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This episode is all about dentistry as a relationship-based field—finding your patients' motivations and blending what they want with what their teeth and mouth needs. Tiff and Kristy provide tips on getting to know the human in the chair (even when you're seeing 30 to 50 patients a day), so they truly feel like their needs are being met. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Tiffanie (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are back here with you on our consultant takeover, is what I like to call it. The consultants here at Dental A Team, myself, Tiff, Tiffanie, Tiff, Spiffy Tiffy, whatever you want to call me, and at least one other consultant every single month will come to you with some actionable, implementable words of wisdom and advice, things that we've seen in offices on the road. We do virtual consulting, we do in-person.   Boots on the ground consulting, and we also do masterminds in person. Right now they are located in Phoenix, where all of our Dental A Team doctors and their mass their office managers can come mastermind together. So a lot of the things that we come to you with are from our experience. We are all experienced in the office. We've had hygiene hygiene or dental assisting, and all of us have had front office and at some point or another have managed a practice, andor some of us.   Kiera have owned practices. So we've got a vast wealth of knowledge here within our company. And then again, also we are still experienced as in we are going into offices and we're helping to innovate. So Dental A Team does it differently because we will smash all the knowledge that we're getting, all of the experience that we're getting, and create new exciting things without completely reinventing the wheel. But again, just putting it out there that we're not stale and stagnant. We are.   constantly in offices and our teams constantly talking about the things that we're doing. And today I bring with he with me to you, Miss Kristy. Kristy, you have been in dentistry for a while, same as me. We've both been in it for what feels like forever. And you did some really cool things in office. And one of my favorite things about your experience is not only like the boots on the ground experience that you have, you've been in   so many practices physically in practices as a dental consultant, but you really work on personal development and leadership as a skill set to layer on top of the dental. And I love that. I I you know I love the same kind of genre of learning. We share books   DAT- Kristy (02:11) Yeah.   Tiffanie (02:11) and podcasts all the time. but how do you I'm gonna like just ask you a little snippet how do you feel that that layering in your consulting   as you're working with team members and doctors, how does that layering help you to get them to that space of change where they're ready to implement something new?   DAT- Kristy (02:32) Yeah, I love that you say that tip because I think truly if if I had to summarize it, it's really investing in the per person, you know. while I think we love to vision our teammates or, you know, even as doctors and employers, we think they're gonna stay forever, right? And that's kind of our goal. But sometimes it's not meant to be that way. And I I truly believe that investing in the person, whether they're   staying there in that practice or moving on or heck, how many go back to school and then come back to you? So I think you know we talked about systems earlier today and there's only so many systems within a dental practice, but when you can layer in and invest in the person on top of teaching systems, it just takes it to a new level. And I I liken it to how we treat our patients, you know?   Tiffanie (03:30) Yeah.   DAT- Kristy (03:30) We can   and it ties to our conversation today, I know, but so many times we can just jump in, diagnose, treatment, plan, tell, or we can really get in relationship and figure out what patients want and create a different experience. And I think to your question, Tiff, no different than how we deal with teammates or employees,   Tiffanie (03:50) Yeah.   DAT- Kristy (03:50) investing in them for sure.   Tiffanie (03:53) Yeah, I completely agree. As you were speaking about that, I started thinking, my gosh, yeah, it is it's just that relationship, right? Like you said to the patient experience as well. And being able, I think for our consulting team in general, I think we're all a little bit more inclined towards that like personal development and leadership side. more so than many people I've met in the profession that are very like ready to go, let's just   change this thing like do and i i get that because people get excited for dentistry too and we do as well i think i i love the people aspect of it like dentistry paved my way is what i say i think it's cool i think it's awesome but it's not end all be all it's more to me it's more about the people and like you said investing back into them and i think that's something that Kristy you do really well and i know the rest of our consultants do as well   Of really investing in the human that's on the other side of the screen, or that's standing in front of us when we're in person and really letting them know and understand that we do care. Not even just I was gonna say making them think. That's not even it. Like we're not making people think anything, we're truly investing in them and letting them know that this is the right place. This is where they should be, and they love their jobs, they can love their jobs and inspiring them.   To love what they're doing and love the patients that are coming in. And then I think, Kristy, what you do is create a space of safety for them and then a space of learning. So they get to see, they get to be poured into. And the best part about pouring into someone is the idea that they're going to take that and pour into someone else. So then you're pouring into your teams and your doctors when you're working with them.   And then hoping right that now they're pouring into the patient. And to your point, what we're talking about today is patient like treatment planning and really why we're not getting the yes right away. The patients that are saying, I need to think about this. And I think Kristy, to your statement, to the point of your statement, we've got to make sure that we've poured enough into the relationship to be able to speak to.   treatment plans to issues and problems because like you know you go get your car oil done and then all of a sudden this man you've never seen before he's not even the guy who checked you in comes in he's like Kristy he's like you need and he goes down the list and you're like who are you like   DAT- Kristy (06:19) Yeah.   Tiffanie (06:19) why are you like I what are your credentials like how do you know this and and when we're so automated or busy   I fear that we might get in that same space within a dental practice.   DAT- Kristy (06:34) Yeah, I I agree one hundred percent, Tiff. And I think we do get in that space, right? We get busy and and they do come to us for our knowledge. And you know, don't get me wrong, we have a due diligence to diagnose and and treat and tell them what we see. However, I I I literally like I joke about this, but when I teach like even phone coaching and I say to people, why are they coming in for a cleaning?   They're like a cleaning. And I'm like, but what's a cleaning? Like, why are they   Tiffanie (07:05) Yeah.   DAT- Kristy (07:06) literally coming in for a cleaning? What do they it they're coming for what it gives them? N there's nobody that calls on the phone and says, Hey Tiff, will you make sure my hygienist has really sharp instruments so she can scrape my teeth? You   Tiffanie (07:20) Yeah.   DAT- Kristy (07:20) know? Like nobody says that ever. They're coming   Tiffanie (07:22) Yeah.   DAT- Kristy (07:23) for what it gives them. And if we want,   To really interact and change lives of patients and get them to say yes more often, we really have to figure out what their motivation is. And again, it ties with that diagnose treatment plan and tell them what they need. But in reality, and especially in dentistry, I think patients truly buy what they want, not always what they need, right? And the want   Tiffanie (07:50) yes.   DAT- Kristy (07:51) usually has an emotional side to it.   Tiffanie (07:54) Yeah, that's so funny. Yesterday I went to Target. I went Target's dangerous.   DAT- Kristy (08:02) Ha ha ha.   Tiffanie (08:03) I went to Target. So my fiance Aaron and my son Brodie, they decided to it was   I said it looks nice outside. Apparently it was still very hot. But I told them maybe you guys should go, you know, to the driving range and hit some balls. I've been waiting months to be able to go golfing, right? So I'm like, why don't you guys go hit some balls? I'll run to the store. I had to get everything, groceries and stuff. I said I'll do the pickup and I gotta run to Target for a couple of things. So I go to Target with the littles, right? So I've got a 13-year-old boy, 10-year-old girl, and I'm like Roman Target, you know, and I'm just taking my time. And I said, gosh, you know, sometimes Target just   Target needs to tell you what you need. You don't always know what you need going into Target,   DAT- Kristy (08:43) Yeah.   Tiffanie (08:43) right? And I'm like, doo-doo doo. And then later that evening, one of the boys, one of the one of the older boys, said something about, I can't remember, something about the my Target experience, right? I think Brodie, Brodie's like unpacking Target, right? And he pulls out this like loaf pan and he's like, What what what is you went to Target for this? And I was like, well.   I d

Kiera is joined by Brannon Moncrief, principal and CEO of McLerran and Associates and expert on dental practice sales and DSO affiliates. The two talk about running your practice with a mindset to sell (maybe not today or tomorrow, but eventually). That means thinking about your business as it is and preparing it for a private buyer or DSO or associate transition; "keeping your foot on the gas" when it comes to finances; knowing what those sale numbers can look like depending on how successful your practice is; and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I have one of my favorite people in the industry on the podcast today. He and I have podcasted multiple times. I just think he's a wealth of knowledge. And today I'm really excited because I think that the landscape of what to do with our practices, whether I have a private buy, whether I have an associate legacy transition, whether I go to a DSO, like what do I do? And how do I make my practice like a viable asset as opposed to just a job for me for the rest of time?   I feel like Brannon Moncrief is one of the best of the best in the industry to answer these questions. He and I chat shop often and he is a wealth of knowledge for me. So Brannon, welcome to the podcast today. How are you?   Brannon Moncrief (00:38) Thanks for having me. Appreciate the kind words.   Kiera (00:41) Of course. you and I were just chatting. I think you and I have talked like, what, this is our third time in less than a week. So it's kind of fun to have this in a a real podcast setting. but Brannon, for those who don't know you and don't know about your business and what you do, just give the listeners a little bit of background of who Brannon Moncroep is, and then we're gonna dive into how people can valuate their practices and kind of like what do I do in this choose your own adventure landscape that they're living in.   Brannon Moncrief (01:05) Appreciate that. I am the principal and CEO of McLaren and Associates. And I've spent pretty much my entire professional career on the business side of dentistry, about 25 years now. I can't believe it's already been that long. I I wish. I wish. That's the filter on my camera.   Kiera (01:17) It's okay. You're not a day over 25, Brannon. You just started this from a baby. it's a nice one.   Brannon Moncrief (01:27) thank you. So I spent the first 10 or so years of my career as a dental lender, lending money to dentists all across the country to   Buy and start practices. And then I purchased McLaren 15 years ago. The legacy business that I acquired was a small mom and pop practice brokerage firm focused on traditional practice sales, doctor-to-doctor, practice transitions, specifically in Texas. Scaled that business significantly over the past five, six years, expanded it nationwide. So now we have offices all across the country handling doctor-to-doctor deals.   In general dentistry and across all different dental specialties. And then a lot of your audience has probably seen me on different podcasts, webinars talking about DSO affiliations. We got heavily involved in the DSO and private equity space about seven years ago, really out of necessity. We were watching a lot of doctors that we thought would engage us to sell their business to another clinician choose to go down the DSO path for one reason or the other.   And we knew that private equity was likely here to stay and gonna consolidate our industry rapidly. So we evolved. We built out a team, built out a process to provide cell set advisory to large practice owners who, for one reason or the other, are gonna choose to affiliate with a DSO or private equity as opposed to sell in a traditional sense to another doctor. So we've done about 250 DSO affiliations across the country, general dentistry and all dental specialties.   And   then we've been involved in about 1500 private practice sales. So have really seen everything that can go right and wrong in monetizing your business. But I look at my job first and foremost to educate doctors regarding what is your business worth, private buyer versus DSO? What are the pros and cons? What are the nuances of each of those options? Get you educated, and then you get to choose your own adventure from there. And we help you execute. We help you take the practice to market and monetize it.   at the highest possible outcome and also ensure that we find the right fit for your practice, the right buyer to protect your legacy.   Kiera (03:33) No, Brannon, I think that you guys do so much in the industry and you've helped the industry. And I've learned a lot working with you, working with several of our clients. And I feel like this is just something as a business owner, whether you are thinking of selling today or selling in the future. I remember when I first started Dental A Team, people were like, Kiera, you're gonna sell it. And I was like, always. Like I'm always building this to be sold. That doesn't mean that I want to sell it today or tomorrow or the next day.   But I would be an absolute rookie if I didn't think about selling this at some point in time. I think you build businesses better when you have that exit in mind. Again, that doesn't mean like I have no intentions of rapidly firing this off. I've been here for quite some time. I feel like I'm getting cozy in this chair, just like I'm sure Brannon and you are in your business. but it's constantly building it, innovating it, creating systems, creating EBITDA, creating those profit margins that are necessary. So when the day comes, because I don't believe that any of us are probably going to really know.   The day we want to sell. I've seen plenty of doctors who have had divorce hit, they've had death hit, they've had accidents. I had a dentist get hit by a bike. Like he was on his bike and he got hit by a car, so he didn't get hit by a bike. He was on a bike getting hit. And I'm like, I promise you that day leaving the office, it wasn't like, I'm on a bucket list to get hit by a car today. Like that just surely was not there. But he had built his practice to where if he wanted to sell, he could, or we had the systems and processes in place to give him the options. And I think that just preparing for this gives optionality long term.   So you're doing it on your terms as opposed to being forced to make a rash decision unexpectedly. So going into that with that mindset, and I hope people, and I know Brannon, you agree with that. Otherwise, we wouldn't be podcasting. You and I have very aligned interests in the industry. But I am really curious, like helping people to kind of have that mindset. Like, what are some of the things that DSOs versus private buyers versus like just transitioning to an associate? What are some of the things? Because I know that there's different flavors and factors. Like, I don't like mint chips.   But I definitely like a grasshopper shake. Like I like both, but don't give me the little chips in it. It's disgusting. Like I prefer the like Oreo mashed up with the mint flavoring. So like I'm gonna prefer different things. And I guarantee you that while both might like the same flavor with air quotes around it, there's nuances that both of those buyers are going to want differently. So how do people, when they're looking at this, thinking about that future sell? again, not tomorrow, but when they're when the time comes, whether planned or unplanned, what should they be preparing for for both of those different types of buyers?   Brannon Moncrief (05:57) Love   what you said about like being prepared to sell at any moment in time. Because if you take the steps to prepare your practice to be marketable, valuable, and sellable, those are the same steps you need to take to make your business hum, you know, on a daily basis, right?   Kiera (06:12) Exactly.   Brannon Moncrief (06:13) but you never know what life's gonna throw at you. So you always want to be prepared, whether you're looking two years down the road or 20 years down the road. we'll kind of bifurcate our conversation today in a flip-flopping back and forth between private buyer versus DSO because they're really.   know two different worlds. So when   Kiera (06:27) Mm-hmm.   Brannon Moncrief (06:28) we talk about the private buyer world, you want to do check as many boxes as possible as far as what private buyers are looking for when they call somebody like McLaren and say, hey, I'm looking to buy a practice. And we ask, okay, great, tell me about what you're looking for. Because the answer is pretty consistent. Typically private buyers are looking for a practice within 60 miles of a major metro area. So urban, suburban markets.   Those practices are going to see higher valuations and more demand than practices in tertiary or rural markets. Doesn't mean that if you're in a tertiary market, you can't sell your practice. It just means that all things equal, it might take a little bit longer and it might trade for a lower valuation. they're looking for five plus operatories. Most young dentists these days are relatively entrepreneurial.   And eventually want to grow into a multi-doctor practice for one reason or the other. A lot of that is lifestyle driven. Some of that may be value driven, the fact that they eventually want to sell the practice for a premium to a DSO or private equity. They're looking for PPO and fee for service practices. So if you have an HMO component or a Medicaid component, that's definitely going to impact demand and valuation. They're looking at technology, equipment, facility, curb appeal.   All of that matters when you go to monetize your business, but you also want to be evaluating what is your runway to selling the business

Re-releasing a favorite of Dental A-Team listeners! Kiera chats with Chick-fil-A owner and operator George Demetriades — and it's all about applying the chain fast-food restaurant's success into your dental practice. There's a lot of gold packed into this episode, but some of the highlights include: Abiding by character, competence, community Creating realistic and attainable systems Hiring ideal employees Identifying high performers Acquiring a loyal fanbase Cultivating a consistent culture Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today we are bringing you something so special. I am so excited because this is one of our most popular episodes from the archives. Whether you're hearing this for the first time or catching it again, I am so excited because it's jam packed with a ton of takeaways that you can start using right now in your practice. We have released thousands, literally thousands of episodes. And I wanted to start bringing a few of these amazing episodes back for you. So I hope you enjoy. And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time.   on the Dental A Team podcast.   speaker-0 (00:31) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And my gosh, I am like fangirling so hard right now. if you guys have heard, Dr. Nate Tillman, he was at Dental A Team Summit, and this year we had a really strong theme where we talked about Chick-fil-A and how much their customer service and their experience is just unmatched. So after Summit, Nate texted me and said, Kiera, I have a friend. He owns some Chick-fil-A franchises.   Would you be interested if I could get to him on your podcast? And my gosh, heart eyes, like gold stars galore. I have the one and only George Demetriades on today, owner of Chick-fil-A. He owns these. I am so giddy. George, welcome to the podcast. I have been so ecstatic to podcast with you.   speaker-1 (01:15) Thank you so much, Kiera. I really am grateful that for the opportunity to to chat with you guys. And yes, Nate is a very, very close friend of many, many years. If I mess this up, then it then I don't know Nate. It's not Nate's fault. And we'll we'll make up a name of Sam Schmuckatelli, the dentist in Hobble or something like that that that that referred me to you. So   speaker-0 (01:38) my gosh. No. Honestly, George, you're seriously so nice. And Nate is incredible. And for those of you who like can if you're just listening, be sure to snag our little snippets of this one. You literally can see George's name tag on. He is sitting in Chick-fil-A corner office right now, hanging out. He's in boots on the ground. So George, let's just kind of take it through. You and I have chatted a little bit. I have so many questions. Sure. I just I l I mean I wasn't a huge Chick-fil-A fan until I learned about their spicy deluxe sandwich. Mix it with the Chick-fil-A sauce.   my gosh, every Saturday Jason and I wake up and Jay says, Kiera, what's today? And I say Chick-fil-A day. Like it's every day. and so George, kind of just tell us a little bit about your background. I know you're an owner operator for eight years of Chick-fil-A, but kind of prior to that, you and I had chatted before. I just want the listeners to know who is George, and then we're diving all into Chick-fil-A today.   speaker-1 (02:28) Awesome. Yeah, thank you so much again for allowing me to join the podcast. so I was born and raised in Atlanta, which is the home of Chick-fil-A, been eating it my whole life. graduated from high school, went off to Wake Forest University, which is where I know Nate from, and was commissioned into the Army as an intelligence officer. Served in the Army for a number of years, and then when I left, left active duty, some time on Capitol Hill, some time in the consulting business, and and after about 10 years of that.   I found my way to Chick-fil-A. I had just become kind of it was a mid midlife, I guess, or pre-midlife crisis, professional crisis, and didn't didn't find a lot of fulfillment in the consulting world anymore. Talked to a friend of mine down at our corporate headquarters about a few ideas I had and he said, Hey, if you haven't thought about a about a franchise, you should go to this website, check it up, check it out, and and holler back with questions. So did that.   Called him back and at some point over the next eighteen months of interviews, probably at many points during those eighteen months, my buddy down at corporate snuck into people's offices in the dark of night and took my file from trash cans back into their inboxes and I made it through the process and so took over the the Chick-fil-A in Crystal City, Virginia, just outside of DC in January of twenty fifteen. Nate and Carrie were there that day, that morning, which means a great deal to me. And   And then two years ago, a little bit more than two years ago, opened up my second location in Pentagon City, which is yeah, just a less than a mile from the original location that I had. And so I operate those two franchises with with a team of of well over a hundred folks that are just incredible people who inspire me every day. they really they they make my my job and my life not only easy, but it's really fulfilled.   so and that's me. It's it's me and a dog, a couple of nieces and a nephew and nine godchildren running around.   speaker-0 (04:36) How fun. George, okay, I'm really curious. Number one, you talked about being an intelligence. So I mean I'm gonna derail from Chick-fil-A a little bit. Tell me the craziest experience in intelligence. Like you have this like very undercover life. Intelligence, Chick-fil-A, anything crazy in intelligence?   speaker-1 (04:52) I   so I tell people I was an intelligence officer but not a very intelligent officer. And and the guys that I served with are all like, Well, he finally got one right. so I was a tactical intelligence officer, so I wasn't like James Bond. I was I was out helping commanders on the battlefield understand what the enemy was was likely to do, what capabilities they had and and how we would counter that. and you know, the army was was really, really good to me. I my my some of my closest friends in the world are   are from that that period in my life still today. And a lot of them are still in. A couple of them are generals now, which makes me feel very old. and but it's the army was really, really good to me. So nothing nothing crazy. It was it was it it was I was very fortunate throughout my survey.   speaker-0 (05:41) Interesting. Well, I do feel like there's probably strategy trying to figure out what they're going to do, which probably helps you potentially in your Chick-fil-A franchise as well. So I need to know now how do you become a Chick-fil-A franchise owner? Like is I feel like this is a hard process because Chick-fil-A is so well known. They're so like they're across the board. Like, how long does this process to become a franchise owner? And how do even do it?   speaker-1 (06:02) Yeah,   it's a it's a very long process. It starts with an expression of interest, which is kind of like a mini application. And and we have I think the most the number I heard most recently was last year we had around a hundred and eight thousand people express interest in becoming a Chick-fil-A operator.   speaker-0 (06:17) my gosh. Okay.   speaker-1 (06:18) The the opportunity is this is this is my my only job. so we are we are not looking for folks who have a collection of franchises and just want to add a Chick-fil-A to their portfolio.   and we are we are looking for folks who have a lot of leadership background who can use that to to really move the objectives and goals of the restaurant forward. we we kind of rely on three things when we're looking at at operator candidates and even our corporate staff candidates, which is character confidence and community. character speaks for itself. We wanna we wanna know that you're a person of character and that you've had that consistent character throughout your life.   We want to know that you're part of your community and that wherever you've been, that you find ways to contribute. you know, not just not just a job and and family and all those things, but ways beyond beyond what others might do in the community. And and the competence piece really is all about leadership. Chick-fil-A and and coming in from the military, a lot of the systems they use have a very they they our training systems especially   you can tell there was where there were folks involved in that development that had military experience, but but Chick-fil-A is exceptionally good at putting a system around as much as possible. they're even better at personalizing those systems and making sure they don't seem stale or or systemic, so to speak.   speaker-0 (07:51) Like I need to know this, George. This is what I'm dying to know. Because Chick-fil-A, every experience, no matter where I'm at, and this is what we talked about. This is why I'm so giddy to talk to you. It's like I think Starbucks, I don't know how they do for their on-boarding and Chick-fil-A. Like, but Chick-fil-A has good food. I don't drink coffee, but man, Starbucks could definitely take a look no on how to make delicious hot chocolate. Like it's disgusting. Probably the worst hot chocolate I've ever had. But they have an incredible experience there. And I love to go work there. But Chick-fil-A, like you cook great food.   Great service. People are so happy there. And I have been so giddy to know about their system. So George, explain this more to me. And of course, I told George and I will tell all the listeners, Chick-fil-A is a special business, just like your businesses are special. So if I ask any questions

As practices grow and new people filter in, it's normal to want to measure each member of your team against your current goals versus where they were when first hired. Tiff and Nikki talk about assessing positions from a bird's eye view, working with someone who's stalled out in individual growth, differentiating emotions from the practical, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Tiffanie (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are excited to be here with you today. I am just putting this out there. Nikki and I have tried to record this podcast now three   Nikki Mack (00:09) Yeah.   Tiffanie (00:10) times, and we are excited to get this information to you guys and hoping that our network works with us full time today. Nikki, thank you for being flexible, for being someone that will just jump in and for loving on Dental A Team and your clients as much as you do. I value and appreciate you so much.   This week and every week. How are you today?   Nikki Mack (00:32) I am good. It's so good to be here. I'm hopeful for today. We've got it. I know it's gonna work. and just, you know, what a fun testament of like we're committed. We're gonna get this to you, we're gonna do what it takes. And couldn't think of anyone to be doing it with that would be better than you. So yeah, happy to be here.   Tiffanie (00:50) Thank you. Thank   you. I think you pointed out something very special there. It's Sterilis. It's a part of our core values, right? Do the right thing. We've got the grit and the passion for excellence and   the results focus. We are living and breathing those this week. I completely agree. gosh, Nikki. so fun fact, we both head out for offices soon. we're both gonna be   Nikki Mack (01:15) Mm-hmm.   Tiffanie (01:15) on the road again. And I was looking at the weather.   This morning with my fiance. Have you looked yet?   Nikki Mack (01:23) I have it. Now I'm nervous. It's share. Share with the class.   Tiffanie (01:24) Yeah. So mm-hmm.   So just for everyone's knowledge base, at the time of recording this, it is mid October. We're like a week into October of twenty twenty six. And yesterday here in Phoenix, in my area of Phoenix was a hundred degrees. That was our high. Today's   Nikki Mack (01:44) Mm.   Tiffanie (01:44) high is ninety nine. Next week it's like high sixties and we're gone.   Nikki Mack (01:52) Okay, yeah, that tracks. Got it.   Tiffanie (01:55) No, so last week when Nikki   was gone, or the week before last when Nikki was gone, we were both traveling that week and everywhere we went we had just missed the rain. Like it was trailing right behind us, including at home. So it was beautiful at home, it was raining, the weather was gorgeous, and we get back and it's sunny and hot and we've been living sunny and hot now. And as soon as we leave, like legitimately I think Sunday, it starts cooling down. Yep.   Aaron said, he said, my gosh, it's gonna be so pretty next week. I Yeah, and it's literally the entire time that I'm gone. Seven days of beauty, seven days I'm gone. So I thought I'd share that with you today. I get you prepped, ready to go. It's Thursday. So, you know, here we are. It's gonna be great.   Nikki Mack (02:40) Yeah.   It's my mind for it. I love it. You know what? Well but I will say this. At least almost everywhere we go is beautiful and green. Everywhere's   beautiful.   Tiffanie (02:50) This is true.   Nikki Mack (02:51) Walk that back. Everywhere's beautiful. Just most places are also green. And as desert girlies, like I love to see it. So there's a win.   Tiffanie (02:57) Yeah, it's so true. And we should   get some fall colors, which they're not good, it might be beautiful here, but there's no fall colors in Phoenix. So I love that. I love that.   Nikki Mack (03:05) Absolutely. my god.   Tiffanie (03:08) Well, more testaments to our core values, which actually, as you said that earlier, like our our testament to getting this done, I kind of I think that actually we spoke a little bit about what we were gonna talk about today, but I think that kind of ties into today's statements as well and really talking about our core values. So   Today, Nikki, I'm picking your brain on team. And something it's been a very recurring theme. and I think actually, now that I say it out loud, like I think a lot of practices right now are pushing for growth. It's towards the end of the year and they've experienced some growth. For whatever reason, this year has been like a like a stale growth. It hasn't been a lot at one time. It's been kind of intermittent and a weird year for sure.   But practices are experiencing that growth. And within that, we hire new people, shift things shift and people shift, but we really start taking a look at the people that we have, the people that we need, et cetera. And today's topic, we really wanted to talk about your team. Like, would you rehire everyone on your team? And I love this title or this topic that our marketing team gave to us so much because it's like hard.   Core, right? Like it hit. It was like, wow, that's like cut into the chase. Would you rehire everyone? So, Nikki, I think this is something that comes up for a lot of practices, at least in my consulting. And I think you're seeing it. I know specifically a couple of practices you have that have onboarded new doctors and new hygienists and just this expansive growth. When it comes to looking at the actual team members, what are you helping practices work through? How are you walking them through that and really?   trying to decide on something like this, like would you hire this person again? How do you, how do you work that with them?   Nikki Mack (04:58) So I think the first step is you have to take an honest look at the practice, yourself as a leader and kind of your expectations, right? Where are we like truly at? What's changed this year, and what do I still want to change, right? You know, like what what goalposts are we still working towards and how has that translated with my team? Because here's the thing at the end of the day, you hired everyone on your team for a reason, right?   Nobody, I think, wandered in off the street and was like, Can I stay for a bit? And you're like, Yeah, sounds good, right? You know, we'll teach you how to use Tentrics, it's fine. but our teams do change, right? Our office changes, and we change as leaders and kind of our goals and things we're looking for. So being able to say, like, okay, let me take a real honest look at where we're at, where I'm trying to go, and how everyone kind of fits in with that right now, not from that personal relationship standpoint.   not from you know past experiences with them, but just how do they fit into my team and my structure because what do I need? a good example of that, I think a lot of times when we talk about org charts with teams, right? we love an org chart. But what do   Tiffanie (06:08) I do.   Nikki Mack (06:08) we usually tell them, let's design an org chart for what your office needs, not for the people that you currently have in place. And then we figure out how they fit into those positions. Because we have to be honest about what we're trying to build and what team structure gets us there.   And I think it's that same kind of mentality, even if we have an org chart, if we're evaluating our team, what do we really have? Right? Like what is in place and what are our goals?   Tiffanie (06:34) Yeah, I love that. And   Nikki Mack (06:35) Mm-hmm.   Tiffanie (06:36) within that like org chart and that structure and really looking at those goals, I something I notice is even just in the same position, no growth for the practice, a lot of times someone can just like get stale or stagnant, or maybe they were in a space that worked for a while and now that's that space just isn't working. Do you feel, Nikki, that once someone's a bad seed, they're always a bad seed?   do you feel like there's opportunity for individual growth? I've seen all of it, and I think we can walk through so many scenarios, but like when you consult a practice and when on Dental A Team consults a practice for all of the listeners, we rely heavily on a lot of information that you provide to us. And so we're the bird's eye viewpoint. and we try to see everything from that high-level kind of looking in.   But we really do require so much data and input from you. So Nikki, with that, when you're coming in like blind, we'll call it, right? You're just you've just got the information that you have. How are you helping a doctor to assess those people? And I'm like truly interested.   Nikki Mack (07:50) Yeah. Okay, so this is possibly one of my fatal flaws. we're full transparency, right? Here on Dental A Team. I absolutely believe people are you   Tiffanie (08:00) Same.   Nikki Mack (08:00) rehabilitate, right? Like I know it and sometimes look guys, sometimes I've tried way too long to my detriment. But what valuable experience to know when to tell you, like, guys, cut it. We've done what   Tiffanie (08:13) It's fair.   Nikki Mack (08:13) we can.   but I do often think there's room. And I know a few of my teams right now would be listening to this and being like, Yes, we had that same conversation. I was like, This person, we've done everything, there's no hope. And I was Well, let's just try one more thing, right? Now I'm   Tiffanie (08:28) Yeah.   Nikki Mack (08:28) fresh, new set of eyes. Let's be for sure that we've done everything. Because it's completely fair as a leader. Sometimes we think we've done everything, and sometimes we've only responded out of frustration in the moment. And so I do think people can be   Saved, right? So to speak. but we have

Kiera is joined by Ryan Gross, CEO of Grapevine (formerly CEOShare), to discuss the future of dentistry in terms of marketing and AI, and how practices can stay up-to-date on everything. They touch on using AI to work smarter, not harder; utilizing the patient base you have more effectively; how to balance your practice's revenue with marketing benefits; and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team Listeners. This is Kiera and today is an exciting day. I have a dear friend on our podcast, Ryan Gross, who used to be part of CMO Share and has now rebranded into Grapevine, doing all things fun in the marketing world. Ryan, how are you today?   Ryan (00:13) Good. I'm so excited to be on your podcast. You know, we've known each other for years and kind of both seen each other's you know, how we've grown as companies in our in our careers and our journeys. So excited to be here and chat some marketing and you know, see you catch up on on what's going on in in in the industry.   Kiera (00:31) Absolutely. Well, Ryan, for those who haven't heard you or don't know anything about you, tell them a little bit about now the new renamed Grapevine. kind of like how you got into marketing. I know you worked at the zoo. kind of just some fun backgrounds, but kind how did we get from where you were to where you are today?   Ryan (00:46) Yeah, so my my marketing journey you know starts fairly fresh out of college. I went to work for the Walt Disney Company while I was in college and I did recruiting for them for years and then I went into the attractions industry and other areas, worked for a couple of museums, then went back to work for Disney again, working for Disney Vacation Club, doing marketing for them, and then went to work for a zoo.   And so spent, you know, that that time span's about 18 years of working in the attractions industry. and then I have a a friend, a good friend, Dr. Addison Kaleen, who was saying, hey, I need some help with my marketing. And I said, Okay, let me see if I can help out. And so I just did some stuff on the side for him and decided to go out on my own and started the journey of our company was CMO Share. started that out as basically a fractional CMO for practices.   you know, had a had a small group that I was working with and what happened during that time was we started to realize that on a digital marketing front, the dental like basically websites and Google ads, just the strategy at that time wasn't really what what I felt could have been the best approach to it. So we got into the website business and digital marketing business, and that's really where we've kind of   exploded since then in terms of our ability to to acquire new patients that way. And then over time when we started to look at the company, we said, okay, well, we're more than just websites. We have a phenomenal data set. And that's really where Grapevine was grown is the fact that we're one of the largest holders of dental data and when it comes to marketing, phone data and operational data combined. And so Grapevine was grown out of that as   now of our AI platform which kind of runs everything that we do.   Kiera (02:45) That's awesome. Yeah. So let's talk about how offices are starting to like stand out in today's era with AI. I think that'd be a fun way to kind of dig into that marketing AI. I know it's a a very unique piece. So yeah, take it away on what you're seeing of like what's the future of dentistry and marketing and AI and how practices can can stay top of mind.   Ryan (03:06) Yeah, so you know, I get this question often from practices and you know from from other companies is you know what is happening in the dental space when you look at from a marketing standpoint? And the thing is that I tell people e AI is an aid to what's what's out there right now and and to help you with your marketing. It's not gonna be the you know the only way to acquire new patients. but what it does is essentially is if you have enough data sets on on   your market and your area and patients, what you can do is you can use that to to go after more patients who are more likely to convert and to essentially accept treatment. That's that's the goal in my opinion and how we're seeing it work the best. And so you know one interesting data point that we have is we've seen this year the amount of traffic to our practices, their sites go down, but the number of people converting through phone calls increasing.   Because if you're using AI properly, what you're doing is you're getting in front of again the people who are most likely to convert for your business. And so that's that's a a powerful tool because it's you know you're getting you're working smarter, not harder. And the people who are coming into the practice, if you're doing this correctly, are more likely to spend money with you and accept that treatment. And especially now if you look at how you know a patients are navigating   the dental space, you know, they're really cost conscious. And so if you aren't doing this correctly, you're gonna get in front of a lot of people who aren't gonna accept treatment. And that's a big issue that we're seeing across the board.   Kiera (04:39) Yeah. So Ryan, break that down in a bit deeper. Like how do people find those data points on practice? I think they I think it's fascinating to like less people are clicking, but more converting. I feel like that's always like a backwards. It feels a little backwards from what we've been taught for so long. How do they find these data points? How do they laser focus in on these patients? Like what are some of the specifics? Like let's get nitty gritty go under the hood and what are some of those specifics that they can do?   Ryan (05:02) Yeah, so you know, if you wanna look at from a higher level first from a number standpoint, you know, I always ask or I always say you need to know a few data points. You need know, first of all, I always start this, what is your phone call answer rate? You know, and that's that seems simple, but you know, I presented a few months ago to about five hundred practices and I asked people to raise their hand in the room and it was, you know, dozen or so op raise their hand if they know their phone call answer rate. Because if you look at the phone call data, that's gonna   determine or give you a baseline just how well you are performing in terms of conversions of new patients. So you need to understand your phone data, how many calls you're getting, how many you're answering, first of all. The second piece of that is how many people are attempting to convert through your website. So when I say conversions in this case, I'm looking at people who are trying to call you through your website or through Google Ads, and people then who are trying to schedule online.   You take those data points there and you can start to compare the numbers. you know, we we have such a large data set, you know, over ten million phone calls we've analyzed and millions of Google conversions that we can basically use our AI tool to then say, okay, here's how many new patients you should have and in your market how many you should have. but you can do this on a on a practice level too, just by looking at and start to compare those numbers and you know, use tools out there like ChatGPT or Claude or things like that to help you analyze this and then   You want to also start to look at what are patients accepting in terms of production and look at your current patient numbers as well. So you kind of have to look at trends because you know we'll get questions like, Well, you know, my my schedule has holes in it. And I'll say, Okay, let's let's look at   Kiera (06:43) Yeah.   Ryan (06:44) your numbers, and I'll say, Well, you your new patient numbers are actually you know up five percent this month. But how so they're like, well,   You know, what do we need to do? And I'm like that, you know, we gotta look at it from deeper than if you have holes in your schedule and your new patient numbers are strong, you know, it typically means that you're not having treatment accepted. And that's why the doctor's schedule is open or you have cancellations, things like that. So when you start to actually take and unpill the onion of these numbers, you can take a look at it and say, Okay, there's a correlation between. So like when we look at correlating marketing numbers, we we we again we go to   Online conversions, we do phone call, the number of calls answered, and the total number of calls, then we look at the total number of new patients in production. And those three are independent numbers that if you're analyzing correctly, you can say, okay, I should have had based on my phone call, 100 new patients. based or I'm sorry, on on based on Google and my website, I should have had a hundred new patients. on my phone call I should have had ninety and I ended up with seventy. Well you can say, Okay, why did I end up with seventy when   marketing and phone set I should have had ninety to a hundred and you can start to dive in and look what's going on.   Kiera (07:53) Interesting. Yeah. And I think so many practices think that marketing is harder than it really is, right? But you said like how are we answering the patients that are coming through? So is it a is it a awareness? Like, do we need more people to call us? Or is it a answer? Like, let's just pick up the phone and have the people that are there. Or is it when the people actually get in our doors, are we actually maximizing them, utilizing them, following up on the treatment that we're presenting and accepting? And like, is that the area? So it's almost like it sounds there's three bench points.   If people are wanting more of that awareness p

Kiera takes a spin on profit growth by talking about a tactic many people don't consider: strategic partnerships. This means looking at the community around you, those in your field and outside of it, and learning to refer and support one another. Kiera's tips will help even the most introverted person begin to utilize their network. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I want to talk about something really fun. We talk about it in our mastermind groups with our clients. and it is like your network is your net worth. And so how strategic partnerships, you might not even be thinking this is a completely different, innovative way for you to grow your practice in a very easy, effective way. And so I'm super excited about it because a lot of times we just think that like the only way for us to grow our practice is to do more, hire another team member, or   To like just I think it's that GSD, which I'm very grateful that you have. but sometimes it's not even about that because sometimes there are other people around you that can actually elevate you, can grow you, can grow your practice, and that's through your network. And so really it's going to be about what are maybe the some of the partnerships you've you've forgotten, or maybe some of the partnerships we could rekindle that actually might help you elevate. Now, for somebody who you guys might think is very extroverted human, I am very extroverted, but you better believe we were just talking about an event.   I love to speak, you guys. I love to be on stage. but I am very much somebody that doesn't always love to be a porcelain doll on stage. And I know that might come as a shock for some of you, but like when I go to events, I'm like, the happy hour networking time is like my most stressful time of all of it. Like I love to have a conversation, I love to talk to people. It also stresses me out to no end. So just hearing that I recognize that what I'm about to talk to today.   might be foreign for some of you. For some of you, it might be the easiest thing and you might be like, Kiera, this is a great idea. for those of you who might be a little Kiera-esque or maybe a little less Kiera and like way less extroverted, just know that you don't have to do everything. But one of these things even can help you tremendously. And I just think it's a really fun way. Again, we talk about so many things and there's so many places of like grow your practice with this, grow your practice with marketing. I thought partnerships was a really fun spin on a great way for you to possibly grow your practice, grow your net worth. And you never know   Who your network's gonna bring into your place. Like, truly, my next door neighbor was Shelbi. Shelbi now is my EA, and she's absolutely incredible. there's been several people that I've just happeningly randomly met that have made my life exponentially better by being connected. And there's people that are way more connected. So, this is also a podcast for Kiera Dent. So it's all for you guys, but truly, I just want you to know that strategic partnerships really can be a benefit for you. If you're new to the podcast, hi, I'm Kiera. I hope I can be your best friend in dentistry. I truly am here to help you in whatever way possible.   I am obsessed with all things Dental. Our team is obsessed with it. I've built a team of consultants that truly their passion is to make you successful. We believe that running a successful practice should be fun and easy. And so I'm so happy you're here. For all of you OGs who have been listening, thank you. I hope you just give yourself like a little squeeze. Like give yourself a little squeeze and know I'm giving you a giant hug and saying thank you so much for your support, for being on the journey. And hey, if you're obsessed with us like I'm obsessed with you, go leave us five stars because your reviews are what ultimately are gonna make us.   continue to reach more people, be one of the top podcasts in the dental industry. And I just want to say thank you for making Dental A Team that I try to provide value for you. We're here all the time for you, three days a week, giving you practical, tactical tips. And we've been doing it for shoot. Like five years, six years, so long. So thanks for being on the journey. I'm obsessed with you and I hope that you remember dentistry is the greatest profession you could ever be in. Let's continue to make it great together. with that said, I hope that you know that like number one on this is we got to build referral relationships. So that's   Beyond sending patients. So I know a lot of you might have relationships with specialists. So I know a lot of people listening to our GP practices, also on the specialist side. there is a doctor that works with us, one of my dear friends, and he's a periodonist, and he literally is like the mayor of our town. He knows every single dental practice. He is always at offices, he's always driving around, meeting people, taking them to dinner, knows all the best restaurants in town. And that's what specialists have to do. And I think sometimes generalists don't realize that like you connecting and knowing all of your community.   really can drive like I text him at any time I'm like, hey, who's got the best hands in dentistry in our area? And he's like, you want to talk to this person? You meet somebody else. They know that person. Like he's so interconnected. And I just think like how amazing is that because he is referring back and forth. He's always looking for ways to connect somebody else. And I have found that when people come to the mastermind, that's something they tell me that they're obsessed with. So like all of our clients get together and we're like, my gosh, John, you need to go talk to Kevin and Kevin, you need to go meet Jamin. And Jamin, you need to go meet   Susie, like all of them connecting together. That's the same thing that you should be doing. So this is when like a partnership is broken and maybe we're being a little bit more of a user rather than a a giver on it, is if we only reach out when we need something, or we only have minimal communication with that specialist when we're referring a patient there, or we have very little collaboration on patient care. When it's thriving of a successful partnership, it's building that relationship with the specialist. It's connecting when we refer offices, it's communicating about our shared patient.   And it's creating a mutual trust. And so that can be as much as going over and saying hello. Like I have a doctor who was trying to get sleep. And I was like, get out of your office and go say hello. And she's like, I just don't want to, Kiera. And I was like, I know. I don't want to do half of this either. You guys think I enjoy being on video for the podcast? I absolutely do not, but you're welcome. Go say hello and say thank you on Instagram. Like, I hate being on video, but guess what? This is part of the name of the game. This is what I signed up with when I became a business owner. It doesn't mean you have to do everything, but I promise you, you go start to say hi, they know who you are.   Think about your neighbors. Like if you know your neighbors that refer people to you. I have a neighbor, I went and met our whole neighborhood. She literally watches for my packages every single time I'm out of town. That was a great strategic partnership, if you will, that benefits my life so much. I'm able to help her out with her kids. But we want this mutually referring. It shouldn't be a one-sided space. So I will say that when I've seen doctors, especially GPs and also specialists, you've got to build this. And there was a doctor who is a specialist, he's like, Kiera.   Is there any way for me as a specialist not to need my GP doctors? And I was like, unfortunately, no, we work in a we work in a referring basis. And so how do you become the person? It's like the lawyers or whomever in your town, how do you become that person that when they need a dentist or they need a referral, you are the first name that comes to mind? I want my specialist to be thinking about you as a dentist, not all the 50 other ones. Remember, people like pull out of their pocket what's familiar to them. So I want you to just know that like this is a reality, this is a space.   I want you to be the trusted partner and having that, it really will drive new patients. Also, you could go look at your new patient referrals and see how many of those are coming from specialist or from referral partners. If you don't have very many of them, it might be a good c key indicator for you to say, Hey, I need to go make more friends. I need to go build these stronger relationships. It's over time. It's not something of like, and please know there's a book called The Go Giver by Bob Burry. We had him on the podcast. If you didn't listen to that podcast, go listen to it. I was a fangirl that day.   but that's a book that was what I started the company on. And the go-giver is we are always giving more value than we expect. So I'm not going to meet these people hoping that they send me referrals. I'm going to find out what value can I give them, how can I support them? How can I grow their business? And in return, it always comes back to you. So I would encourage each of you to refer reach out to like one referral partner. every single month you could even like put it in your calendar. So you just have a rotating basis. Maybe it's I meet this person, and then in three months I reach back out to them.   staying top of mind, doing whatever we possibly can to make their life easier. and doing it not because you need something, but because you genuinely are interested in building this amazing relationship with t

So you have the basics down on practice organization and systemization, but still manage to fall short of your goals? Tiff and Kristy discuss the three most common pitfalls plaguing these offices, and how to climb out of them with clear, tactical guidance. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Tiffanie (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. I am so excited to be here with you today. I say that every single time, and I really truly am. This is Tiffanie or Tiff or Spiffy Tiffy, whatever you want to call me, with the Dental A Team. And we are here to bring you some incredible tips and tools today. And I've got my girl Kristy here with me today. She is, on the day of this recording, my Monday morning spice up, is what we'll call it. Kristy, I just told you to, but thank you for being my Monday girl. I really love starting my week.   with you, honestly and truly. So thank you for being here, Kristy. And I hope that you're excited. You came off of a restful weekend, it sounds like, which is incredible. how is how's life?   DAT- Kristy (00:42) Yeah, I love that too. Thanks for being my Monday kickoff. So it's a good week. Hey, weather's cooling off. It we got some rain. It just it felt   Tiffanie (00:51) Finally. Yeah.   DAT- Kristy (00:53) like a staycation kind of weekend, watch movies, spend time with family, play games. So it was it was a good weekend. Yeah.   Tiffanie (01:03) I love that. It is finally   cooling off and it's like our fall. Arizona gets like a mini fall. It'll get warm again and the rain will   DAT- Kristy (01:11) Yeah.   Tiffanie (01:11) dry up. But we love it. We've got like Halloween decorations going up and it's you know early, early in the in the month right now of recording this, it'll drop sometime in October. But it's fun to see all of that stuff start churning. And then as we travel into offices, I think Kristy, this is my favorite time of year to travel.   Because we don't get a lot of fall in Arizona. It goes straight from hot to like probably other people's fall, but our winter are like sixty five, you know, to fifty.   DAT- Kristy (01:41) Yeah.   Tiffanie (01:42) so when we travel and we get to see in offices, we love being in office with our clients. We absolutely love that. And we love getting to experience that fall. I think, Kristy, do you feel the same?   DAT- Kristy (01:52) Yeah, I agree with you. We don't we don't see the leaves of the trees change color like a lot of the world the rest of the country does. So yes, it's very fun and to feel the difference in the different climates. So agree with you one hundred percent.   Tiffanie (02:05) Yeah. Yeah.   Yeah. I was in Pennsylvania last week actually and yeah, and I was so excited and I usually go in December and I get there on like their first snow and I'm freezing cold and it's chaotic. But this year we decided to do the visit in September and which was perfect. And I got there and it was beautiful, perfect weather, and then it rained all night and the next morning was like   fifty two degrees and I was frozen.   DAT- Kristy (02:38) Pretty.   Tiffanie (02:38) I could not warm up for the entire day. And all the all the ladies at the office were like, Here's Arizona. Like you're just freezing your tail off. So it was fun,   DAT- Kristy (02:44) Yeah.   Tiffanie (02:47) but it was cold. It gets cold real fast.   DAT- Kristy (02:51) Agree, one hundred percent. Yeah. The only bad thing is sometimes we don't carve out enough time outside the offices and then we don't get to enjoy it either. But it sure is fun while you're driving in and flying   in to see the different colors. So   Tiffanie (03:01) Yeah. Yeah.   I agree. I ended up there were some communication tower issues with a couple of airports and so my flight had ended up getting completely cancelled, which is a little concerning. flying and and whatever. But I was, you know, just hellbent on getting to that office. And so I found another route and I actually flew into JFK, which was like a two hour drive. So when I got there it was night, I didn't get to see anything. But then when I left on Wednesday, just seeing the countryside out there is   so much different than anything we have on this side of the country. So driving the two hours between Pennsylvania and JFK was pretty cool. We have a we have a cool gig over here.   DAT- Kristy (03:41) gonna say I love how you found the silver lining in that.   Tiffanie (03:43) Yeah.   Yeah. And I've got finally I found the Yankees hat that I have been searching for forever in the color that I wanted. So that and then it was at the airport. I didn't even have to leave the airport. So wins all over for last   DAT- Kristy (03:57) Win win.   Tiffanie (03:57) week. Yeah, it was great. and actually the content that I want to chat with you about today, Kristy, is something that came out of that visit, honestly. It was something that I've been working with as practice for a really long time. Like honestly, I think.   like seven years or so, almost seven years. So we've done a lot of meetings. So these meetings continue to evolve. And we've always had some team turnover. Obviously I think everybody has team turnovers. So you can go through handoffs, you can do all of the things kind of like that back to basics. You end up doing that frequently with practices that have turnover. But this team actually   Has been pretty stable aside from a couple of front office positions, and they've gotten really good at training the team. This is the first time I walked in. I like I told them I was Mona Cry because the new team members that had only been there like between two to six weeks knew ICRP and NDTR handoffs. And I was like, what the heck? This is incredible. I don't have to talk handoffs for the first time in seven years with this practice. so with all of that though, we had I really had to dive in and dig deep to figure out, okay.   How do we level up from here? When you've got the basics pretty much down, but you're still, there's still just those areas where we're trying to increase, level up, or really hit those goals without thinking about it. I took a step back with them and I I made them dig in and think, what is the root cause of why we're not hitting these things if we have the systems? Like I'm not coming in every single time. And Kristy, I know you feel the same way when you've seen a practice for so long. There's   Only so much you can innovate and create a new system around and create this new fun, like, okay, let's do it this way. Sometimes we've got to go backwards and say, we already have all the systems. Now we've got to figure out what is it about the system that maybe isn't helping us reach that goal. And so we kind of came up with this thought process. I came up with this thought process around it of.   like   the three maybe three key things. I feel like one to three is like easy for us to remember, right? So I thought, is it a knowledge gap? Like is this system, do we not know how to use it? Do we not know why? Do we not know the steps to it? So is it a knowledge gap? Or I think the biggest knowledge gap that I found with them actually, Kristy, was like not knowing what the end result was supposed to be. And maybe so then it tied into okay, knowledge gap tied into may is it a systems gap? So does the system   need more information in it. Does that need to be tailored? Does it need to be leveled up itself or does it need to be recreated? And then is it an execution and accountability gap? So maybe   DAT- Kristy (06:37) Mm-hmm.   Tiffanie (06:38) we know how to do it, we know why it's got all the pieces, the system's clear, it's good, but we're just not using it. And there's no one like following up and holding accountable. So it really transformed a ton. And I wanted to chat about that a little bit, Kristy, because I think both of us can see   How work can get so stuck. And we just we feel like maybe we're running the rat race and we're on that wheel that's just spinning. We're not actually getting anywhere. Or sometimes I describe it as I feel like I'm just like hitting my head against a wall, but still doing the thing and running the definition of insanity, not necessarily taking a look back at it. And I think a lot of our doctors, Kristy, a lot of the doctors actually that you work with that we send over to you because I think you're really good at diving into this. Thank you for that.   I think that's one of those three things where they're stuck and they just don't know how to push forward. What are your thoughts, Kristy?   DAT- Kristy (07:31) Yeah. Yeah,   I agree with you. I like how you simplified that down to the the top three reasons because I I truly believe it it does stem from that. the knowledge systems and execution again. But I always like to say if we're not getting the results we want, let's take a step back and look. all of our systems are pretty much a recipe, right? And did we stop following the recipe to a T?   Like somewhere along the line, we just threw out this step or forgot about this step or stepped over that step,   Tiffanie (08:07) Yeah.   DAT- Kristy (08:08) and now we're not getting the same results. So truly simplifying it and stepping back and going, is this still our recipe? And are   Tiffanie (08:16) Yeah.   DAT- Kristy (08:17) we following it? And if not, why not? What got in the way? Right. And then also, if we did follow it to a T, kind of back to what you said, Tiff, sometimes we might have to get a new recipe.   If we followed   Tiffanie (08:29) Mm-hmm.   DAT- Kristy (08:30) it to T and it's not getting the results, we may have outgrown that recipe. And so coming   Tiffanie (08:35) Yeah.   DAT- Kristy (08:35) u

Introducing the Dental A-Team YES Operating System — a framework created after looking at thousands of practices to help you have predictable growth, profitability, and freedom. Hear from Kiera about why this approach will change the way you do dentistry (and improve the way you live your life). The DAT YES Operating System: Y: You E: Earnings S: Systems and Teams Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera, and I just want to talk to you guys about how we can say yes to more things. I call it the Dental A Team Yes operating system. It's truly a blueprint for profitable practices. And we've talked about it a few times, but honestly, it is just like what's a different operating model that we can go off of to have this profitable practice, but also to feel fulfilled, to have it more easy. Like great, let's do this. So I want you to know that this is a framework we created looking at thousands of practices, coming up with it, because I don't believe they're profitable practice.   is created by luck. I don't. I think that you can have it and you just need the right framework, the right operating system. And then you're gonna be able to to align, to guide, and to be able to truly say yes to everything you want. So I'm gonna walk you through our YES operating system. The Y stands for You. It's all about you first. That's the very first step. E stands for Earnings and S stands for Systems and Teams. And these are three pillars that are gonna help predict have predictable growth, profitability, and freedom for you. So I hope you're excited for it. I hope you're excited to say yes to more in your life. And hey, if you're new here,   Hi, I'm Kiera. Super nice to meet you. I'm obsessed with all things dentistry, so much so that my last name is actually Dent. Yep, I really am Kiera Dent. I love dentistry. I've been a dental assistant, treatment coordinator, you name it, regional manager, consulted hundreds and thousands of practices across the nation and the globe. And we are so committed to helping dentists truly reach their highest potential, empower teams, and make life and running a successful practice easy and fun again. That's what we do. I'm obsessed with it. We do startup to multi-million dollar organizations, no matter the practice size.   Things are still the same. The YES model works for all of you. So I want you to know that a lot of times we're focused on production or marketing or this or that. But a lot of times if we just get our whole team aligned, everything falls into place. And I'm not saying that you have a vision and everything works. And we to put in the action. Like we got to put in the effort. Your practice does appreciate effort. But I want to help you build a very successful business that's going to support both profitability and lifestyle because you don't have to have one without the other. So the Y stands for You. This is your vision. This is you.   And I think so many people skip over this and dive right into the numbers. And I purposely put it in this model. You are not going to say yes. You might say say S-E-Y. Guess what? You're not going to get everything that you want. You won't. Because if you focus on you first, like it took me forever to come up with this acronym. I kid you not. We're going to do the SPF, then we're going to do the this or that. I was like, what is it? Like, what order do these need to And then I was like, my gosh, it's YES. You Earnings Systems. Because we got to make sure that you are dialed in. And I tell everybody when you start with us as a new client.   We focus on what is your vision, personally and professionally, because your business has to have it. I don't care. Like I just had a dentist I was talking to yesterday and she's like, I want to work three days a week. And I'm like, great. Let's put it on the board. Math can math. That's why Earnings comes next. But if I don't know where our North Star is, if I don't know where we're going, then we're constantly changing our goals. Growth doesn't feel fulfilling. You're running around like a crazy operator rather than running the business. This is what's happening. Like I want you to own your business, not be owned by the business. So number one is you gotta define what success looks like for you.   Two, what do we look like? What's our one, three, ten year vision? We work with this, like I pull off of traction. What is it? Nothing is off the table. I don't care what it is. But you also have to realize that, like, hey, if I want to cut down to three days, are we also okay to make less money? Or is like, no, I want to work three days and make the same amount. Okay, well then maybe we need to change up our procedure match. I can't just be like, I want to make two million and work two days a week. Okay, great. Like you're doing bread and butter dentistry. Like math has to still math. So let's figure out how we can get there. Maybe you gotta get some side hustles, maybe gotta get some real estate. I don't know.   But hey, everything's there, nothing's off the table. We do need to make sure we back it up with realistic numbers. I remember my financial advisor gave me a crazy goal and I was like, there is no way. Like, I don't know how I'm ever gonna do it. Guess what? You chip away, we chip away. We have that as our north star, guiding star. Everything will come into place. So I want you to know that like this works. If you're if you don't have a vision and you're not anchored of where you're going, and then second to that, your team knowing where we're going.   All of this doesn't work. We are working for nothing. We're working for ego. We're working for stress. We're working for shoulds. We're working for what everybody else is posting about that they're doing. You're not working for what you actually need to do. And so I want you to know you is number one. You being fulfilled, you being taken care of, us knowing what you actually want it to be. And then I need that like tattooed on your shoulder. I need it to be put on a mirror. You've got to look at this freaking vision every single day because where we focus our attention, we're actually going to achieve it. So we can't build the right practice unless we actually know what we're building for. So   I need you, if you're gonna have a profitable practice, we gotta know where our clear vision is. What does profitable mean for you? Then we're gonna back it up and make sure that it's realistic. So I want you today, if you haven't, go on a little vision building adventure with me. Let's go right. What's your one year? What's your three year? What's your ten year? Ten years from now, how old are you gonna be? Wow, that feels like a moment. Just think in 10 years, it's gonna slip by. You either can actively create it or you can passively manage it.   Your choice, but I'd highly recommend that you create it. Step two is Earnings. I know, I know, you're waiting for me to get to this part. You just want to talk about this part. Don't skip step one. So Earnings. This is our profitability. So revenue alone isn't going to create your wealth. Profitability does. I don't care what your top line number is. I care what your take-home pay is. I really do. I want you to all your expenses, including paying you. I want you to have 20% left over after we pay tax and everything. Okay? So if we can figure that out, great. That's our ideal. That's our benchmark. That's what we're striving for.   So what happens oftentimes is people are so obsessed about not looking at the numbers so they don't look at anything, or they're so obsessed about like just only focusing on their production number. Like I had a doctor tell she's like, I'm at two million, but her collections are at one million. And I was like, yay, I gotta be the person that tells you you have a $1 million practice, not a two million. Hi, I'm Kiera. Nice to meet you. the reality is, like, I know you don't want to hear this.   But I also know that we've got to know what our true numbers are and what we're going towards. So once I know your vision, we then break it down. This is what we do with our clients. We break down what does that actually cost us? What does it cost us to run the business? What does it cost us for you to live? What is our debt services? What's the vision we're working towards? You're not gonna be there today. We know in 10 years you wanna be making three million, fantastic. We you know you wanna be at five million, fantastic. Break this down production-wise. Now it's easy for a practice because I can just plug and play, put that in there. But if we're building your personal life too, we need to know what that has. I will also say.   If your business can't support that, it's not your business's fault. You either need to readjust or produce more or have another side hobby that brings income. All of it's true, but we just we gotta make sure. I had a doctor once tell like, here, I need to make more. Well, they weren't willing, like 50% of the revenue coming through they were spending on personal items. Yeah, that practice couldn't support it. Like they their lifestyle was too expensive for the practice that they were doing, and they weren't willing to do more work, they weren't willing to bring in more patients, nothing. And I was like,   Okay, the math doesn't math. Like I know you want to spend this much, but like you're you're out of your budget. So and you're not willing to make a bigger budget, like we either can cut or got to produce more. It's one of the two things. or we gotta collect it. So when we look at this, I really want you to dive into knowing our numbers. We're talking our our net, not our gross production. What are our collections? You should be sitting at 98%. What's our overhead? Ideal, like I said, id

Kiera is joined by Sean Hamel, CEO of Art of Dental Marketing, to talk about … yup, dental marketing! Sean goes through why dentists struggle so much with messaging, what the right language for patient referrals is, how to make your practice stand out from that other practice 0.2 miles away, and a ton more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I have a very special friend back on the podcast, Sean Hamel. He and I actually worked together. He worked in Dental A Team for a hot minute. he is a CEO and founder of the Art of Dental Marketing. He is here to talk about all things of what works, what doesn't work. I shoot, guys, you guys know marketing is my Achilles heel. So I get really smart people in the industry to come on the podcast, talk about it. So, Sean, welcome to the show. How are you?   Sean Hamel (00:25) Thanks, Kiera. Good, thank you. It's always good to see you. I that was when when was the Dental A Team kinda overlap? That was like four or five years ago now. Crazy how time flies.   Kiera (00:33) I know. It   yeah, because we were doing an event. So I think it was like three, four years ago, and we were going through like   Sean Hamel (00:38) Mm-hmm.   Kiera (00:38) a rebrand and I still have emails from you and like campaigns that we worked on together. So it's fun   Sean Hamel (00:44) cool.   Kiera (00:44) that we've actually like worked together and now here we are. You work with all the dentists too. So yeah, but it's been a hot   Sean Hamel (00:49) Absolutely.   Kiera (00:50) minute and now here we are podcasting again together. So here we are.   Sean Hamel (00:54) Absolutely, always good to see you.   Kiera (00:56) Likewise. Okay, Sean, for those who don't know you, tell them a little bit of who Sean is, how did the Art of Dental Marketing come about, and w like why you we should even listen to you today. Like basically pitch yourself.   Sean Hamel (01:07) Absolutely.   I know there are so many dental marketers. It seems like every day there's like 20 or 30 more, probably more than that. But I started dental marketing about 15 years ago. I was purely accidental. I have a degree in marketing, graduated, and in doing that, got a job it for a dental financial services company basically running their marketing and was meeting a lot of doctors and making friendships with a lot of doctors.   And nobody tells you when you graduate school with a marketing degree, but you suddenly become all of your friends and family's like resident marketing expert. And   Kiera (01:41) Yeah.   Sean Hamel (01:41) so one of my buddies was graduating from dental school, and another buddy of mine was having some issues with SEO in his practice. And so they just kind of asked me some general questions. long story short, helped them choose some solutions, wasn't really amped about any of them, but you know, tried to help them make the best decision they could, and they didn't get great results.   and so I started helping them and using story-based marketing, which is a big piece of what makes ADM different, we were able to get them really solid results and they gave me a lot of grace to try things. And over the course of doing that, we were able to get really good results for them. And so in doing so, other dentists that were their peers and friends and things started asking, you know, who's doing your marketing? And so I started to get more and more clients. to now, you know, 14, 15 years later, we've worked with   hundreds and hundreds of doctors. and I travel all over the country speaking and teaching doctors about why dental marketing largely doesn't work. most of the time here it's a messaging problem. But why dental marketing doesn't work, why no matter who you seem to hire, you can't really get results. and also just kind of talking about why the industry is tilted in a way that it's not really set up for doctors to be successful and they have to kind of learn as they go how to vet, how to properly seek out help.   And then even how to monitor the people they're paying to help them to actively get results. Cause that seems to be the biggest issue for doctors is I hire seven marketing companies and nobody can   Kiera (03:10) Mm-hmm.   Sean Hamel (03:11) get results.   Kiera (03:12) Okay, so dig into it. You pitched me, well, I'll listen to you, Sean. Why doesn't cause selfishly for myself, I'm in the same boat. I'm like, my gosh. Sean, I looked at my numbers. This is gonna be fun for you. We decided to do a revamp. I've done this twice. So this is   Sean Hamel (03:25) Mm.   Kiera (03:26) year two that I'm trying this. Like I did it a couple of years ago and then I was like, forget that. That was a really that was a five hundred thousand dollar mistake. This year I'm up to a   Sean Hamel (03:32) Mm.   Kiera (03:32) seven hundred and fifty thousand dollar mistake. Like I don't know if it's   Sean Hamel (03:34) Mm.   Kiera (03:35) a full mistake, but it is like it just feels like this bottomless pit in marketing. It's like   Just keep pumping more money into it and hope and pray something works out. And then you re-pivot the strategy. And then it's like, okay, it's gonna take three more months to do it. So I am equally piqued. We have a great CRO on our team now that actually I've seen more results than I've ever seen. But it's like   Sean Hamel (03:52) Mm.   Kiera (03:54) that's hundreds of thousands of dollars. Like I just listed Kiera's dirty laundry on the podcast 500,000 two years ago, 750,000 this year. Our marketing expenses are up by 350,000. So enjoy that.   Sean Hamel (04:04) Mm-hmm.   Kiera (04:04) Like those are some big numbers. And so I don't want any of you dentists out there being like, my $50,000 marketing is expensive.   Listen, all y'all, I know what this is. And also don't tell me consulting's expensive. Like I've gone through, I paid 250,000 for Tony Robbins. Like there is expensive consulting and then there's also just like it is just a a good fee. So Sean, talk to us. Talk to me. Hi, I'm Kiera. I'm your I'm your client today. Tell us why doesn't marketing work and how do we actually get it fixed?   Sean Hamel (04:29) Well, and and d for dentists specifically, you know, dental is so unique. your issue with which is selling two dentists is a lot of times a messaging problem too. but as far as it relates to dental practices specifically, I talk about what I call the cycle of mediocrity, but it basically is what I've kind of drilled down over over a decade of doing this, working with hundreds of offices. And I talk about it in depth. I'll kind of give you the the cliff notes because it is a very   long conversation. I know we're trying to stay   Kiera (04:59) Okay.   Sean Hamel (05:00) like under 30 minutes here. But with dental practices, largely what happens is everybody looks the same. So if you pull up, you know, five dental practices, everybody looks the same. They say the same things. They're hiring marketing companies that are selling very like generic templated things. So everybody looks the same. It's all hyperclinical. You know, everybody's trying to to chase the same people.   While they're all looking the same. And so because of that, Kiera, the only way the marketers know how to differentiate the businesses is with discounts. So   Kiera (05:30) Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.   Sean Hamel (05:31) the the practices, because everybody's so close together and they're all saying the same stuff, they get locked in these price and proximity battles. So they're fighting over how can we how much can we outdiscount the practice next to us? They're being advised by industry leaders, industry leaders to do   Kiera (05:46) Mm-hmm.   Sean Hamel (05:47) new new patient specials constantly.   And then a lot of it too is just, hey, this practice is 0.7 miles from my house. This practice is 0.9 miles from my house.   So   Kiera (05:55) Totally.   Sean Hamel (05:56) you have you have those kind of decisions happening, but you get locked in price and proximity battles, which leads to what I have kind of coined as what I call the freebie trap. But the doctors get conditioned that they have to give away what they do in order to be successful.   Kiera (06:09) Totally.   Sean Hamel (06:09) It's not super helpful because that means you got to do more dentistry to make up for it. And when you're battling on price, that's all you're giving people. That's the only thing they have to make a decision off of.   But those price and proximity battles, getting in that freebie kind of mindset and constantly giving things away, that brings in non-desirable patients. And the non-desirable   Kiera (06:28) Right.   Sean Hamel (06:29) patients are the one everybody's complaining about, right? They take a chair time, they don't have credit, they're not going to accept treatment, they come in for the special and they leave. And so that puts a lot of pressure on the practice because dental practices, as you know, you have to see somebody repeated times before you really start monetizing that relationship. But dentistry is a relationship business.   And so the one and duns put a lot of stress on the practice, and that starts to cause burnout and frustration on the team and the doctor because they're constantly chasing this new patient number, but they're still not making any money. They're busy, but they're not profitable, which is a huge problem.   Kiera (07:01) Mm-hmm.   Sean Hamel (07:03) So from there, the burnout starts to set in and the doctor goes out and starts throwing up Hail Marys, hoping to get help, like you are, hoping to get help. I'm spending all this money, noth

How great would it be, having systems that sail smoothly no matter who is sick, who changes positions, who quits, who [insert out-of-the-blue incident here]? Tiff and Dana talk about what exactly to implement in your practice so that communication flows. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Tiffanie (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are so excited to be here with you today. I say it every single time. and I have Miss Dana here with me. And Dana and I have been podcasting together for what feels like an eternity at this point. It's been a long time. she is an OG with me at this point. And if you ask Kira what OG means, please ask her next time you see her in person. Say what does OG mean? and she will tell you it's oldie but goodie. And so that is our company.   lingo for OG at this point. And Dana, you are my girl. You know I love podcasting with you. We have done so many podcasts. We were actually just talking about fam here. Like how many times can we take these different perspectives of these similar topics? And I'm like, gosh, yes, I agree. And it's like we we talk about such similar things, but Dana, I do think you and I do a really great job. You kind of coax a different   side you and I both come from different angles in so many different ways. So if my point of that is if you're here today and you hear this topic, you hear what we have to say and you're like, gosh, I I think I need a little bit more, do a quick Google search. I call it a Google search. It's just a a search on our website. on the podcast section of our website, if you type in any of the keywords that you hear today, there's gonna be more podcasts that pop up. It's maybe I think I could say like similar content, but that even feels wrong.   their topics you guys that we have just poured into and poured so much information out into the world because we want you to have everything that we have in our brains in your pocket. So make sure if you feel like gosh I just needed a little bit more go search it or if you like these were fantastic and what else are they talking about? What does Tiff mean? Go search on our website TheDentalATeam.com there's a whole podcast section there's a little search bar there. Go do yourself a little search and you can find just hundreds of topics. So   Dana, thank you for being here with me today. Thank you for always going rounds with me. and for prepping ahead of time so that we can see kind of where we want to take this, even though who knows where it'll go, you know, it could just change on the drop of a dime. But how are you this morning, Dana?   DAT-Dana (02:11) Doing good. And I tip, I think that's my favorite part of podcasting with you. It's like we can come in with like best laid plans and then we just get to talking and it just starts to get natural and it goes where it needs to go. and you're right, while like maybe there's some similar topic in there, I do feel like there's always a new angle to it, there's always a new consideration in it. And so I love that you say, hey, if you want to deep dive, check out the other ones that are around the same top like topic point, because   It might not just be you and I, right? It might be you and someone else. It might be Kira that talks about it. And we all have just just different like skill sets and backgrounds that I think puts a little twist on everything. So I'm excited to be here with you.   Tiffanie (02:49) Yeah. I   totally agree. I love how you said that. And I agree. And honestly, in the morning I'm like, gosh, we had a podcast. And then as soon as we get here, I'm like, I just get to hang out with Dana for an hour. So this is kind of cool. I definitely need this time with you. So thank you for being here and thank you for always having a fresh perspective. for our listeners, if you've never met Dana, please go check.   Her out, come to the events, come see her in person, listen to all of her podcasts. Cause Dana, you really do have an incredible mind, and I love picking it. So I'm gonna pick your brain today. And marketing gives us some really cool topics, and and I love like we talked about they'll they like put a spin on different words and you know, similar topics, but it's stated differently. The titles it's titled something really cool and catchy, and I think speaks to the fact that we do have really   I mean, dental is like it's dental. Like how how exciting can we get here? You know? But we really do have exciting takes on so much stuff. And something we've been working on, our our doctor's only mastermind actually tomorrow is kind of a similar topic, Dana. You mentioned this that like what if the doctor's not there? So something our company's been working on with our clients internally, and then it's transitioning now into outpouring messages here on platforms like this is really prepping the business.   for when something changes, when maybe a doctor's out, and that could be vacation, that could be gosh, my doctor, when I was like, gosh, Dana, I think I was twenty maybe. I remember coming in after Thanksgiving. It was it was the Monday after Thanksgiving. And my doctor is like on a scooter, like those little like what you know, his knees up scooter. And I'm like, what happened? And he had an A T V accident over Thanksgiving break and he had   like broken his ankle and it ended up being this whole thing. He was on that scooter for like eight months 'cause he had have multiple surgeries. It got infected. And I remember standing there at t nineteen, twenty, however old I was, looking at him and going, What if that was your hand? Like I knew in that moment how like serious this could be. So I think we think about plan for your vacations, but what about all the things that we can't plan for? Illnesses, you know, we've got   hygienists that have kids that have school, you know, things that they have to attend or breaks. Like we've we've got a an industry that's full of a lot of moms and a and a lot of illnesses. I know I was sick last week because we had a kid come home with something, you know. So I think Dana, to your point of our of our conversation earlier, it's really like systems that keep   working when plans change, but sometimes it's not even just something falling off of the schedule. Sometimes it's that we're short staffed or without an entire doctor because something has happened. So Dana, when you when I we read that topic and you you looked at it, I said it earlier. What did you think of? If you had to prep a practice, a dot a client was like, gosh, things are changing or something changed, what would be your go-to method for helping them prepare   for systems that can withstand change.   DAT-Dana (05:59) Yeah.   Yeah. And I think that dentistry is still very and I love it. Some of my favorite offices, you know, I walk in and they're like, I I don't want to do dentistry without this assistant, right? Or I don't ever   Tiffanie (06:09) Yeah.   DAT-Dana (06:09) want to be in business without this, you know, office manager. And I think that dentistry still can be a little bit people dependent   Tiffanie (06:17) For sure.   DAT-Dana (06:17) versus system dependent. And I think we've had to talk about this a lot lately, because just a hiring climate.   a little bit of a hiring drought in some areas of dentistry and just in some areas of the country, it's been harder   Tiffanie (06:31) Yeah.   DAT-Dana (06:31) to I think hire and replace team members too. So I feel like getting practices to see that we have to have systems in place that no matter who is there, no matter how many team members are there, we can kind of pivot every day and and certain things continue to go on.   you know, especially like those patient experience things or the patient flow pieces and closing treatment, right? Those are things that have to go on, no matter how many people we have in the practice or or who is there or what the schedule looks like. And so I think that it's something we're having to work a lot with offices. And I think it's great to be able to have a platform like this to talk about how we do that.   Tiffanie (07:10) Yeah, I totally agree. You said, in there like case acceptance and filling the schedule essentially, right? And I something that that makes me think of is the importance of communication. Right. We we call it handoffs. Everyone says, you know, what's your handoff or how do we do a handoff? What is you what is the verbiage we should use with a handoff? And I think if we narrow it down into like the simple word of communicate, making sure that we're all speaking to each other, it's the biggest   space that leaves room for error and I have I have a practice and I love them dearly and that doctor he constantly is saying like how do we how do we mitigate the chaos? How do we mitigate the chaos every day? Why is it crazy? Why are there, you know, cases are missing and schedules falling apart and phones are ringing off the hook. People are calling in and I'm like, gosh, it's so simple, it's annoying.   Because we want it to be this grandiose, like difficult thing, but it's so simple, it's annoying. We just need to talk to each other more. We need to say what's in our our brain to one another and prep and plan together. If everyone knew that Joanna called out this morning and that the assistance team were short staffed, everyone could pick up the pieces in their area and help. But most of the time, I feel like the hygiene department doesn't even know.   that there's a dental assistant missing until sterile's backed up and they're like, What is going on? And they're like, Where's Joanna? Where has she   DAT-Dana (08:38) Mm.   Tiffanie (08:38) been all day? It's like three hours into the workday and the assistants are running ragged, or vice versa.

Practice success doesn't always equal personal life happiness. Kiera talks about the Yes Success Model, and how to align your business goals with your personal life goals, because they're allowed to complement each other (and should, frankly). She asks probing questions that'll get you thinking about alignment and finding the right motivating factors to keep going. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript:   Kiera (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And I am so excited because I love today's topic. And I hope that it just gives you a filtering and a process of how do I like actually make like growth decisions and life goals and like what is that long-term vision clarity? Like to me, it's such an empowering topic for you. And I'm so excited because I think that so many practice owners, when I meet them or we work with them, is they actually build a successful practice that they don't want. I've done it. I built a business that I didn't freaking want to work in. And I've said, like, hey, if I   If I actually like didn't have to work here and I didn't own this, would I keep working here? And if I can't say yes, then we might want to rework this. and honestly, growth without direction can leave you with more stress, more responsibility, and less freedom. And so today I just want to work on like sometimes bigger isn't always better. Sometimes like we just need to be better aligned is better. So bigger isn't always better. Doesn't mean bigger is wrong, but better aligned is where we're actually trying to go. So I want you guys just to know like a lot of owners feel stuck.   Even after they hit success. Like I had a podcast a while of like the empty millionaire. Like I thought like if I hit a million, everybody says this and I was like, Yeah, right, I'm not gonna be that person. No, I remember being like, So this is it, huh? Like, all right, we've hit a million.   Cool. Do I love my life? No. Like it was this wild thing. And so, like, why do we still feel stuck after hitting success? And how to create this vision that guides a lot of your decisions to where you have a filtering process of yes or no? Like I think about Willy Wonka and the golden egg, like yes, no, good, bad, like giving you kind of that framework to know. And then like what are some questions you should be asking before your next big move? So I think it's really fascinating because when we work with a client and we get on our first call, I'm not here to say like, what do you, what do you want to produce?   we call it the yes success model and the why stands for you. The number one thing I want to know is like what what's the life that you're trying to build? I say it often I will say it here. Your business should serve your life, not the other way around. And I've gotten it wrong for so many years where I've given up so much of my life to serve the business. I remember being like, I think back to when I first started the company and Jason and I would be hanging out and we were literally floating down the river. I kid you not, like we're rafting tubing, and I'm on my phone answering emails. And that was an aha moment for me of like here, I think you're doing this wrong.   Like you need to freaking shut it off and like be present. And I'm building like that's not the life I want. I don't want to be working seven days a week. I don't want to be psycho. I don't want to be stressed out of my mind. So like I think it's really powerful. Like I call it the yes success model. You are number one pillar. Then it's earnings and then it's systems and team development, not the other way around. If I mess up on you and your life and we are building a practice and you're not fulfilled at the end, we have failed. And that is my definition of it. So I don't want you guys chasing someone else's version of success.   I don't want you chasing more locations or operatories or production. I want you doing this because this lights you up and this is your vision and that not because you feel like that's what you should be doing. We're gonna stop shooting on ourselves. I have a practice, they produce about four million a year. They're at a 35% overhead, they work four days a week. People are like, you need another practice, and they're like, we don't want to. This is the life we want. And I think sometimes being that stalwart in your vision is really, really critical and pivotal. So today I just want you to like.   realize that vision planning, like I talk to offices all the time, if your team's not following, it's because you don't have a strong enough vision. If you're not happy in your life, it's because you don't have a strong enough vision of where you actually want to go. So I want you to really have these growth decisions that move you closer to the life you actually want, not further and further away from that. So number one, what are we gonna do? Hi, we're Dental A Team. I'm obsessed with you. I'm here to help you have the dreamiest life you could ever imagine. I love, love, love helping dentists and teams come together to live their best life.   And I really want to empower you, CEO dentist out there, the dentist who is the CEO of their life and their practice. I call it life and business on purpose. Like let's GSD together. So step one is let's define success beyond production. And for me, this is really hard. I remember there was a dentist I was talking to, and he's like, But Kiera, production is the only thing we can compare against. It's the only actual number. You're right. There is no number of like, what's my fulfillment measure today? Am I like 10%, 20%? There's nothing in there.   So it's really, really hard because sometimes we're like, well, my production number is the only thing that I compare with all the other dentists. But I have a dentist who's making a million a year, like he's producing a million a year, works three days a week, and loves his life. There is no way for me to say, like, what's his success measure? I can know what his production is and like, hey, I got an office over here doing 29 million. But we got to define our success beyond production. So production's a result, it's not a vision. So I really want you to have like   it's hard because like setting revenue goals without lifestyle goals is a miss. Saying yes to every opportunity is another miss. Feeling successful on paper but exhausted in reality, that's another miss. So we pivot it and sometimes I feel like this is the time where like pretend I'm your fairy godmother and I'm just gonna wave my magic wand for you. Like if you had no stressors, you didn't feel like anybody was judging you, no parents, no spouse, no family, no friends, no no, I don't know, like mean girl or mean guy sitting on your shoulder, how many days do you actually want to work?   What kind of dentistry do I actually love doing? When do I want to retire? Or like maybe scale back a few days? What about my family to look like? How much freedom do I actually want? Notice I didn't put in there any dollars in there because if we can focus on vision first, dollars come second. If I know what your vision is and what your life is, fantastic. We can go build. You guys, dentistry is untapped. It's freaking awesome. Like, so let's just build. Like, what does that look like? And you might realize, like, I don't know, Kiera. And so I was actually working with a friend this last weekend.   And he's like, Kiera, what do you do when you don't know where you want to go? And I was like, Well, step one is we got to have a little guiding star. Like, let's just do five or 10 years from today. What's your age and what do you want that to look like? You could go further and you could say, when I'm 90, what do I think I'd want to be doing right now? Like when Kiera's reliving her life at 90, sitting on her rocking chair with hot pink hair, like it's actually cutting candy. Pink, you're welcome. for that visual, like, what do I want my life to look like? So, whichever one's gonna work for you.   Sometimes a tenure for me, I just need like a little glowing light up on the hill. That's written in pencil. It doesn't have to be permanent. But what do I want that life to look like? And most people usually do it based on one of three things. It's either going to be a dollar amount, which is totally fine. It's going to be on a fulfillment, like what's going to drive you, or it's going to be on a purpose. So, like for me, massive impact. I drive so hard because I want to impact and serve every dang dentist out there. So share this podcast with somebody. Help me on my goal. Like, I'm obsessed with helping dentists have their best lives.   And so like that drives me literally in the middle of every vision board, unintentionally, it says massive impact. Like, what can I do that's gonna leave a stamp and a mark on so many people's lives? And so I built the podcast for free because it was a way for us to reach more people. I hope we brighten your day. You're welcome. Go leave us a review for it and tell more people about it so more people we can serve. Like genuinely, that's what it was. But that's like in the middle of my goal board. So for me, it's impact. Like numbers are super fun and numbers drive me hard. And I'm not here to say like numbers are wrong. I am highly numbers driven.   But like, what's the impact? That's gonna motivate me so much more. Like serving 500 dentists and then serving a thousand dentists. Like that to me is something of like a churn. I want to make 40 millionaires in my next lifetime. Like, how do I do that? Like the next decade of my life. So, like, I look at this, but also like, what is the life that I want? What's the trade-off? They can be hand in hand. So I really want you to look at like what is it? I told you about that office that I've got this 3.5, 35% overhe

It's Kiera and Britt on the pod together, with listeners getting a live look into how the Dental A-Team is thinking about the year's end — plus ideas as to what could be copied over to dental practices. There's a large emphasis on cost estimates and budgeting, including knowing when to fine-tune production or start cutting, and finding alignment as a team over those decisions. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today, wow, today feels like it should be written in the history books. Me and the Brittany Stone, No BS Britt coming on the podcast today. Britt, how you doing today?   Brittany (00:12) Good, was just thinking it's been a minute since I've been on the podcast.   Kiera (00:16) I know. I always message Britt when I need like certain topics. I'm like, hey, you want a podcast with me? And Britt's nice to say yes to me. I don't I don't bring Britt on as much as we used to. Britt doesn't actively take clients now. Britt hangs out in the background with me more often. So Britt, I think that that's like a win. I'm gonna say it's a win. Like Britt gets to be a little,   Brittany (00:36) I'll take it as a win.   Kiera (00:38) yeah. We work on some cool, crazy projects. We're working on a real fun one right now, getting ready for next year.   Britt, that spreadsheet's sexy. Spreadsheets are kind of my love language. So reviewed that   Brittany (00:48) Thank you.   Kiera (00:48) this last week and we're excited. There's some fun things coming up in the company for all future clients and our current clients. So Britt and I work behind the scenes, but yeah, No BS Britt. If you guys don't know her, she has been a consultant for quite a while. She has like three favorite clients that she kept when she decided to, you know, move along. And then she works in our operations in HR. And Britt is just a wealth of knowledge. She also's a hygienist. So   All things, but Britt and I decided we'd get on the podcast. AK I decided and asked Britt if she would join me is really how this shook out.   Brittany (01:16) Yeah   Kiera (01:20) we want to talk about like some of the things we're doing in Dental A Team for end of year planning. And I figured Britt and I, like these are our real everyday conversations, helping you guys plan and prepare for end of year. And Britt, maybe I'm a little psychotic on end of year planning, but I figured like let's kind of go through what we do together in our company, how we set up, and then hopefully again for offices you guys can be prepping for.   end of year. So that's my that's my plan for today, Britt. I hope you're on board with that.   Brittany (01:45) I mean, I like it. think our company sometimes has a little bit more, has a few more variables than like dental practice   Kiera (01:51) Yeah.   Brittany (01:52) end of year planning. think we'll just say that on the like psychotic comment, but dental   Kiera (01:58) Yeah.   Brittany (01:58) practices, not to say there aren't variables involved, but you know, cost of travel and stuff like that is real fun right now.   Kiera (02:07) I mean, seriously, our travel costs, we were going through all of our expenses this year and I was like, wow, we are up a lot. And a lot of them are just travel costs. Like I was shocked at how much travel has gone up. There's just a lot of things, right? Everybody's dealing with inflation. And so   Brittany (02:20) Mm-hmm.   Kiera (02:21) as we go through it, I think systematically Britt and I start planning our year around September time. So we'll be going through and we're gonna pull up all of our costs for last year. So we're gonna look to see.   We're gonna look at 2025 and then we're gonna run from 2026 from January till September. What is that? And then I don't know what the word is, Britt. Like when you just I think it's project out. That's the word I'm looking for. We're gonna project, yeah. Choose the word. We're   Brittany (02:43) Protect, forecast, choose your word.   Kiera (02:46) gonna project your forecast out how much we think we're gonna spend for the rest of the year. So that way we can get a good glimpse of what does everything look like? How does this work? What what are we actually doing? And then becomes my favorite part until I hate this part.   You then go   Brittany (02:59) Zzzzz   Kiera (03:00) to what we plan for next year. And so   Brittany (03:02) Mm-hmm.   Kiera (03:03) Literally there's a line item of like what's 2026? And then what do we think 2027 is? And man, Britt, we got our booties burned on some of the things we projected last year. Like we thought it was only gonna be 90,000 and it came in at like 120. So I definitely recommend looking at that. but also like Britt, what are some of the things you see for us and then also for offices? Like when we're projecting out for next year.   What are some of those costs to be planning in? Cause you've got your everyday ones. We're going need to impact for inflation. Like you said, like we're going to sell travels. Like we're going to have to need to boost that up. You still got merchant fees. You still have your rent. You still got these different pieces.   Brittany (03:35) Thank   Kiera (03:37) But like, what are some of the additional things that like you and I talk about in the business that I think a lot of practices might also be considering in their practices too?   Brittany (03:44) Yeah, I think that the steady things are the easier things, right, to anticipate. It's when you're wanting to go and do some fun stuff like, hey,   Kiera (03:52) Yeah.   Brittany (03:52) let's go buy this thing or let's, you know, implement lasers across hygiene and we're going to need to go and buy lasers for everybody or things like that where there's going to be a bigger cost, bigger expense, bigger investment or like, hey, we want to build out.   three ops, right? What does that mean? Does that also mean we're adding in more providers if we're building out those operatories? So some of those things that are one, bigger costs, two, there's opportunity involved. So like there should be some revenue involved with that, of course, if we're investing in those types of things, but being able to plan out both sides of them. So one, what's our investment? One is that investment hitting us? What's that going to look like? And two, right, then like   Part of the fun is like the, are we banking on being the result of that thing? So   Kiera (04:43) Yeah.   Brittany (04:44) if it's provider related in a dental practice, right? What does that mean for even our revenue, our production, if we're gonna be adding on a hygienist or adding on, you know, another doctor to the practice that we didn't have there before. If it's just   Kiera (04:58) Yeah.   Brittany (04:58) an expense, right? Then planning for that expense and how you're gonna go about paying for it, whether it's gonna be.   one lump sum that's going hit us or if we're going to finance something and then that bill is going to be coming to us every month and we're going to be paying it out.   Kiera (05:13) Yeah. And Brett, I think when you talk about that, like it is tricky. And I do think we have a bit more variable expenses. Like for us, it's like dental offices, you know, you got your dental assistant, hygienist. For us, we're like, shoot, when do we need to hire a consultant? Like, don't be too early,   Brittany (05:27) you   Kiera (05:27) don't be too late. What's their capacity that they can handle? so I do think our company does have a few more variables, but I also think, like you said, it's a okay, what is it going to cost? And then what is our projected income for next year or our revenue?   And I'm really excited because in our mastermind with our doctors coming person, this is mine and Britt's like little power project that we've been working on of like   Brittany (05:47) Thanks   Kiera (05:48) helping doctors see, like build in all the expenses that you want. Then let's see what we're gonna produce in how many days and what's your dollar per hour. And then it's like figuring out which levers we can push. And Britt, I think about you often of like, okay, do we need to produce more or do we need to cut more? Like which one are we going to be leveraging? And so when offices are looking at this, and even for us, like I love to have that wish list. Like I love to put it in of   I want to hire this and I want to do this. And like I think, and then when we get to the bottom of it and we're looking at our projected income, it's like, shoot. Now we get to go back through with like full blown   Brittany (06:16) So she's not very happy.   Kiera (06:18) razor and just cut and slice and dice. And hey, Britt, I'm just curious, how do you feel about company retreats on that budget line? Just curious how you feel. I know you just talked to an office about this the other day. It feels relevant, but how do you feel about company retreats?   Brittany (06:32) I think one, build those things in for what you want   Kiera (06:35) Ha ha ha.   Brittany (06:35) to do, what you want to plan to do. then plan wisely. Company retreats can get wild. I think we've all heard some stories. We have great teams, but sometimes we put up in an environment and in a condition and things happen and we have to deal with things we don't want to deal with when we're trying to have fun. yeah,   Kiera (06:51) Yeah.   Brittany (06:53) that's what I'll say on that topic.   I think that owners, this is a good practice of planning things out to be able to see, if I want to do all these things, right? I love my docs that like want to go and take all the courses and buy all the t

Dentistry is most important when a patient is in the practice. As soon as they leave, there are a million other parts of their life competing for priority. Tiff and Dana discuss how to talk about dental care with your patients so it doesn't get lost under the heap of everything else.  Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Tiffanie (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are back again to podcast with you. To yeah, I loved that Dana. Dana's got some excitement in her veins today. I think it's nice out. Honestly, it's nice out. I had I had to close this window the last podcast. That's what you saw me do. and then I have another window open and I'm in Phoenix. We don't open our windows often, and I've only got like probably thirty minutes left of this window being open.   DAT-Dana (00:27) Right.   Tiffanie (00:29) but it's energizing. I feel like   I just need the fresh air and and it's just beautiful out. So I can imagine Dana where you are if it's this beautiful here and then Brodie's in he's forty five minutes south. So he's in Tempe and he sent a picture and it was more beautiful and I'm like, gosh, go another hour and a half past that towards Dana. It's gotta be just gorgeous down there right now.   DAT-Dana (00:51) It is. I feel like though Phoenix can just be gorgeous and be gorgeous. Further south, and there's an as you know, Tiff, because you kind of grew up in this area.   Tiffanie (00:58) Mm-hmm.   DAT-Dana (01:00) if it is sunny and beautiful, then typically it's paired with wind, right? So I feel like my windows are never   Tiffanie (01:04) This is   DAT-Dana (01:06) open because even when in the temperature is beautiful enough to have them open, the wind is going and I don't want all   Tiffanie (01:12) yeah.   DAT-Dana (01:13) the desert dust you know, sitting in my living room. So   Tiffanie (01:17) I love   what you just said. I love it. So Brodie texted me a picture and I said, Gosh, that's prettier than here. I said, This is this weather is the only thing I miss about living in Sierra Vista. And what you just said, people say, Why did you move? Like the weather was the weather is better in Sierra Vista. It literally is. The temperatures   DAT-Dana (01:33) Yeah. Yes.   Tiffanie (01:35) are better. You get a better winter, you get better seasonality. Like it is just better. And people say, Well, why did you move? And I say, Because of the wind. I legitimately   90% moved because I couldn't you just can't be in it. It whips your hair, like it hurts my hair hitting my face as a child. I remember the pain of that and the tangles and brushing my hair out at the end of the day because I had to walk home from the bus. Like legitimately, Dana, the wind. I can't handle Southern Arizona winds. Yeah. Yeah.   DAT-Dana (02:12) Yep, yep, you   hit it. You hit it right on.   Tiffanie (02:15) Spent   my I spent my whole childhood there. I lived in Sierra Vista till I was what, twenty? I think I moved up here when I was twenty. I can't I can't do it. So yeah, I love that you said that. And everyone listening, you just got a nice little taste of the Arizona weather history there. It's never changed. It's still windy. So if you want wind, go down south. If you want really cool honestly, it's it's beautiful down there. So if you haven't visited Southern Arizona, meaning   Like Phoenix is cool too. Obviously Sedona. But if you haven't been south of Phoenix, Tucson has some really cool stuff. But then you get into like Saurita, where you are, and Senoida, there's like wine country, there's Tombstone, Isbe. Like there's a lot to do down there. And I discredit it and disvalue it 'cause I grew up in it. but it is really beautiful. And   on to dental. Yeah. Yeah.   DAT-Dana (03:08) Yeah, but my windows just stay closed. So I can look at   the beauty. I just Yep. Right. Yeah.   Tiffanie (03:13) My windows stay closed because it's too hot. So in Arizona we just don't open windows. Okay.   It's just stifling in our house all the time. It's fine. So on that note, dental. Dana, we get fed podcast topics. and then you and I, I love that you and I are just like, nah, we're not gonna do that one today. I don't I didn't like the other one. So today we we already talked about kind of   Prepping for changes and and systems that work in the midst of change. That was a a podcast we just recorded. So if you haven't heard that one, go back, find it after this one. You don't need it beforehand. But they kinda go I think they kinda go hand in hand because one change that we oftentimes don't prep for because we don't know it's coming, is accepted treatment still like falling off of a schedule. And I think that happens a lot. I have a lot of practices that are like,   It's full until the day before or two days before or gosh my hygiene schedule's full six months. I can't get ab get anybody in. But then the week of it's falling apart. So we're not here to talk about hygiene. There's plenty of those podcasts. Go search it. But we are going to talk about why accepted treatment still falls off of the schedule. And Dana, right before we started this podcast, you said something and I was like, Yep, another drop mic drop moment from Dana. She'll always give them to us.   I would love for you to repeat what you said right before we got on this podcast because I think that it's true and I think that's where we start.   DAT-Dana (04:38) Yeah. I I am known for my brutal honesty tips. So what I   Tiffanie (04:42) Ha ha   DAT-Dana (04:44) said before we got on is like treatment that falls up after the fact is typically for the same reasons that we hear patients give us that they don't schedule to begin with.   Tiffanie (04:53) Yes, yes. And I got excited about that because I believe that oftentimes we work so hard in like the sales side of dentistry that or not that we work so hard on the sales side of dentistry to get a yes that they're just like, okay, yes, fine, I'll schedule it. Like, well, what about this hurdle? What about this hurdle? And yes, I wanna work objections and I wanna I wanna get over hurdles.   But I think Dana, in what you said, you said the same, they they fall off the schedule for the same reason that people don't schedule. And I wonder if not every time, but if sometimes those patients who are falling off weren't actually a yes, they were a let me out of this office right now, right? Because I I've taken a lot of   Communication courses, a lot of relationship style courses. I've done a lot of emotional intelligence and just like communication stuff. And something that is tried and true in every aspect of anything that I've done extracurricularly is the relationship comes first. And   Knowing   the person, knowing the why, knowing the reason, and speaking to that and overcoming, helping someone overcome an issue or a problem and seeing better on the other side is the most important factor. And oftentimes in our objections and our conversations of our hurdles, I wonder if that aspect of the communication gets missed because it's more about checking check boxes.   than it is about investing in the person. And maybe I'm being wild, but when you said that, that's where my brain went and I was like, gosh, it's the relationships. Dana, what are you what's your perspective? What are you seeing on your side?   DAT-Dana (06:47) Yeah, I 100% agree with you. And I feel like when because we hear it all the time when we go into park, well, it falls out because life happens, right? Well, you're right.   Tiffanie (06:55) Yeah.   DAT-Dana (06:56) Life is going to happen. and typically we will also kind of say that like dentistry is most important when the patient is in the office. So then when life happens, right, it becomes less and less important. And I think that you're absolutely right. And to me, it tells me that like   I actually didn't really listen and get to the bottom of what actually was holding the patient back or what their no actually was. And so yes, I got a yes, which great, but I didn't actually get a yes that meant I'm fully committed, I fully understand, I'm fully ready to go. and so then that's kind of why we see it fall off. And I feel like   The biggest thing is life is going to happen for your patients when they leave the practice. So if they don't know where, when, how to prioritize the dentistry that you are talking about with them in life happening, then we didn't get it right.   Right, because life is gonna happen and I need to know that if my dog chews 35 Legos, like she's been doing every week and has to have an emergency vet visit, right? That   Tiffanie (08:00) Yep.   DAT-Dana (08:01) like I know where my dentistry needs to fall in the spectrum of the things of my dog eating 35 Legos, right? Do I need   Tiffanie (08:08) Yeah.   DAT-Dana (08:08) that crown or does the dog need to so life happens, absolutely.   Tiffanie (08:12) Yeah.   DAT-Dana (08:13) But I think our biggest tool is   treatment coordinators or people that talk about treatment or even the dentists, right? Tre doing the treatment planning in the back is they need to know where to prioritize the dental work that needs done with the life things that are going to happen. And I think when we just get that artificial yes, that didn't happen.   Because they   Tiffanie (08:34) Yeah.   DAT-Dana (08:34) left and something came up in their life, or they left and were just like, I do it all the time. I go to Target, I put all these things in my cart, and as I'm walking up to the thing, I'm like, I don't really need that. Or   Tiffanie (08:44) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.   DAT-Dana (08:46) you know what? I don't, I don't really need my lips moisturized. That chapstick can go. Right. An

Your key performance indicators do not have to be intimidating. In fact, with the correct frame of mind, they tell you exactly what's going on in your practice! Kiera shares the smart way to utilize KPIs, including: Looking for patterns, not just numbers Finding the question in each KPI Understanding KPIs are team-wide, not just for the owner Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera, and I hope you're excited because I'm gonna talk to you about KPIs and whether you're excited about it or not, you're gonna listen to KPIs because KPIs are the vital of your practice and your KPIs are really telling you a lot more, just like your vitals on your body are probably telling you a lot more than you think they are. I have been getting and falling in love with weight training, and I had a client shout out to her. She was like, Kiera, you need a new passion to become obsessed with, and I think weight training could be there.   But with my history, I was anorexic for a lot of my life. And thankfully that part of my life I think is like done and over. And I love food. And so with weight training, my coach was like, you've got to track in and you gotta weigh in. So it's weighing in every day, doing your measurements, and then doing macros. And for a girl who is terrified of that, because a skill for me and eating food, like a lot of food.   was like no goes for a lot of years in my life. And what I found though is she was like, Kiera, you're just tracking these because they're telling you information like the food you ate yesterday, or are you like coming up on your menstrual cycle where you're bloated and you're holding more water? it's been fascinating. And I've been tracking for almost a year now. So like huge win. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sure you're all cheering for me. and if you're not, I appreciate the cheers. but what I realized is like,   It's just data and it's telling me information. And I re bring that up because I believe that this was what our KPIs are too. The KPIs are just data to tell us if something's working, if it's not working. I'm obsessed with tracking my metrics. Like there was a while that I was weight training and I wouldn't track what my weight was. And I never was getting stronger because like it's like, I think I was at like 10 pounds last time, versus hey, last time you were at 10 pounds, we're gonna start you at 10 on your warm-up and we're going up to 12. And now I have a really like strict UR trainer.   Who watches my metrics, watches the pieces, and then adjusts accordingly. I am up to PRs that I've never been hitting, but it was because I actually use the data, not just track the data, to make better decisions. And that's what your KPIs are. So I just want you to know that like look at your KPIs to look for the right messages because we're only looking to see if we won or lost most of the time with KPIs. But using these to diagnose problems before they become expensive to me is where your KPIs really start to become impactful. Similar to like, wait.   Right. Like we're trying to add and bulk up my calories. Like I came in at a lower calorie, no shock to anybody. but for us, it's like, okay, well, for me also, how do I know I can add this much food in? Like, guys, so much protein. If you have protein tips, please email me. Be a protein buddy out there. I am so tired of eating cottage cheese, chicken, fair life shakes, cottage cheese. Like my main thing was like cottage cheese, wheat checks, gr raspberries, and peanut butter.   I have eaten Built Bars, like you name it, protein powder. I shout out to Ballerina Farms. That's my favorite one. I've made an Orange Julius with vanilla protein powder. Like you guys, to get that much protein has been so hard. But I also know if I don't get enough protein and I'm lifting, I'm not gonna get my the the gains and the strength that I'm actually going for. And this is to make Kiera, 95-year-old Kiera, to be freaking ripped. I wanna be like running and beating your 20-year-old son or daughter. Like that's what I want to be doing. So   But if I'm not looking at this, I'm not diagnosing these problems. So like we're adding more food food, but like we got to watch to make sure the measurements aren't changing and we're not adding it too quickly or not. So it's this whole piece. Same thing with your KPI. So I hope that analogy was there. I hope that, and hey, if you want to talk to me about like protein or weight training, hi, I would love to talk to you because I was like rookie girl who didn't even know how to lift going into it, wasn't like a bodybuilding competition. There's really, I don't know how to explain it.   But there was this incredible photographer from Spain who does physique photo shoots. And that was like a goal I worked towards. And to be able to have that to weigh in, to do a bulk and a cut, to just like be able to turn my body into this incredible machine and see how I can fuel her. Hey, if you want to talk about that, like hey, maybe that's another podcast of like, but happy to chat with anybody and just know, like, it's really incredible. Also, exhaust the body, tame the mind. Shout out to Dan Martell.   It really has also made me a more powerful CEO and to navigate some of the hardest times in the business because I've been able to have that mental strength and support by working out. So total tangent, but like let's get back into KPIs because KPIs really truly are so helpful for you. It's the first thing that's going to work with you. We have a KPI dashboard for all of our clients. We use the analytics with all of our clients because this will tell you before there's truly a problem. And we can watch trends instead of being like, it was an off month or I feel this way. No more, I feels. It's either I'm gaining.   My weight, like and it's muscle, and I'm building muscle, or I'm just eating nonsense over here. Like it's been really fascinating. So I want you to know this, and we're gonna talk to you guys about like what your KPIs are really trying to tell you. So, as I mentioned, step one is looking for patterns, not just numbers. So, usually like we have a book of business trend for all of our consultants. So we're watching certain KPIs on every single practice, all hundreds of clients that we have, we're watching it.   And we look at kind of like a three-month trail. So I want to see how are these clients doing? How are they doing compared to last year? Because that's going to tell us the whole story. Looking at it just monthly isn't really going to tell you a lot. Just like me tracking my metrics every single day. Well, it's not really going to tell me a lot. But looking at it over the course of time, I'm going to be able to see, okay, when my like as a female, when girls go on their period, guess what? They actually increase their weight because our hormones shift. So then I'm going to be able to start to see. I can actually start to tell without even looking at a calendar.   Which men, I don't know. My husband's like, how do you just not know these dates, Kiera? And I'm like, listen, and all the ladies are giggling, I don't freaking know when this thing's gonna come. It's not like an alarm clock on the 30th of the month that shows up, gentlemen. Okay. So for a female for us to be able to track because of our metrics going up, I'm able to tell when my period's coming much better than I used to be able to predict it because I'm actually watching and trailing that. But I've been tracking it for multiple months. So now I can see the pattern of what's going to happen. So with that.   A lot of men are also giggling, like, well, Kiera, I could tell you beyond just weight. It's probably your mood shifts. Hey, we women are emotional creatures, and I'm okay with that. All right. I hope you guys just enjoyed my like rant between men and women. And I hope you guys all got a good giggle because I did. But back to KPIs, I'm getting tangenty on you all. A single month's not really going to tell us the whole picture. We've got to look at this of like, cause you can have high production, low production. I look in January. It's really embarrassing when I'm showing a new client like an example of a book of business and showing them like,   How this client's trending. January always usually has a low collection. And I know that because December is usually a lower month, which usually means my January is a lower collection. It happens almost on every single practice. So you go down the line, all those buckets for us of every client usually is red on their collection compared to their production. Usually they're producing X amount, they're collecting, but their December is usually two weeks, sometimes three if we're lucky. But that tends to happen. So if I'm saying, like, my gosh, those collections are down.   Well, no, I need to look over this. Or if we're panicking because we have a slow week, everything's down. No, but we need to figure out like how we can actually predict this, how we can measure it. So what I like to do, and this is what our practices are doing, we're looking over several months. So usually like a quarter. Also, I'm gonna look annually because sometimes it's cyclical. Anybody have a September or an ominous October or a dead December? You're welcome. because it's either a September or an ominous October.   And some of my practices just have a genuine dead December. Like my practice in Hawaii, they must aloha over there. It is dead, dead, dead December. So we have to plan and prepare for that because I know it's just gonna be dead. So we're gonna look at this and we're gonna look at the trends over several months. We're also gonna look at cyclical, what's happening annually, or even like month over month, what's going on and w

Guest episode! Kiera is joined by Paul Edwards, CEO and co-founder of CEDR HR Solutions, which provides human resource support especially for dental practices. They go through a rapid fire of topics, such as coaching and accountability, worker classification, documentation and evidence (including AI!), and reporting policies. Visit CEDRSolutions.com to learn more about Paul.  Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today is a great day. I love my episodes with Paul. Paul is incredible. He is the owner and founder of CEDR. And guess what? He is somebody that I get to just pick his brain about all things HR every time he comes on the podcast. So, Paul, welcome to the show today. How are you?   His Paulness (00:19) very good and I'm gonna take that introduction, that part where you said Paul is incredible. I'm gonna turn it into my ringtone and I'm gonna be insufferable for the rest of the year with that.   Kiera (00:25) Yeah.   His Paulness (00:27) So thank you for that.   Kiera (00:29) You're welcome. I it's funny because every time people meet you and they know you're an HR, they're like, he's actually really funny and he's a good time. And he used to play in a band. And I'm like, yeah, he makes HR not feel as scary. But every time, every time I leave, everyone's like, my gosh, he scared me to death, which is good. Like I think it's a good healthy, like you're super approachable, super nice, but also like whip us into shape of like do this, don't do that. And I appreciate you continually like guiding us along the right path.   His Paulness (00:55) There's   a lot of moving parts when you're an employer. So it all feels a little bit scary. 'Cause soon as you get figure one thing out, then there's the next thing. You're like, no, I'm doing that wrong or or I could do it better or whatever. So yeah, you know, we try   Kiera (01:07) Yeah.   His Paulness (01:08) to break this down so it's understandable.   Kiera (01:11) Which and I appreciate. And if you guys are not subscribed to his newsletter, he's got the best newsletter out there. Like I think you guys do an incredible job. So, Paul, if they're not, how do they get connected to your guys' newsletter? 'Cause that's one of my favorite things about you guys.   His Paulness (01:21) Well, I think what you want to do is just go to the website and search for almost any form on there, but there are education forms on the website. So just go to the website and join what we kind of refer to as HR Base Camp. So if you think about base camp as a place you come back to when you're on a big hike, well, you're on a big hike as an employer. And so we are constantly sending out helpful stuff, you know, two or three times a month. We send out some pretty cool stuff to all of our base campers.   That'll get you also an email that invites you to join the Facebook group, which is kinda cool 'cause you're in there with just managers and owners. and you know, it's about ten, I don't know, nine thousand people in there, something like that. So, yeah, that's the way to go there. you know, you can also subscribe to my podcast, which is what the hell just happened and we cover a lot of topics there that that are kinda fun, you know. So   Kiera (02:12) I love it. Okay. I want to just get that right in at the beginning because you guys truly he's got the best newsletter, got an incredible podcast, and I think this is the stuff that keeps business owners up at night. So let's like not have that happen anymore. So, Paul, we're gonna just like rapid fire. There's   His Paulness (02:27) Okay.   Kiera (02:27) a few topics, and then I know you've got some case studies for us as well. So, and if you guys don't know Paul, CEDR, they are one of the top dental HR companies out there. most of our clients use them. He is one of our   I do not bring a lot of people in to speak to our private groups. And Paul is one of the people that I have hand selected to come in and speak to all of our dentists in a very intimate that's not on the podcast. So it's like no recording, it doesn't get shared. He comes in and speaks to them. So, Paul, I'm excited for today. This is stuff that we'll talk publicly, but let's talk about some of these items. Coaching and accountability. I'm sure we're all doing it wrong. I'm sure I've been coaching and telling people to do this. So tell us what we can and can't do when it comes to coaching and accountability.   His Paulness (03:08) you know, the thing about coaching accountability is that it starts to feel like it starts to feel like something that's punitive, like consequences. And and when it goes into that realm, it's really hard to get somebody to listen. I I I don't know about you, but when someone starts to tell me what I'm doing wrong and that's what the focus is, I get defensive. And that's just human nature. So when we t when we talk about coaching and accountability, especially with Dennis, and I know that you're gonna I think you're gonna agree with me.   I while there are exceptions to the rule, and probably many of them, overwhelmingly I find that dentists do not want to have difficult conversations with their employees. They kind of avoid it. That I mean it's it's about 50% of the reason they get office managers because they're like, I want to have these conversations. I can get someone else can do it. Here's the thing that   Kiera (03:55) Yeah.   His Paulness (03:56) I want to say. Yes, sometimes it ends up where you have to have a really serious conversation with someone. but the   Better way to go about this is for you or you and your manager when you hire someone is to set the expectation with the employee, I mean literally during onboarding, that they are going to receive feedback from you, both positive and sometimes it might feel a little negative, because you're making small corrections. So if you get in the practice of making small corrections as you go forward, you don't you you have far fewer of those big conversations with someone.   And then the the ones that are frustrating, I mean the issues that you're facing with an employee, also become easier because when we're looking at someone who's late all the time, and you know, in a practice with you know, we ha always have just the right amount of employees. We never have a I don't know about you, but I never have an excessive amount of employees around, where everybody's important, you just start leaving no quarter for being late all the time.   you really have to say something about look when you're even when you're only five minutes late in the morning and you tell them what the issue is, you tell them what the impact is, you explain their role in a very positive way so that you can say, Look, when you are late, we are missing you. Not you need to be here on time because when you're on time, bad things happen. And if you don't start being on time, bad   Kiera (05:19) Mm-hmm.   His Paulness (05:20) things are gonna happen to you. If you start with trying to enroll them in the idea that they're playing an important role.   you know, part of the reason I think for goal setting is that you get to say, how are we going to get to the goal if this behavior continues? So I just want to give everybody this reminder that coaching is coaching and it doesn't always have to be corrective and it needs to you if you set an expectation and then you execute on it, you're gonna get a lot better outcomes with people when you bring them on board. And and the other the other end of coaching should always be.   Can you do that? And do you need anything else from me? Like is is is the issue here me? Do we need to give you more training? What can we do to help you get there? So don't forget where that's appropriate, you'll always want to insert that in.   Kiera (06:08) I think Paul on that just like piggyback, what do you do when you've had that conversation like four times? Like, Perry, we've had this, we've had this, we've had this, like, I miss you at Morning Huddle. We need to be at what   His Paulness (06:20) I missed you.   Kiera (06:21) point, at what point is it not like cute? It's like the I feel like it's the child that keeps throwing the rock and mom's like, Okay, let's not throw the rock, like it's gonna break a window. When   His Paulness (06:28) Yep. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Yeah.   Kiera (06:31) do I actually like do something about it?   His Paulness (06:34) As my mom would say, when do we get to snatch a knot in him? That's what I I was just with my mom. She's eighty eight years   Kiera (06:37) Ha ha ha.   His Paulness (06:39) old right now. I she actually said, Son, don't make me snatch a knot in you. 'Cause I like to take her out in public, embarrass her now, and pick on her. but anyway,   Kiera (06:46) Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.   His Paulness (06:51) look first things first, great question. I I would do wanna say that after you've had the same repetitive convert conversation with someone   After the second or third time, especially if it's in close proximity in time, you know, you've already talked to them two weeks ago about something and they're doing it again or not doing it. you also want to make sure that you're making little notes in their file. That's very important. and what I found is is that if you don't hold someone to the standard, right? The standard that you're looking for, I I you're they're never going to improve.   And if they're not improving, then maybe they're not the right fit for your company. And the sooner that you figure that out for them and for you, the better. And so if I'm in my third or fourth time within a month about the same thing, I'm sitting down and having a much more serious co