help you build leadership teams. We help you get quarterly goals in place. We help you with accountability, tracking data, scorecards, write people, write seats. So if that's something you're interested, be sure to reach out. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com Super, super, super fun and very effective. We have a lot of offices that we've worked with for years on this and being dental experts, we're able to help solve a lot of the problems that come up. Whereas some of the other implementers or integrators, they really can't help with that. So it's a really fun niche that we're a part of that I absolutely love. So if you're interested in that, how do I set up these leadership teams or quarterlies, be sure to reach out. I'd love to help you. But in doing that, Gina Wickman wrote another book called Rocket Fuel. And Rocket Fuel, I think is a really lovely book that kind of splits apart this visionary role. and this integrator role. And not all CEO doctors are visionaries and not all office managers are integrators. And so really figuring out and dialing in, what does this relationship look like? Like what should a CEO do? What should a doctor do? What should an office manager do? I think this dynamic can actually get really tricky and it can get really hard for people. And you might not know exactly what does this look like and how can we maximize it? And so I just kind of wanted to come on and paint a picture. Now, again, this is a picture that's painted. But it's a, I would say it's made with markers that you can erase or it's one of those like, remember the Etch-A-Sketch that you're able to use like with the sand and you'd like etch it out and then could like shake it up and erase it. That's what I think that this picture and this dynamic should look like for you where it's not perfect. It's not something that you have to do, but this is gonna kind of just give a sketch and an outline of like, what does a visionary do? What does an integrator do? And doctors, a lot of times what I'm seeing is, Kiera Dent (04:33.43) you come in and you've been a clinician and then you're like, okay, I've mastered my dream. I've made this a reality. I have taken it to where I no longer have to do clinical all the time. I've hired associates, we've onboarded associates and now what do I do? And what you tend to default into is more of the office manager role, which is fine if you enjoy management, but if you don't, don't slip down into that. And also you might not be the best for this role. You might not be as good at communicating. I learned like know thyself and be free I think is the best thing I could ever tell you. And so what is your role and what do you like love to do and what if I were looking at your energy sucks in life versus the things that light your fire. What we're trying to do is get everybody into those zones of genius. There's some great books out there. There's some good places where you can kind of look to see what are the tasks. Do I enjoy them? Am I good at them? Am I not good at them? I've done some podcasts on that where you can honestly quadrant yourself into like these are tasks that I love doing and I'm good at. These are tasks that I don't enjoy doing, but I'm good at them. These are tasks that I am not good at and don't enjoy doing. And these are tasks that I can train people on. So there's kind of some quadrants. And the goal is first to have like 90 % of our day in the quadrant of these are tasks that I'm good at and that I actually enjoy doing. So if we can get you guys there, phenomenal. That's what we're trying to work on. so helping visionaries see, I think so often as doctors are producers in their these drivers and they've been like with an eight to five schedule moving into what I call more of a creative visionary. It's a very different space. And a little while ago I was on a trip and I realized that the creative mind is so much different than the structured mind. So when I want to create my best ideas, well, if I put it into my calendar, Kiera, you're going to go create at this time. I don't. And I started noticing my marketing team was doing this. They would be their most creative. when they were in the middle of the night. A lot of my marketers would work at two, three, four a.m. They would sleep in and then they'd come and I was like, this is such a weird world. Like I'm used to the dental office and we have patients at seven a.m. and we're done at five p.m. And that's just the life we live. But that's a very structured schedule versus this creative schedule. And doctors and visionaries start to move into more of this creative schedule, which is not an eight to five per se. It is not forcing ideas and creativity to come. Kiera Dent (06:52.48) It is having more space, but I think visionaries oftentimes don't give themselves the space because they're like in this very rigid mindset. And so just kind of, again, like I said, painting this picture with an Etch-A-Sketch where we can shake it off. We can decide which things we want to do, which things we don't want to do, but helping office managers and doctors kind of learn this relationship. So doctors don't accidentally get into the office manager's lane and office managers allow the doctors the freedom and flexibility to become these CEOs and these visionaries. that they want to be. Now, if you are a doctor and you're not a visionary, that's okay. You do not need to be. Some doctors are incredible, incredible, incredible implementers, and they actually hire someone like another doctor or maybe a CEO to come in to be that visionary role. And that's okay. So again, this is an Etch A Sketch. It's not a perfect painted canvas that we can't change in a race and add different lines to it. It's just a picture. But typically speaking, a CEO who's a visionary, their main pieces are vision, growth, sometimes they add numbers in there and culture. And usually if I like box it out, that's going to be the three things that that visionary is responsible for. They usually leave meetings. They don't have, they don't have a lot of to-dos. They don't have a lot of items. They come in, they give the vision, they help build the culture. And that's really what they're supposed to do. and a lot of times people who are in this role, they don't think that that's actually that hard or it's needed or it's like, I remember when I heard like, okay, these are what I'm supposed to do. I was like, that's it? Like, aren't I supposed to do more than that? you know, that's it. I'm just supposed to have the vision and culture and like kind of the numbers. And that's like, no, it's like 20 ideas, big problem solving, relationships, culture. That's like what it is. And... I think sometimes we take for granted that that's a talent. That's something we're built with and not everybody is coming up with 20 ideas on a regular basis. Like if you are someone like myself, we're like the ideas keep coming. Tiffanie Trader, if you know her, you, I'm sure you do. You love her on the podcast. Tiff will say, I told her on her tombstone, I will write the Tiff died being the efficiency queen. And she told me on my tombstone, she will write Kiera. Like I have a great idea. I'm constantly calling my team. I'm like, Shelbi, I got a great idea. Tiff, I've got a great idea. Kiera Dent (09:17.254) I've got this great idea. Hey Eve, I've got this great idea. Jacintha, I've got this great idea. Dana, I've got this great idea. If that's not you, you might not be that visionary CEO role, but that's like what they do. 20 big ideas, creativity problem solving, big relationships and culture. Now for me, I do enjoy numbers. Numbers like light my fire. So I have it on there. That's what I like to do. And then also something else for me that I'm really good at that's a piece in our company is speaking and being a public figure. Now, surprise, surprise, right? I'm on the podcast all the time. I enjoy it. I'm speaking at events. That's what my role is as the visionary. Now the integrator role or usually an office manager and not all office managers are created equal. I used to be an office manager and how good do you think I was at this? The answer was not very good. I was able to morph and shift into it, but a company I really love is Culture Index. If you're not familiar with them, reach out Hello@TheDentalATeam.com I've got some great contacts. I think it's really, really fascinating. their whole model, it's kind of like Disc or Myers or Briggs or Colby. but what they do is they actually have you in culture index look to see who are you in your natural habitat and like things you naturally are good at and then how are you performing in your work position. And the goal is that the top box and the bottom box are pretty similar. So me in my happiest state, I would be actually doing things like I would do them naturally. So for me, I like a lot of autonomy. I love a lot of people. I like things to move fast and I like to be creative and I'll have like details when I need them. That's my perfect world. So me being in an integrator role or an office manager role, that's way more like way less autonomy, more people, I'm good with the people. But then also having to do so many numbers and metrics and checklist and protocols and thoroughness. my gosh, I did not enjoy that. But yeah, I wanted the title of office manager because I felt like that was the only space that I could grow into. And so office managers listening to this as well, know thyself and be free as well. because I actually made a much better treatment coordinator than I did an office manager, but my ego got in the way of that. I think being careful as we etch a sketch this out of our best role, our best space is let's not be putting ourselves into a box that we actually aren't incredible at. So the office manager or integrator role, according to EOS traction version, their job is to lead, manage and hold accountable. Lead, manage, hold accountable. Their profit and loss, the business plan, remove obstacles and barriers, social projects and logic. And I have over here like, Kiera Dent (11:39.48) Projects A to Z, that's the lead managing accountability. They're doing like the one-on-ones, a lot of HR, a lot of like managing the team, it's lead managing accountability, the profit and loss with the numbers. Like I said, I put numbers in me, but that should really fall under the integrator. So they're watching it. They're moving, they're removing the obstacles, barriers. They're working on these projects. So all those different pieces, like when you hear the podcast of like, hey, you should implement a treatment tracker or you should implement an AR protocol or this is a billing protocol. That's all this integrator's job. Like they're literally like these little machines that love to execute and implement projects. They love project management, softwares. They love to have checklists. They love to have Excel spreadsheets. They love to distract this off. They're obsessed with the numbers and that's really what their role is. And so you've got this visionary who's creating a ton of ideas. It's culture that's very extroverted. And then you have this integrator who's usually oftentimes more introverted, but loves to lead, manage and hold accountable, loves to do these different pieces. That's really what we're looking for. And so as you're doing this, Again, it's an Etch A Sketch and not every relationship's the same, but this is a good way for you to map out like, okay, do thes…
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