Dental A Team Podcast

When it comes to assessing practice success, understanding various returns on investment is critical. Kiera and Kristy explain what the Dental A-Team is looking for when it comes to understanding the success (or lack thereof) of various investments. They specifically touch on the power of five different KPIs that'll keep your practice in line. 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 it's the KK podcast. Kiera and Kristy hanging out today. Kristy, how you doing today?   DAT Kristy (00:10) Good, it's a good day.   Kiera Dent (00:12) It's a great day. you like, I feel like I want to like KK. I mean, it's not, it's only two K's everybody listening, but I feel like it's like the Kit Kat. I don't know. It feels kind of like that between you and me. don't know why, but yeah, double the, or we could be like double mint, like double the flavor, double the fun. It's Kieran Kristy on the pod. Like there's just the two of us cause there's no other K names in the consultant world. It's just Kieran Kristy. So I mean, we got   DAT Kristy (00:36) That's right.   Kari and Kristy, you got it.   Kiera Dent (00:40) Kiera and Dana, so that could be my initials, cute. Then there's Kiera and Trish, but there's Trish and Tiffanie. Then there's Kiera and Brittany, no BS, Britt, she's on her own realm. And then we've got Monica. So, see, it's the two Ks, it's the double the, like, we're just gonna have fun here. Like, you get two of us, two brilliant brains. And believe it or not, Kristy and I actually might just be rivaling for like some of the biggest gains this quarter, so.   DAT Kristy (00:55) Yes, it does.   Kiera Dent (01:07) ⁓ not that we're here just for gains on clients, but Kristy does give me a run for my money, which all the consultants do. And Kristy's just like, she's, she's coming on hot this, this quarter. So I thought it'd be really fun, Kristy, for us to kind of dig into. Like either quarterly or twice a year annual reviews that we kind of do with clients and how you assess it. And we show the ROI that clients are getting, just cause I think it's important for clients to see like, what should you be assessing in your practice quarterly or two times a year?   How's the practice going? And Kristy, I think you're really, really strong in this. And I think you're really talented at looking at the practice and about their numbers and about, like, you love that. You and I will geek about numbers all day long, which is why it's the KK club, the KitKat club. Like we're here for the numbers. We're here for the fun. ⁓ But yeah, Kristy, kind of take it away of how do you set this up? What do you look at with clients when you're assessing their practices? Because always client style is like, I want ROI on consulting. And you do like,   amazing job at showing that ROI. So kind of take it away of what do we look at? How do we determine ROI? And I know this is your jam. This is what you love to do.   DAT Kristy (02:15) I love it. You're right. I do. You know, we all.   Kiera Dent (02:18) Do hear that little   giggle? I hope everybody heard that. Like that's Kristy's like. Kristy lives for this stuff and it makes me so happy because I do too. Like it's fun. It's fun to get the gains.   DAT Kristy (02:28) Yeah,   absolutely. Well, you and I have talked about this before. So many doctors just look   their bank account to see if they're on track or off track. And it's such a false sense of security looking at or lack of security, one of the two. with that being said, ⁓ there truly is like five   Kiera Dent (02:36) you   Mm-hmm.   DAT Kristy (02:48) KPIs that we're going to look at. And a couple of them are lag measures. A couple of them are lead measures.   ⁓ first view would be production net production collections. Yeah.   Kiera Dent (03:01) Yeah, don't even get into that gross. We don't want gains that are fake all y'all, okay? Like get   out. ⁓ Jason and I were talking the other day about guys, there's this, okay, Kristy, I'm gonna go on Tanger for a second. There's this really attractive actor on this show we're watching and I'm like, truly I was so disappointed when they kind of cut him from a couple episodes. I was like, no, she's gotta get back together with this guy because he's so good looking. And my husband and I, we look, because he looks pretty short.   DAT Kristy (03:13) you   Kiera Dent (03:28) So I like scoped him and I was like, how tall is this guy? And he says he's six foot and Jason's like, there's no way he's six foot. He's like, but do you ever hear some guy come in and they're like, yeah, I'm like 5'11". He's like, no, they all push them to the six foot. And I feel like that's what gross production is. It's like all of us are like, yeah, like I'm basically six foot. Yeah, I'm basically like a millionaire. Yeah, I'm basically there. Like, so we're talking, no, get out. We're here for like actual gains that you're actually getting net production.   my little side tangent, it's okay. It's okay if you're 5'10". It's okay if you're 5'9". It's okay if you're 5'11". We in production want to know the real number that we can actually collect, not the artificial one that makes you feel good when you're chatting with friends. You can fluff your height, but don't fluff your production.   DAT Kristy (04:15) love that 100%. So we got the net production and then the collections,   Kiera Dent (04:16) you   DAT Kristy (04:22) dollar for dollar percentage. Obviously we want them to be 98 % or higher. And then on the flip side, where are we diagnosing? What's our case acceptance? And so many people just look at the percent of case acceptance, but I also want to look at the dollars of what you're diagnosing because is it enough to reach your goal?   you know, where's your profit point at and what do we need to hit? Because we can celebrate 100 % case acceptance, which I don't think anybody ever has 100%, but you know, if you're getting 50 % case acceptance, which is still a very good percentage, 50 % of what? If we need to hit 150 every month and we're only hitting 100, it's not enough to get us there. So those would be the main five KPIs that   ⁓ tell us the health of your practice, right? And go ahead, care.   Kiera Dent (05:18) I   was gonna say, and Kristy, as you said that, diagnosing, don't think people realize is as important as it is. For whatever goal you wanna hit, there's a industry standard that you need to diagnose three times what you wanna produce. So if you wanna produce 100 grand, you need to be diagnosing 300,000 minimum to be able to get there, and you better hope you've got a great treatment coordinator who can close. And this is actually like...   I'm gonna like give a little secret away that we'll see if people are smart enough to pick up on in future years. This is the number one thing I actually look for in a consultant. I look to see, do an interview, we give them some stats and if a consultant cannot pick up this practice like without fail, they come in and they wanna talk block scheduling, they wanna talk other things. But I need a consultant to be able to see that a lot of times the reason a practice is not hitting their goals is due to a lack of diagnosis. And another reason we do that is because   Kristy and I are not dentists and we're not here to tell you how to diagnose. We're just here to help you see that based on industry standards and what you should be diagnosing of a healthy practice. If you're not getting enough diagnosis and doctors, you've got to hear this. If you are not diagnosing enough, this is a doctor issue and we're not saying to overdiagnose, but you have to diagnose enough. If you're not diagnosing enough and there's not enough treatment coming through, your practice will not grow. And that's not your team's fault. That's a you problem.   And so making sure that you, your hygienist, you use AI, but Kristy, I'm so glad you brought that up because production collections are always easy. But what impacts that, like you said, is the diagnosis, then the case acceptance, the new patients. And that's where it says lead and lag. Like everybody's looking at the lag of production collection, but it's like, what did we do to get there? And Kristy, I love that you bring these five things up every single quarter, every single, like twice a year with your clients, because people don't realize your bank account is a lag measure.   of what you've been doing in the practice. And then like another one is your overhead and what are you spending? Because if those things are in check, but we're spending everything we're making, we're not saving for taxes. Well, yeah, that's a real fun moment. Your bank account's really gonna look bleak, even if everything's working in the practice. So I really hope people take note because it's such a good thing for people to be aware of.   DAT Kristy (07:09) .   Absolutely. to that point, Kiera, like so many people think if that number isn't where they want it, let's go get more new patients. And then they want to spend more money on more new patients. And nine times out of 10, this is exciting time of the year because we're halfway through the year. Take a look at what you did treatment plan. I mean, I see a lot of practices, you know, let's for easy math, they're diagnosing a million dollars and we've closed 500,000. Holy cow. Even if you captured, you know,   percent of that difference like what would that mean to your bottom line and this is a perfect time to take a step back and go my gosh we have five months left in the year what would that look like break it down chunk it down to simple   pieces that your team can digest and you guys have fun with it. It's all about getting patients healthier. Let's face it, you're not diagnosing things patients don't need. So let's go get it. Let's get our patients healthy

Revamping your financials is as easy as … Kiera shows off her savvy financial skills by sharing what it takes to know what's being spent in your practice. Her spreadsheet tips will answer such questions as: What can be cut? How can you make sure your overhead is in check? What do you need to produce? And much more. Want a sample spreadsheet to get started? Email hello@thedentalateam.com.  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 I hope you're just having an amazing day. Like a great, great, great, incredible day. ⁓ just, today's topic is one that makes me excited and it's so dry and boring, ⁓ but I love it. And I'm like, that's probably a buzzkill for the podcast, but you know me, one of my core values is fun. And Dana, shout out to Dana, DanyDane over there.   ⁓ She gave me one of the best compliments. We do a thing on Wednesdays called core value shout out in our company. And I will tell you if you do not have this in your company, I would strongly advise you do this. What we do is every single Wednesday, our company goes and our whole team says that this is our favorite. You guys, we have gone from a very small team to a much larger team and we still do this. So just know small teams, big teams, it is doable and it is very   relevant and very essential. And I think it just goes so well. I am okay to take a little bit longer on this morning huddle because of how good it is. so core value shout out is where we just randomly will pick somebody and then it's popcorn after that. So they'll choose the next person. So for example, we would start and I would say, okay, Shelbi starting today and everybody chooses somebody on the team and they highlight them for a core value and it has to be a core value. It has to be something specific. And so Dana gave me one of the greatest compliments.   She said, Kiera, she said she wanted to give me the core value of fun, because fun is really one of our core values. And she said, I want to give it to you for fun, because she said a lot of times topics that are so hard ⁓ or things that people wouldn't necessarily find fun. She said, you just know how to sprinkle the fun and the confetti and the glitter and make things that are hard or something that teens wouldn't want to do or doctors wouldn't want to do.   you make them really fun. And honestly, that has stuck with me. It is a few days later since she gave me that compliment and I'm still remembering it. So not only is core value shout out day amazing, it also helps you just enjoy and to have like, to be happier. ⁓ It also infuses core values into your company. And I'm excited and grateful that I'm able to bring fun things to the podcast, a dry topic. I hope I've teed this up enough to where you're excited about it.   But this is, think, the discipline side of business of owning a dental practice that you need to do. And this is really, think, for office managers or billers and doctors. And this is something that I think will give you so much confidence. it came actually from our doctor mastermind. We have ⁓ a private doctor only mastermind that we run every single month. It's a virtual one. And then we do an in-person one ⁓ that's more for doctor and leadership teams. But our monthly one, call it Think Tank, and it's on the first Tuesday of every month. And a doctor was saying, she's like,   I just don't know where to cut. I said, send me your PNL and tips like, and she's going to want your credit card statement and she's going to want all your stuff. And while yes, I am obsessive on this. have helped family members. I've helped offices. I've helped myself. something that I will like toot my own horn on it. I actually think I'm very talented with money, with saving, with figuring out solutions and helping people understand where you can cut. This podcast also came about because this morning on my, ⁓ Shelbi Britt and I were meeting and we were literally going through.   our finances to see where could we maybe squeeze the tube of toothpaste a little bit more, where could we maybe change a few things. And I think that that's just so relevant and so helpful. And so this is something I do in my day in day out life. It's something that I think for you to go from chaos and lack of financial clarity to confidence is something that I really want to just bring to the table today on the podcast. If you're new to Dental A team, welcome. We are obsessed about helping you have your best life and ⁓ doing it in a fun, easy way through dentistry. And so   helping you with our yes model. So you as a person getting your life, your vision, all of that in place, then moving into earnings. So ⁓ financially, that's the piece today. And then using those financial pieces. So your analytics, your PNL, your overhead to also help us figure out what systems and team development need to go into place to make sure you have this thriving practice. Because honestly, I believe that being successful, being a successful dental practice does not have to be hard and it can actually be easy. So that's what we're here for today. ⁓ With that.   So today it's going to be like, how do you actually like figure out your costs? So I did this a long time ago and then I like met a lot of really smart financial people. I'm not a financial advisor. I will throw that out there. So just make sure you talk to them and you have your, ⁓ like you chat with them of what's best for your state, but I will teach you how I do it. This is annoying. It's a little cumbersome, but people love to hear like, how do you actually do this? I'm always like, how do people get like jacked? Like how do they work out? Like.   me like what time do you work out like what do you do for your nutrition and just so I understand the full landscape and then I'm going to pick and choose of what's going to work well for me that I'll actually implement so hopefully that will be effective for you today as well.   So this is what we do. I have a spreadsheet that I have for monthly costs. We do this with all of our clients too. So if you're like, this feels too hard, don't worry, join the Dental A Team. We'll help you get it put together. So we have a monthly cost. And what I do is on the monthly costs, and this is probably my most visited spreadsheet of my entire company. And I'm super excited because we're bringing in another team member who does financial.   Forecasting and has a whole background in finance. So my method might get revamped to 2.0 and there's always another layer. But what I have is I have on our monthly costs, I have all the salaries and all of the pay. Now for offices, I do include doctor pay. Again, I'm not a CPA and I do believe that doctors should be paid. So I put in either your W-2 salary and or your doctor compensation of 30%. Now I do lose numbers. So our consultants are paid very similar to how doctors are paid.   ⁓ And so you can get a general idea. So mine are general ideas. It's not my highest month. It's not my lowest month. It's the average is what I've selected to do for these costs. So again, this spreadsheet will not be absolutely perfect, but I think it's a really great tool to figure out what can I cut? How can I make sure my overheads in check? What do I need to produce? How do I basically figure out my BAM, my bare ACE minimum in a company? And so that's what we're gonna be looking at. So with that, I first list all the salaries and...   I want everything in there. And then what I have is a current. So I'm gonna have a current and then I'm also going to have like a future. So for example, if you're planning to hire somebody, but they're not hired yet, that's something that you're going to wanna know, what is my cost now? And what is going to be the future cost? Because those two things are actually different numbers. And so for me, it's really helpful so that I can look at you guys honestly.   When I started this, had like three team members and now we have tons of team members on there and outsource people and virtual assistants. And ⁓ the list just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. I can go back and I can look at things that we've done before. And so mine's on Google Sheets. And again, we've built one of these and I'm even happy to share, reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. But this is something, so I go through all the salaries. And then for me, ⁓ if you do health insurance or you do a health stipend or whatever it is, you add that in.   as well, but then what I do, and again, talk to your CPA, see what your payroll tax are. For me, I just estimate 10%. I always like to air higher. So you will notice in all of my projections and everything I do, I'm going to always air higher than it actually is rather than lower. And so just looking at that, just so you know, that's how I do. So my CPA told me 10%, we have business in four different states. I think we're actually up to five now.   So I estimate high, no matter what state they're in, I just do a 10%. So I'll do my total salaries of the month, an estimated 10 % payroll. And then I've got that in there, my total payroll. Then we have our health stipends or health insurance, our 401k costs in there, how much it costs me per user, what the 4 % is. I actually go grab people's salaries and their bonuses, put it in there. So I have a pretty good idea. Then what I do is I check every single month to see based what I have here, is that close?   to what I'm actually paying or is it not? I know some of you might be like, well, here, I just get it from my CPA, I get a P &L. I agree, but this is a good checks and balance between my CPA and myself. And also when I'm trying to project and forecast, can I add people in? How much is this gonna have? Where can I cut? If I can see it all line itemed out, it's actually for me at least much easier for me to see what are all my costs and w

Tiff and Kristy spell out what it takes to onboard to the best of your ability. They touch on the questions a hiring manager should be asking themself during interviews, how an applicant will be learning about your practice, the appropriate vibes to give out for your business, and more.   Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello Dental A Team listeners. I am here with you again today with my fave podcaster I'm sorry rest of the team. She's got that title right now. She's got the crown Miss Kristy is here with me today And this one we had to talk about it beforehand and I'm excited. I'm now excited for this We had to brainstorm a little bit before recording this podcast to ensure we were on the right track and like minded on this which I think speaks volume to the   you know, podcast topic, but also to how well our team works together and how well our team really is bonded. And Kristy, before we get into today's topic, first of all, welcome. Thank you so much for giving me, it's Monday today, so giving me your Monday afternoon so we could record a couple of podcasts. How are you?   DAT Kristy (00:50) Good, I always look forward to my Mondays when I get to spend them with you.   The Dental A Team (00:54) Thank you. I used to do these on Fridays, which was like, it's a fun way to end of the week. But I was like, I think it's a fun way to start the week too, because we get time together. And then I just like them better on Mondays. So hopefully you guys do too.   DAT Kristy (01:08) I agree.   The Dental A Team (01:10) So today's podcast, you guys, if you're subscribed to our newsletters, you know that our podcasts kind of follow the same topic and genre of our newsletters. If you're not subscribed to our newsletters, hop over to TheDentalATeam.com, hit subscribe because there's actually, I mean, we follow the same cadence and the same topics, but they're gonna be a little bit different. So if you're looking for more information, a lot of times they have downloads in them too. So if you're not subscribed, go do that.   Our marketing team would love me for that little plug, but truly if you're not getting those yet, you should be, so go grab them. ⁓ Today's topic may be, I think today's topic on podcast might be a little bit different than topic by newsletter. And Kristy and I wanted to take a stab at really kind of switching the mindset on this space. And Kristy, think I'm gonna like boost our egos. I think you and I actually do really, really well.   at seeing something and flipping it and being like, well, what if we looked at it from this angle instead of that one? I think you and I actually do really, really well at that. So thank you for working together with me on that. Today, you guys, your newsletter coming through, like I said, it's gonna be a little bit different. Today's podcast, we're really gonna be talking about not off-boarding, like what to do, how to let someone go, because we're really not here for that. Like the consulting team is here for...   doing everything we can to hire the right person and to make sure that there's complete clarity around everything that each individual is doing, that the path is set and you actually have no questions about keeping them on or off boarding them. Like that's in your court, that is not in our court. So we thought it would be more beneficial and more fun for the two of us to really talk about onboarding correctly and like even before you're onboarding, what that looks like.   Kristy, I think this might actually be fun. I'm just spinning us a little bit, but I kind of want to talk about us attracting you into the Dental A Team because you haven't always been here, right? We have met you, Kiera, I have met you a long time ago, but you haven't been with the Dental A Team forever, even though to us and likely to all of our listeners, it does feel like you have been a part of this team since   DAT Kristy (03:20) No.   The Dental A Team (03:33) the very beginning, which I think also speaks volumes to our topic today because that goes right along with what we're thinking. Now, how did that happen, Kristy? Like, how did Dental A Team, how did we attract you? You found us. ⁓ We are so thankful for it. But how did we attract you, who fit so seamlessly into the dynamics of our team, our goals?   you literally like consult just like we do like everything about you embodies who we are. How is that possible? How did we do that?   DAT Kristy (04:11) Yeah, you know, with every place you go, there's little things that may change a little bit, but the heart of things don't change. And so you're right, if we align not only in process, but also culture. so ⁓ when it came time for my journey to shift and change, it was important to find the like minded space and people. ⁓   not only for me to help them grow, but for you guys to help me grow, right? Like they say, look around who you surround yourself with because you're kind of like the top five people you hang around, right? And so ⁓ it was really important for me to find that culture and process both, you know, and I'll make sure we were aligned.   The Dental A Team (05:05) Yeah, thank you. I think if you guys can hear what she's saying, right, Kristy's saying that she was able to see that she was in alignment with who we are as humans, that our goals, our vision, our company standards really aligned with Kristy. While there might be some caveats and some spaces of learning or some spaces where it's like, okay, I thought it would look like this, but let's try this or and let's try and let's create this. ⁓   DAT Kristy (05:07) Yeah.   The Dental A Team (05:34) That's massive because offboarding, offboarding does, it's not easy, you guys. It's not, there's not an easy peasy process that takes emotions out and just makes it to where you're the robot that can easily just fire people whenever you want. What I do instead is I try to make sure that I'm representing our company to the best that I possibly can in everything that I do. So when I'm going through, I'm the hiring manager for our consulting team.   When I'm going through, I'm doing the same thing Kristy said she's doing. I'm looking to see, does this candidate align with who we are? the response is coming back in alignment with how we speak to each other or how we speak to clients. Is it in alignment with what I would love to see a timeline as, right? Like I've gotten, I've had candidates where I'm like, my gosh, their resume is fantastic. This is the experience that I want, spot on.   I'm gonna reach out to them and I don't hear from them for like a week. I'm like, well, that's not in alignment with us. And so ensuring that on both sides, we're taking a step back and we're questioning the alignment of those pieces, I think is a huge, huge reason why it's been successful. Now, in order to do that, this is a caveat, you guys. You can't just show up and just,   expect everyone to know how to show up, right? You've got to really lead by example. And in my opinion, we are leading by core values, mission and vision. We are driven by the why of this company. And that is what attracts people. That's what attracted Kristy. Kristy was attracted to the why of our company, our mission, our vision.   and how we show up, which are our core values. I show up in our core values, Kiera does, Britt does. When Kristy came to the interview, she was like, okay, got it. I can see it in real life. So Kristy, as an outsider, you're applying for a job. In what ways were you able to see that we did have an alignment or at least enough alignment to say, let's explore this in that... ⁓   hiring process, like in the application process, you're sending your resume outside of listening to us on on podcasts, I'm thinking how can offices kind of emanate and represent that in a space where like minded people can find them?   DAT Kristy (08:06) Yeah, if I'm understanding you correctly, think it's truly... ⁓   You have to make sure you're painting clarity for people on, you have to speak your culture. Like for instance, how many times do we talk to our own clients and say, do you have a mission statement? Do you have core values? And they'll be like, yeah, we do, somewhere. You know what I mean? You have to live it and you can't just say, yes, I have it. You have to show that you have it and you use it and it means something.   The Dental A Team (08:37) Mm-hmm.   DAT Kristy (08:47) Right? And so when I found you guys, you could recite it. You lived it. You wove it into your process. Right? And it told me that it means something to you and you live by it. Like it's our code of conduct, if you will. Right? And it can't just be put in a drawer. You have to keep it alive in order for it to serve the ultimate goal and mission, if you will.   The Dental A Team (09:15) Mm hmm. Yeah, I totally agree. And it's just a it's a rep an outward representation. And so I think even in our job ads, right, and I know I work a lot with clients on this. I know I see you guys doing it, too. I know Monica just helped a client last week with some job ads. But making sure those job ads speak to you because I can write a job ad. But if you copy and paste the job that I wrote, even writing it for you, even my clients that I've worked with for seven plus years,   DAT Kristy (09:16) Thank   The Dental A Team (09:44) I can write it for you and I know you, but unless you go in and speak some of yourself into that ad, it's not gonna hit, it just doesn't resonate. And so a lot of practices too are very different than who I am. So if I write your ad and I attract me to your practice and your practice doesn't, you're not me, that person is likely not gonna be a good fit.   DAT Kristy (09:51) Mm-hmm.   Right.   The Dental A Team (10:13) Right?   It's just, she could or he could for sure for the, maybe for the long run, but attracting

Kiera shows listeners multiple places in life where there's likely opportunity for more balance, freedom, play, and ease by: Maximizing the hours you already work. Protecting your time like a CEO. Empowering your team to own their roles. 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 I am so excited because I love this topic and I hate this topic and it's such a great one and all of you are gonna be so excited about it and it's work-life balance without sacrificing production. Yep, you better believe that it is true and I'm here to show you today how you can do this.   but I really hate this terminology of work-life balance. So if you're new to the Dental A Team, welcome, hello. I'm so excited to have you here. If you've been here with us for a long time, high five, hugs. I'm so grateful you've been a part of this journey and I'm so excited to share with you tips, tricks. ⁓ And again, remember, sometimes the greatest form of learning is remembering what you already know. So these might be tips that you've heard before, but hopefully today it hits you differently because no man who's walked through a river is ever the same man because he...   is not the same man and the river is not the same river. So you today, you're not the same person, you're not the same practice, you're not the same scenario. So wherever you are, I'm super excited for you to figure out how to get this like balance and bliss in your life. And I hope you're ready for it. So the reality is like, I used to feel, and I don't know where this came from, like, why do we feel that we always have to like grind like our nose to the brim? Like we have to work so hard and we have to just grind so hard to get to success.   that like you just hate your life. Like why is it, why is it this like busyness and this exhaustiveness and this tired to be successful? Like why, where? And so I do believe that you can have balance and performance that can coexist, that you can be productive and balanced. And so the reality is we're going to walk through some of these pieces for you to help you see where could I maybe strike a little more balance, a little more freedom, a little more play, a little more ease in my life.   And that's maybe the better term of like work-life balance is more ease. It's more flow. It's more, I think just intentional. And how can I do that? So you guys, I love this. think that you should be something that I'm really passionate about is work and life. I'm very passionate about you being the best version of yourself in your life. That way you can show up as the best version of yourself for work. do not believe, Tiff and I talk about this all the time. Like outside of Dental A Team public's eye.   all the time about how work and life are not separate. It's like we think about these two halves and it's like, no, it's one. You're one person. You're going through this and it's like, well, here's half of me that's work. Here's half of me that's life. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. How can I, Kiera, be the best version of myself that like feels balanced or ease or flow or calm or any of those things? Cause balance to me, don't love. Balance feels like I've got to like have my weight in front of me be equal.   ⁓ But flow to me is like a river flows and sometimes it's faster and sometimes it's slower and all of that's correct. And so this is something where for you to be the best version of yourself, for you to still be productive at the office while being the best version of you, ⁓ I think is what today's podcast will be about. So this is something where it's like, if you feel you are stretched thin or overwhelmed or you don't know how to produce without overworking and if you stop or slow down and get off the hamster, well, you're afraid that it's all gonna crash and burn. Well, hi, I'm Kiera.   I'm your personal therapist today ⁓ and I'm here to help you realize that that's not the reality, that there's a better, easier way to do it. And I'm here to give you a couple of quick steps that hopefully will take you through that ⁓ because I was there, I've seen offices do it and we've helped offices, hundreds, like literally hundreds and thousands of offices get out of that hamster will.   and into the flow that they were looking for. Tiff said it once and she was like, imagine Phoenix traffic. If you've never been to Phoenix, we'll do Chicago traffic, we'll do Texas traffic. Like you name it, big city traffic. She's like, just imagine if you're sitting there and this is like your life and you're sitting there and you're in this bumper to bumper traffic. And then all of a sudden you see that like better than even like an HOV or carpool lane. Like there's just like the way it strikes me like a lucky charm. Like it's like, ah, like the angels are singing. It's this gold path over there or like the yellow brick road. And you're like,   say, well, like I could get out of this nonsense over onto that lane. And like everybody, there's no traffic. There's no slowing down. It is just this easy breezy, like truly like, hope you guys can visualize this like golden path road with gold light over it. And everybody on that road is just so happy. And yet you're sitting here hating your life because you're sitting in all this nonsense traffic. Well, that's kind of hopefully how this feels of like, let's teach you how to get over into that.   that lane that you didn't even know existed today and give you some tangible tips to that. So number one is going to be maximize the hours that you already work. So let's have it like, ⁓ we did this awesome thing ⁓ at a conference and ⁓ we're talking about this and this is so fascinating to me, okay? So in a given week, there's 24 hours in a day. Yes, everybody following? And there's seven hours or seven days in a week, okay?   So if we take that, I love some good numbers, I love some good math. So 24 hours in a day, and we have seven days in a week, that's 168 hours, all right, in a given week, okay? So now, let's say I'm gonna be really generous to you. We know, let's say, let's just, mean, Dennis, let's give you, like, we're gonna work 40 hours in a week. You might say I work more than that, that's okay. I'm just gonna subtract 40 right now, okay? So that leaves us with 128 hours in a week.   Now you're like, well, Kiera, we also have to sleep. I got you. I'm going to be real generous and I'm going to give you eight hours of sleep times seven days. That's 56 hours. None of you are out there probably sleeping eight hours. As you should be prioritizing this, I do not want to be scrimping on sleep because I think sleep is one of the most important things you can do for yourself. So we have 128 hours after the 40 hour work week. We've got 56 hours of sleep minus 128. That leaves us with 72 freaking hours a week. And my question is, what are you doing with those hours?   Now you might say, Carrie works 60 hours. Fantastic, you still have 52 hours if you're working a 60 hour work week, which I hope and pray you're not working 60 hours. So let's get it to where maybe I don't wanna be working even 40 hours and I would prefer to even work 30 hours. Well then if I gave you 30 hours, you're up to 82 hours a week of extra time. And people are like, Carrie, I don't have time, I don't have time. 72 hours, 72 in a week outside of sleeping and work.   Now you're like, well, I've got to make dinner and I've got the kids fine go for it, but there's still so many hours. And I, when I heard this, I was like, yeah, what am I doing with those 72 hours? Like, all right. So maybe I could do like an hour of workout every day. All right. So like, let me just put out like seven hours there. Like, okay, 72. Let's just take this down 72 minus seven hours. All right. I'm down to 65 hours. Well, you know, I've got to like, hang out with my kids. Like we're at soccer, we're at camp. Like that takes, okay. Count it up. How many hours? Like drive time and all of that.   Let's give you like, okay, shoot, you're at 15 hours a week, which honestly, I guarantee you're not putting 15 hours of soccer and camp and all that in a given week. Maybe you are, but honestly, that's a lot. That's like two full days of work plus some extra time. So if we're at that, you're still at 50 hours and we're not scrimping sleep. We're not scrimping work. We're not scrimping kid time. We gave you an hour of workout every single day.   something to think about. So in this step one, to be able to have this balance or flow or best version of you is to maximize the hours you already have. So ⁓ me and Chad GPT, I named her Wanda. I hang out with Wanda all the time and I'm like, all right, you're the most brilliant scheduler of all time. You're the most productive business coach. Like you teach me how to maximize my time. And Wanda gives me some really good things. And it was interesting because I started looking like I realized   that I was spending an extra 30 minutes going to the gym every single day with how far away it was. And I was like, all right, well then that actually adds up. What if I just bought a home gym? Like there are solutions. What if I got weights, free weights? have my personal trainer. She could create some. So I go to the gym X amount of days and I work from home X amount of days. Could that help out? Like that would give me some time back in there. And so it's really like, how can you maximize the hours that you already have in your life to then maybe have a bit more fun?   Like I don't want all scheduled. I want fun. I want to hang out with Jason. I want to be able to like you guys I used to not watch TV at all because I felt like it was an absolute waste of time because I wasn't making money and I wasn't doing something productive. Literally I was like, nope, this is an absolute waste of time. And I'm like,

Tiff and Kristy provide guidance on how to assess your practice's financial health as 2025 begins to wrap up (and what to start thinking about for 2026). They touch on… Reviewing those P&Ls monthly Aligning spending habits Keeping emotions in check And more! Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. I am so excited to be here with you today. I truly love this portion of what we get to do in our worlds and getting to get you so much valuable information out to the masses is something that Dental A Team has worked and strived just so hard to achieve in our.   consulting world of just getting you all this information and I have with me today one of my faves. I seriously, I have the most amazing consulting team and if you guys haven't heard from all of them yet, you soon will and if you don't know them personally yet, they're not your consultants. I hope that you get to meet every single one of us even if you're just coming to the events, however it is, but I...   have a personal favorite here for recording podcasts with. She calms me, she just keeps the energy light and fresh and I love any time that we get together. Kristy, thank you so much for being here today. How are you doing? The weather is like weird today. I always tell everybody about the Arizona weather and it's so much fun to have everybody here in the same place. We all live in Arizona in the Phoenix area. Jane is down in the Tucson area, but.   We really love it. And Kristy, how's your world over there? You're just in the beautiful little pocket of Phoenix. And how is it?   DAT Kristy (01:23) Yeah, it's awesome. I love that you say that because we do pride ourselves on the weather here, right? But even with that, this weekend we got a lot of rain, what they say the most in like seven years. Yet all of us, even as close as we are, we experience it so different, right? Like some places flooded. I didn't get flooding, thank goodness, but it downpoured. It was fun and it's made it for cool mornings. So we're taking it.   The Dental A Team (01:42) Yeah.   I agree. I agree that humidity is hitting us hard. So we're not super used to that, but it is making for some, some really beautiful mornings. totally agree. And yes, Britt and I were actually in Reno at our quarterly in-person traction event where we have a, implementer who comes in and leads it for us. And he helps us to build out the company structure and,   teaches and trains us on how to run large meetings like that. So it's always super cool. But we were up in Reno with Britt and or with Kiera Shelbi and Britt and I actually got stuck. Jenna got out. She got back to Denver, which is crazy because Denver always shuts down. And so she got back to Denver. But ⁓ we got stuck until Saturday because the airport was shut down. And then there was a storm in Vegas because we thought, OK, well, we'll fly to Vegas because it's only a five and a half hour drive from there and we'll still get home. And then ⁓   that flight got canceled too. So it was wild. was meant to be, got more time in Reno and got to spend a little bit more time with Kiera. So that was great, but it was kind of crazy. It's not usually Phoenix that disrupts the flight patterns. And it was a hundred percent Phoenix. There were so many flights canceled because so many planes were stuck here and other planes couldn't get in. So it was wild, Kristy. It was wild to watch it from afar. We just got like TikTok notifications and you know, news articles are like, my gosh, all the Waymo's stuck in the puddles and things like that. So.   DAT Kristy (03:15) Yeah,   they just stopped in the middle of the road like what the heck.   The Dental A Team (03:18) Yeah,   that's why whenever somebody says, you use the way most? I'm like, heck no, I have seen them stuck in the middle of intersections far too many times. I'm sure one day it's going to be fantastic, but I haven't built that trust muscle just yet.   DAT Kristy (03:30) Yeah, agree. Well, I'm glad you made it home safe. And ⁓ yeah, the humidity is odd for us too.   The Dental A Team (03:34) Thank you.   Yeah,   yeah, it totally is. And my son was like, Oh, you go to the East Coast enough, Mom, you're fine. Stop complaining. And I was like, Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. But but in the spirit of planning, we we truly had an amazing time really just one getting the time together as a leadership team and then to really looking and projecting like where are we at? What's Q4 going to look like? And then also kind of prepping and planning for 2026. So super relevant in this conversation here.   today and really looking at ⁓ practice health from a financial standpoint. And this is something that your CPAs and your financial advisors and all of those professionals should be looking at with you as well. This is the time of the year that we're really looking at what is this last year? Because we get to Q4 and it's like, well, it's kind of like the end of your senior year, right? You get to the end of your senior year of high school or college and you're like, well, everything's kind of basically submitted. So from here,   It's really just like, let's do our best and make sure that we really cross that finish line strong, but there's not a ton of pivots to be made to really change the game. So kind of prepping and planning. And I think looking ahead at 2026, putting in some really solid ways of checking in on that financial health, something that I've seen that, Kristy, I know you do this as well, but something I've seen a lot of clients really ramp up is a monthly pulse and even like,   weekly sometimes pulse on what the financials of a practice actually look like has really been beneficial in helping them to really reach those goals. And Kristy, you are really fantastic at figuring those financial goals out and then like backtracking them to see, okay, well, what do we need to do to get there? And how do you help practices really keep that financial pulse top of mind and that   running that way so that they're constantly looking at those numbers without feeling overwhelmed and also without losing sight of it. Because you know sometimes you do something too often, you start glazing over it. What's that fine balance that some some tactical tips that you have that you and your practices are working on right now?   DAT Kristy (05:52) Yeah, well, first and foremost, I believe that you have to be getting your P &Ls from your accountant monthly, right? We can't be waiting. I have seen some clients where they're begging for them for three months ago, you know, and it makes it really hard to stay on top of it if we're not getting them monthly. So first and foremost, make sure you're getting them from them monthly so that we can take a look at them and evaluate. And I like what you said, Tiff. ⁓   you can be, you can go over the top. It's a fine line, right? So I love looking at them every month and I'm not going to freak out if something's out of whack one month, but certainly let's look at the quarter, right? And make sure that those metrics are in alignment for the quarter. And to your point, I always like to speak in terms of like, we're going to crawl before we walk and we're going to walk before we run. Like,   In the crawling stage, let's just make sure where's your overhead, right? What percentage are we at there and what is our profit or EBITDA, so to speak, right? Where are we ranging there? That would be my first little steps to take and start looking at it.   The Dental A Team (07:10) Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. And I think what time of the month do you usually push for those PNLs to be received? I have my judgments, but what are yours?   DAT Kristy (07:21) like to say by the 15th. I'll give you a little grace and give you by the 20th, but the 15th is my ideal target.   The Dental A Team (07:28) Yeah, yeah. I think I'm a little stricter. If I don't have those CPAs reaching out to us by like the eighth to the 10th, I'm like, my gosh, how are we supposed to work with this? There's a lot of, and I ask that because there's a lot of clients out there that are getting them like the first week of the next, next month. And so maybe December, we're finally looking at October.   DAT Kristy (07:35) Thank   The Dental A Team (07:53) And that is like, gosh, such a lag that we've got these questions floating around of like, where's my cashflow TIF and how do I fix this, Kristy? And it's like, I don't know, because I don't have eyes on what's happening. The P &Ls should be much quicker and much cleaner than that. And realistically, it's just it's the bookkeeper going in and allocating the certain expenses to the category that they should be in. So it's time consuming.   but it shouldn't be too crazy. And if yours is too crazy, then we probably need to look at your spending. Do we need to dial back the number of orders that you're placing every month? Do we need to make sure that things are a little bit more simple on that side, that it can be done quicker? Because we wanna be able to make real-time adjustments as quickly as we can. If we're on a two-month lag.   then we're adjusting for two months ago, it could look totally different. And then next month we get two months ago and it's like, it was totally different. We didn't need to change it. And so we're just constantly spinning our wheels in that way if we're not getting the data fast enough. And that is, in my opinion, one of the easiest ways to ensure that you're financially healthy is really just ensuring, like you said, Kristy, that on an overtime basis, things are consistent and they're clear, that they make sense.   DAT Kristy (09:08) 100%. I like that you said push to the 10th, because obviously if, you know, in the walk or crawling stage, we're just learning, right? We have a little bit of buffer, but as we get to the top

A practice built with character is a practice made up of loyalty, positive culture, and long-term growth. Kiera provides listeners with a list of questions to ask that will set the tone for showing up as the best, truest version. She then gives specific takeaways to meet that ideal culture and stay consistent. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera. And today, I hope you're having an amazing day. I hope you're having fun. I hope you remember that dentistry is honestly the greatest profession we could ever get to be a part of. So I hope you're just so excited. I hope you're loving your life. I hope you're happy. I hope that if you're not, that you're committing to make a change in the next week so that way you can be happy. My husband showed me this reel the other day that said, it was from like, I don't know, a Buddhist monk, I think. And he said that yesterday is dead.   Today is all we have and tomorrow is not born yet. And so don't wait for the happy life. You want the happy day. And I've thought about this so much because I think so many of us wait for happiness. We wait and we think, once I get this or once I do that or when I have the team or when my practice doesn't have this, then I'll be happy. Then I won't be stressed. And it's like, no, it's actually on the day. It's today. It's the decisions I'm making today. It's the pieces that I'm doing today and finding that happy.   And they said when you can have a happy day is when you have the happy life. I think when you can have the less like the more stress free day more consistently, it's when you have the more stress free life consistently. And so with that, just reminding you that it's okay. You don't have to do this alone. And I'm here for you and our team's here for you. And dentistry really is one of the greatest professions you could ever be a part of. So welcome. I hope that if you're new to the podcast, welcome. I'm Kiera. I love dentistry. I love helping people. love life.   And I love helping people get the life that they always dreamed of and making that a reality. Today, I wanna talk about ⁓ character. My dad and I were talking and my dad said, in the word character, there's the word act. And I had never picked up that the word character has act. ⁓ And I wanna talk about some leadership pieces today and culture pieces for your practice on building a practice with character and how people act. And...   I think character is something that you hire, yes, of like how people are naturally and who they are naturally, but also I think it's something that you do lead. ⁓ when we look at this, like when you have a practice of character of how people are acting, it does create loyalty, it does create culture, and it does create long-term growth. And so for everybody just going through that, ⁓ looking at that and seeing what is your character possibly? What is the character of your practice possibly?   And what things can we do to evolve your character to make it be a place of things that you want, of the loyalty, the culture, the long-term team. ⁓ And when I look at really awesome practices, the way people act and the character that that practice has is truly something embedded deep into the roots of that practice. going through that, ⁓ Dental A Team's goal is to help offices build to scale, to have the life that they want, ⁓ but to do it in a way that's meaningful.   that it's fulfilling, that it has purpose for you. And so ⁓ this is truly trying to help build a culture for team members to stay, for patients to be raving and for leaders to truly be proud of the practice that they built. So character with this act, like step one, if you want, like we'll just kind of go into this whole process is like how you act when it's hard. ⁓ And I think when I look at teams,   Culture is something that's like not built during easy times, it's revealed during the hard ones. When our production's not hit, when the cash flow's not there, when like all the things are pushing upon you, how do you act? Do you respond with conflict with consistency, clarity and compassion? Do you admit mistakes as a leader? Do you prioritize long-term trust over short-term comfort? Like how is your character in those hard times? And for you as a doctor, and there's the book, Extreme Ownership by Jacque Willings, and I think about this so much of   Like, okay, what is my culture of my company? But what is the culture of me? Because my team ultimately is a reflection of me and how do I act? In high school, I was nominated as most poised and I thought that was such a weird phrase for me to get like most poised. But I actually think about that a lot and like when things are hard, do I lose my temper? Do I yell? Do I shout? How do I act? For me, I almost think like I have the tiger like queen strength. Like what if I was the queen of this   I don't know, like kingdom, my business. Who do I need to show up as? And that character, like really looking to see how do you act. And it's crazy because when you look at a team and you want a team to be a certain way, you got to look at the leaders and how are they showing up? How are they acting? And when my dad talked about this character, it's all about how you act. It's how you act in the hard times, how you act in the good times, how you act when no one's watching. It's how you act when people are watching. And what is your ultimate character in your practice? And so, ⁓   When doctors start to have consistency, clarity, and compassion, when you say like, kind is clear, ⁓ when you're more clear, when you admit mistakes and you have humility, but in addition to that, you also are focusing on making sure that I don't just admit the mistake, but I find the solution to the mistake so it doesn't happen again. ⁓ When we're doing long-term, we have uncomfortable conversations and we're building trust over short-term solutions. Like I'm not just saying things.   And who I was at a leader at the beginning of the NLA team compared to who I am today, she's a much more mature grownup version of herself. ⁓ And it came through a lot of these hard conversations. It came through a lot of these hard awarenesses. It came from asking people, but also asking myself, did I show up as the person that I want to be and the leader that my team needs me to be? And if not, what do I need to do to change that? And so   Thinking about that, that's the culture you're building. And as much as I don't want to be like a rip on leaders, leaders are the mold. Like how you, what you do and don't do is a subconscious theme that runs through your practice. And so I think when people feel like they have no hope and they have no way of changing things and there, there is no solution. The answer is like, there actually is a solution. There actually is a process and a path out. It just sometimes is starting with you.   and not sometimes starting with you, it's always starting with you. And so if you can focus on building that and the culture you're building constantly, that's going to help and that's gonna lead into the next phase and that's gonna be through core values. And core values, I used to think were so laissez-faire. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, core values. But ⁓ really it's hard to hire the character you want. It's hard to continue to create it if you don't even know.   what it looks like in your practice. so core values kind of give this like framework. call them like, to me, they're like a cookie cutter is how I envision it. Like here's the cookie cutter, not like that we're a cookie cutter practice, but it's the shape. So a cookie cutter shapes the dough into what they want it to be. And core value shape the practice into what we want it to be and helps us have this, I would say filter of who we're hiring for. And so it's, what are the three to five core values that define your team and how you work? Now owners,   Go back to when you first started your practice and what were the three core things that really made your practice what you want it to be? For me, it was always do the right thing, fun and ease. Like from day one, those were the pieces. Those are our core. And if you look at it, it's do the right thing for the company and the practice. We like to have a ton of fun when we're doing it. I I love sprinkles. I love to the sparkles. I love to add the glitter. I love to add the fun. I love to surprise and delight. And then it's to do everything with ease. How can I make this easier for a practice? I don't want things to be hard for an office.   But like that's truly the core of when I started a Dental A team. Now we've evolved into who we want people to be on our team. We have other people, pieces of ownership. We have pieces of passion for excellence and results focused. We have pieces of grit. And so there's other core values that have come and there's core and then there's aspirational. ⁓ But I want to make sure that the people we're hiring and filtering through have that character in them already. I don't want to try to develop that in them. I want to expand it once they're a part of our company.   but I don't want to try and convince somebody to have grit. Like grit's a core portion of you. So what that does is once we figure out what our core of our company is, then we have those in our hiring, we have those in our reviews, we have those in our meetings and decision-making. I can't tell you how many times I've gone to the core values when I've been looking at team members and I look to see rating this person on our core values, how do they fit? And a lot of times the people that are not elevating our team are the ones who usually are getting lower scores on the core values.   And it becomes very crystal clear for me. And so what we do is we hire. So when you're having this, you hire based on core values. You filt

Office autopsy time! Kiera and Dana review a "practice" that went from broke to success in a handful of months, and how tracking their numbers saved them. Every single office will go through a cash flow crunch at least once, so it's important to understand the right flotation devices to utilize. This could mean pulling overhead apart, identifying production and collections percentages, analyzing fixed costs, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today is a special day. I have the one and only Dana Morsell on the podcast today. And prior to this, asked her, she's gone through a few nicknames and Dana, believe it or not, I was actually thinking about this last night. No joke. I was thinking like, there's Spiffy Tiffy and there's no BS Britt. And I was like, Dana, you've been with me for a long time. Like, why have I not gotten like a good nickname for you? And like, Britty Gritty.   And I was like, okay, I just like throw wise on the end of these names like Tiffy, that is their TT DM does not sound quite right. Like that's like DMing on Instagram. And so I thought like, it's just Dainey. And now you told me I to do it with a Southern draw. So it's going to be like Dainey on the far. So well.   Dana (00:44) Yep, it has to   have it. I feel like it reminds me so much of my dad and like it just has to have that.   Kiera Dent (00:51) Well, it's my dad. grew up on a dairy farm for all the listeners. Don't worry. We have like a really good podcast today. It's an office autopsy that Dana has taken these three incredible practices, like one owner, like they went from just stress and chaos and burnout to complete an absolute just like freedom, which and Dana has done it so quickly. So we're going to get there. I'm just going to tell you about this dairy farm real fast. ⁓ my dad grew up on a dairy farm and he used to say his mom would always like, Ricky, like that's how he would call him.   imagine myself on this like beautiful estate and like sweeping my porch and having this like big white porch out there. And I'm like, Dainey!   So that's how I envisioned this so, you know, that's that's the vision over here So whether you like it or not, otherwise we can go back to donuts with Dana. What do you prefer?   Dana (01:38) ⁓ I actually love you standing on your white porch shouting that, so we'll take it.   Kiera Dent (01:41) I think   it just fits and if you haven't heard other podcasts, if you haven't been with us as long, Dana has the most random stories like running her bicycle into a deer. She has so many animals. She's got kids like Dana will always come to the table with the most random stories and she whoops everybody on trivia. We play games in our company and it's always like team trivia. Dana will whoop them. So, you know, here we go Dana. Welcome to the podcast. How are you over there Dana? Special Dana?   Dana (02:09) doing pretty   good. Yeah, doing pretty good. think all of my wild stories and my trivia comes from like, I don't know, I just have this like weird memory thing where I can like memorize things very quickly. Even like applying for a car loan, they're always shocked that I know all of my account numbers, all of my balances down to the penny, like just off the top of my head. And so I think that that's kind of where some of that comes from.   Kiera Dent (02:28) No.   I didn't   even know that about you. So that's also a really interesting thing to note. All right, so Dana will remember, mean, is this okay? Is it something where you can remember numbers like past past? Or is it like your banking out is just current right now, but you couldn't remember like a month ago.   Dana (02:47) No, so it is   past-past, but it's because I don't know, my brain does this weird, like I make a riddle out of everything and I'm constantly like, okay, well, if I run and remember something, like if it's, you know, two, three, six, I'm like, well, two times three is six. And like, I just, I don't know, create like weird connections, especially with numbers in my brain and like riddle it so that I remember it.   Kiera Dent (03:07) Fascinating. Fascinating. Okay. Well, there's   another random fact about Dana. So Dana is one of my absolute fave humans in the entire world. Dana, truly, I say that on the podcast and I genuinely mean it. And we have talked about it on show, off show. Dana is just a super incredible human and offices who get to work with her are so lucky. So we thought it'd be fun. Office autopsy time. If you're new to the podcast, this is where we kind of go behind the scenes. ⁓   We mash up a few practices. just so you know, you'll never really fully know exactly who it is just to keep a client patient confidentiality. But we want to highlight of things that we do in real life, because I think consulting can be kind of hard. Like what do you actually do and what are the results you actually get? And so Dana just had some really solid wins with some practices. And I thought, Dana, let's get on the podcast and do our office autopsy, where we lift up the hood and we look behind the scenes. And what were some of the things you as a consultant did for this practice?   What are some of the wins and gains that they've had? ⁓ that I think will just be fun. So Dana, let's take it away. ⁓ kind of like, where did this practice start? What have we implemented and where are they now? Maybe even tell them like where they started, where they got to. And then we'll talk about the how, because that's really fun. I don't like to wait for the like end result. I want to know quickly like, okay, they were like dying, drowning, broke, and then they got like hundreds of dollars and they got it in like a month. How did they do it? So take us away. Where were they? Where did they get to? And then let's go into the house.   Dana (04:30) Yeah, and I think that this practice is just a really cool example of like the importance of knowing your numbers, especially when you have multiple practices and knowing what each practice is bringing to the table and having really clear separated numbers for those things. And so it was just really fun and I think a cool way to highlight how when you know those things, then you can fix systems that are broken or aren't working to see massive progress. So when this office came, they were at a negative profit.   ⁓ each month and   Kiera Dent (05:03) We're talking like they're losing money, losing sleep, stressed out of their minds.   Dana (05:04) Yeah, yes.   So stressed, they're pulling personal, you know, they're pulling boatloads of personal cash every month to cover expenses to keep these practices open. ⁓ You know, doctor is going from office to office. And it's truly, truly really stressful time and they don't really know where the leaks are coming from. And they can't put their finger on what's going on that's causing it. And   yeah, stressed out to the max and just really, really wanting help and wanting to kind of pinpoint and give them a clear picture of why they are so stressed and why these practices that feel as if they're booming or are starting to get busy aren't profitable at that point.   Kiera Dent (05:35) This   And I think this is so common for so many practices, which is why we were talking morning huddle. We share all of our client wins every single day. You guys, we have a morning huddle. It's very fun. We talk about team wins, client wins. And when Dana talked about this, I'm like, Dana, we're podcasting. Like, can you get on the podcast with me? I think this is such a big win because it, yes, it's, it's quote unquote one practice that we've kind of mashed a few of them, but this is like every single office. And so many of them don't realize what's going on with my profit numbers. They feel like it's booming.   but they have no money left over and then they're stressed to the max and they're countless hours. And this isn't just a brand new practice. Like this is a business owner who'd been in business for a long time. Like it's almost that I should with air quotes know what I'm doing, but I just don't know where it is. And Dana, I'm so proud of you for saying like they need to know their numbers. We harp on this like crazy because when you actually can dig in, which I'm excited for you to kind of do like the grand reveal and then the how, but I mean, how many practices, Dana, this is, I hope people realize one,   practices all go through this. So this is not just a siloed to one or two practices. This is every office at some point is going to go through cashflow crunches, stressed out, working all hours and not being able to pinpoint. And just because you're profitable today does not mean you're forever going to be profitable. It is something you have to constantly work at, constantly be vigilant on. And it's not just like, set it, forget it, we're on our way. And so I think for that, but also I think so many people because they don't know what to do.   they spin their wills that creates this cycle of death in my opinion. Like you truly are spinning, you're burning the candle at all ends. I remember when I met, cause I'm, I talked to this office when they were joining our company and I'm like, my gosh, like I can't want this more than they want it. Like they have to make the decision to join us, but my gosh, I see your problem. see your pain and we have got to fix that like an ASAP and get CPR because   the owner was just running frantic and it was impacting family life and financials. And to me, you worked so hard that you should not be living that life this far into business ownership, whatever stage you're in. So I'm ready for the grand reveal. I hope people just realize this is not siloed and it's not something that's permanent. And it's also once you become profitable, that's also not permanent too. No season is

Are you starting to panic over how to reward your team for another year well done? Should you show appreciation in the first place? Kiera gives advice on how to figure out those end-of-year bonuses, parties, trips, and more, plus how not to stress about it. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera, and I hope you're just having an amazing day. I hope you're loving your life. I hope you remember that, honest to goodness, this is such a blessing. We get to work in dentistry. How fun is that? And I just hope you remember that we are so blessed to give back to people. We're blessed to be in dentistry. Dental A Team's mission is to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. So that's what we're here for. And the job of this podcast is to give you tactical practical tips that elevate your mind, elevate your thinking.   help your practice be more profitable, more fun, more successful. That's what we're here for. So with that today, I just thought it'd be fun. Like end of year bonuses, trips, parties, like how do you even decide what to do? This comes up often in our consulting offices, like I don't know what to do. We had an in-person mastermind meeting and I remember the doctors, there were team members there too, so we had it. Doctors and leadership team members and the doctor was like, team members, just tell us what you want.   And the teams are like, we just want to be appreciated. And they're like, we know you want more than that. And so I just thought today it'd be fun to just kind of do a rift with you of what are some of ideas? What are some things you can do pros and cons? So doctors, you can work with your team of really what can I do for this end of year and what's the most powerful and hopefully just giving you some food for thought today, making this tactical for you. So when I'm looking at end of year bonuses, number one, ⁓ I hate surprises. So me as a business owner,   I actually set a budget for what our end of year will be, whether it's bonuses, trips, parties, I don't care what it is, I try to set that. And right now I'm trying to release this early, so hey, you could be proactive on it, but for me, we actually have a budget for it. And then I don't like to do big expenses, that's just not my jam, I don't enjoy it, unless I'm buying like a big vehicle or something like that, that I can have an immediate write off. But even that, I try to keep my cash and just get the write off for it. So with that, when I'm doing end of year, like I said, budget it out, project it out, and then start saving.   whatever month this is releasing, however many more months you've got through end of year, let's say we're going to do $5,000. We'll break that up over the next, let's say we've got five months left, save $1,000. I put mine into a high yield savings account. That way the money's there, I can spend it it's not hitting me in December when everything else is hitting me. So that's what I'm going to do is whether it's a bonus, trip or the party. Like you can set a budget, doctors, you don't have to let your team decide what you're going to do. And oftentimes I like to set that as a percentage.   of what we're doing. So if I know that we're going to do XYZ and I know my overhead's at 50%, well, I could do like 1 % or 2 % of that. That way my overhead's at 51 or 52 % with this cost, right? That makes it really nice and easy. And then I'm going to be able to figure out the budget from there. So that's one piece. Or you can just say, I want to do $5,000 or I want to do this. Or like, let me look this up if we want to do a trip or a party, let me figure this out. So for our team, we figured it out. This is how much we spend every single year per number of team members.   I can then plug that into my projections for the next year. So I know based on the size of the team, where we're going, how much this is going to cost us, it's really going to help you then just budget it out. And I think knowing the budgets, putting it into our projections, then we're not getting these psycho surprise expenses. This is hopefully going to help you not cry in December, because so many offices are like, I had the worst December. And I'm like, well, yeah, we have all the holiday time. We're not doing as much dentistry. And we get hit with all the expenses. Double, triple, quadruple whammy.   not a super fun month. So let's cut the crying in December and make this easy. Now, how do I decide if it's going to be a bonus, a trip or a party? Well, that depends on your team, depends on what you're doing it for. What's our why behind your, why you're doing this? What do you want to achieve out of this is really something I want you to look at of why are we doing this? So for some people it's like, Hey, we set this huge lofty goal. So we're going to do a bonus of X amount. Again, looking at your numbers to determine that amount. I love percentages.   ⁓ or dollar amount so that way you just know what you need to do. So that could be a bonus system that you put into place of, hey, we crush it, we hit this. It could be for your leadership team possibly. It could also be for your teammates, whatever it is, but that can also, that could be a bonus. It could also just be, we want to thank you. ⁓ Do we go on a trip? That's again, dependent upon your team. Is your team more bonus? Are they more trip? Are they more party? Is it a combination of it? And also what feels good to you as the owner? What do you want to do? What's going to help you celebrate this?   That's going to be a decision for you to make. And so when I'm looking at this, you can have an anonymous survey. Some people get so excited about trips, but then when you start to get into the logistics, it's like, well, how much is this going to cost? we do a plus one? How much time is that going to be away from the business? What is this really going to cost all the way around? And is that worth it? I tell teams, I'm like, rock on. If you want to do this, figure out the cost. Let's figure it out. Put it in our production. Let's add it into our monthly piece. That way we can pay for it. Awesome. Again.   I don't want these things coming out of craziness. I like to plan for them, prepare for them and have the whole team help you. Now, if you're gonna do a party, a lot of times I like parties over bonuses. And I know I might have unpopular opinions on this, but what I found is as a team member, like X amount of dollars doesn't weight as heavily as something that maybe I wouldn't buy for myself. So for example, ⁓ those like red light masks, that's one of the things that are out there.   The Dyson and then if you don't know what I'm talking about, go check these out. The Dyson blow dart. Like that thing is insanely expensive. I'm probably not gonna spend it on myself, but it would be awesome if I were to get it. ⁓ What other things? The Aura ring. A lot of people want the Aura ring. They don't wanna drop 400 bucks and they don't wanna pay the monthly subscription. ⁓ Other gift ideas like a Roomba, a Roomba lawnmower, a fire pit, a, I don't know. We've done like AirPods. We've done the virtual realities. ⁓ Like the Apple Vision Pro.   Those are the things people are not going to buy for themselves oftentimes, but that weights heavier than if I were to give you 500 or a thousand dollars. Now I understand that people like cash, but as a team member, what I will tell you is I had an office, give me an end of year bonus. We got it in our card. It was based on longevity. It was based on these pieces. That cash did not actually weigh as heavy because what I did is I went and spent it on bills.   And so instead, like getting an Apple Vision Pro, I remember the day I got that, I was like, oh my gosh, like this is so rad. I never would have bought it for myself. How incredible, or getting a KitchenAid, or getting a Louis Vuitton wallet. And I understand that not everybody's going to want these things. like, no, I don't care about those things. But what's fun sometimes on the parties is you're able to have this really fun time. We do a raffle in our company. That's what I've decided to do. And I picked this up from Midwestern University's dental college, is every year we did a raffle. We all got to do that.   all these awesome prizes. And then every year they gave us some type of swag and they gave us like a holiday party. So I didn't get an end of year bonus. And what I noticed was people enjoyed those so much. Everybody looked forward to it. Everybody got excited about it. Everybody walked out with these awesome gifts. Nobody knew what they were walking out with. We could see all the gifts. So was like, oh my gosh, who's going to get the huge TV? Who's going to get the MacBook Air? Who's going to get XYZ? And they like, all the gifts weren't super high end. All of them weren't low end, but it was something really, really awesome.   And then I thought they were so smart because they gave out branded swag. So it was umbrellas, jackets, ⁓ just things that we would use like lunch bags that were super appropriate. But think about it, that's amazing marketing power. I was walking around with this swag. I still have it to this day. I have a lot of the stuff that I got from it. But that's what I decided to do because it would just be fun. So for us and our company for end of year, our team knows.   I do it on Cyber Monday, happens every year. We do a holiday party, we dress up, we have an ugly sweater contest, and then we raffle off. So we play fun games at the company. We all just get together. We're a virtual team. Otherwise I take everybody to dinner or we do an awesome fun experience. And then we raffle. And I go hardcore on these prizes. I go do fun things for our team. And for me, it's more fun for me to do this than to write them and just g

Tiff and Dana discuss how to achieve full team alignment on periodontal policies and protocols, even when it's the last thing you feel like doing. Their tips include which habits to build upon, which templates for conversation with the patient are most educational, maintaining team alignment, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello Dental A Team listeners. We are back with you with us today I have Ms. Dana and I'm so excited to do these podcasts. I have podcasts all day I have podcasts with you Dana. I podcast with Britt today I never get Britt on these suckers anymore and then I think I'm Kristy later, too So it is a whirlwind of podcasting day. Thank you for letting me, you know Just bust it out and get all of you guys here today   I'm really excited. I'm really excited for the one we just did. We record these just kind of like back to back to back just so you guys know in case you were wondering how this actually happens. We're not live right now. I wish we were. That'd be super cool. But it'd be really time consuming at the same time. But we just did a really fun one. I'm excited for them to hear about it. Dana though, I haven't asked you lately just how's life. had, it sounds like a full weekend of kiddos sports.   Dana (00:54) Mm-hmm.   The Dental A Team (00:54) ⁓   But you personally, you guys, talked about consistency in this last one. And you personally, you have some of the best consistency that I've ever seen anyone maintain. So number one, I think my big question that might be on everyone's mind is why? How do you maintain that consistency? You show up for everyone, but you still show up for yourself. You still do your workouts. You still make sure that your path   for your own health is one of the most important aspects of your life. So Dana, how do you maintain that?   Dana (01:29) Yeah, I think that just I learned early on in life, right? Like, especially with my health, like I had a point in my life where my health cup was pretty much empty and I had nothing to pour from. And so I just promised myself when I made it through that, that like,   I would always prioritize keeping that like as a priority. And ⁓ it's just something that like, I've shown up for for myself. ⁓ And to like, because I've shown up, it just, I don't know, like it just keeps me   saying it makes me a better mom, it makes me a better friend, it makes me a better partner, it makes me like, just better in so many ways, because I do take that space. And I don't always like, there's guilt, for sure that I do it and that I take the time and that you know, like I put other things aside to do it. But I think what it like, reaps and benefits and rewards for me outweigh those things. And so I'm truly on to the point now where I have kept it so consistent that   when I fall off I feel terrible.   The Dental A Team (02:43) Yeah, yeah, that's the real deal now.   Yeah, I love that. I think that the things you pointed out there just your why is big enough. And I think a massive reminder to everyone that typically for a human being to make a change in life, it has to be hard enough. Like, we don't change things that don't feel like they're not working, right? That haven't like sprung up as a quote unquote, like broken piece of life yet, right? Like however you want to word it.   If it's not hurting, we don't typically think, we're not thinking about it. If it's not hurting, we're just not thinking about it. So why are we addressing things we're not thinking about? So when it finally does get bad enough, I think I had a similar story, not the degree of health, but a similar instance where it was just like I hit the spot where it's like I actually don't have a choice. I either take care of myself or my health continues to deteriorate.   So was honestly, it was easy at that point. So it's interesting because it's so easy, I think for us from the outside, especially for you and I for fitness and health, like I think you and I have, I can imagine you're the same like my whole life. It's been in my, it's been in my being for as long as I can remember. So it was very easy to see that in myself and to see that in my life and to see where.   the consistencies or the inconsistencies are, but it's interesting to take a step back and see how relatable it is to just so many aspects of life. And if we applied those same steps and processes, the same thought to other aspects of life, how different things could look. And we narrow that focus because I think fitness and health just like, I don't know, I feel like it's like a box to check instead of like,   away and for you and I like it's a way especially for you and so it's just gives you the template for other areas which I think for us makes a lot of times consulting fun. I think it's more fun and it's a little bit easier for us to sometimes see the structure of what needs to happen because it's literally mimicking the results that we've seen in other areas of our life and first   So happy you're here, Dana, because had you not taken that initiative, things could look very different today. And I'm very happy that you did and that you dedicated to yourself and that you continue to. Second, you were teaching your kids the most important valuable lessons of their entire life. And it's so cool to watch you do that and to watch you show up for yourself, but for them too. I've always taken that stand with it. They're like, Brody's going to know that exercise is for health. It's not for the other.   ideas in there. So I never wanted him to, you know, have whatever complications with health and fitness in his life. So I made it a priority for me pretty early on in his life because of that. And then really had to about six years ago. So I applaud you for those pieces. And I just think it's really, really cool. And I think it kind of stems and spurs into a more fun version of today's podcast.   Because I really do think that that consistency and again that template that you have for like no I'm just going to do it and some days, you know I'm sure you wake up like I do or I'm like today's not the day and then it's like no just go just go it's 30 minutes It's an hour of my life. Like just go and you will always feel better afterwards So sometimes life comes in and this task or this duty comes in and it's like this feels like it's gonna be really hard I don't really want to talk to this person about this thing   I'll do it next time. And the I'll do it next time only slides us backwards. And we see that with the health and fitness very easily. If we don't go to the gym today, like we're sliding backwards to tomorrow. But in these conversations that we're talking about today with the perio, everyone's favorite word, perio, and being in alignment on the periodontal care kind of makes me think of those areas where we really do slide backwards because we're like.   I don't really want to have that hard conversation or, that kind of borderline or I don't know what we would classify this as. I'm just going to probe you today. Maybe they'll see somebody else next time. Like you're my, you're one of my favorites, Brits, my other favorite, ⁓ perio brain to pick when it comes to stuff like this, because really getting alignment on that can look like so many different things and consistency on the alignment I think is one of the key pieces. And Dana, there's so much to pick apart in there.   I'm obviously alluding to have the hard conversations with the patients when they need deep cleaning, even if they've been coming to your practice forever. I don't care, just do it. But how are the doctors important in your opinion and from a hygiene standpoint in gaining the alignment within the periodontal care, within the periodontal policies and protocols? Because we can tell a hygiene team to go do it, but I feel like without the doctor, we're like 90 % there.   Dana (07:22) Mm-hmm. ⁓   Yeah,   and and I really and truly feel like the doctor is so crucial in to me. It's like, ⁓ we have to do in this situation is build a plan and then create habits stacking for our hygienists like to do it right. And I think that the doctor is so crucial in setting up the standard of care for perio like what are the expectations for the hygiene team for each specific perio service within the practice? What are our parameters? What are our guidelines?   That way, when a patient walks in, no matter which hygienist they see, the same thing is recommended. Also too, it gives a very clear roadmap for the doctor to back you up. You've built it together. So you know that if you follow the protocol, the doctor can confidently back you up. You know that you'll get that every time that they walk in the room. And then lastly, importantly, just as important, it allows you to ⁓   confidently have the discussions that maybe you haven't. And I've seen an office as to where we built the protocol and there are moments of maybe we disagree, right? Maybe we see something different on an x-ray or maybe we see, you know, we probe slightly different or our angles are a little bit different or I've got a doctor versus a hygienist that one presses a little bit harder when they probe, right? But it allows us to definitively be able to make a decision and say, we default to the protocol. This is what the protocol   The Dental A Team (09:08) Yeah.   Dana (09:16) says when we have this many millimeters in probing depth, this many, and this is how often we do those things. This is the cadence in which we bring them back. These are the results that we expect to get it. And so when you have that outline, whether you are so far from it when you start or whether you're like pretty close to it when you start, it's okay. It's just build your roadmap of what you want your   The Dental A Team (09:23) Yeah.   Dana (09:41) period to look like in your practice first. An

Kiera joins the Raving Patients Podcast to talk about obtaining that CEO mindset to systematize your practice. This mindset does not mean doing it all yourself, but leaning on others to maximize their skillsets. Kiera also discusses with Dr. Len Tau how to separate yourself from having your entire identity associated with dentistry. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Speaker 1 (00:00) Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Raving Patients Podcast. As you know, I'm your host, Dr. Len Tau, and I am super excited today for multiple reasons. Well, first, before I get there, I want to first thank my sponsors, both Dental Intelligence, CallRail, and a new one, Net32. You'll be hearing their commercials as well, so check out those companies. And again, the only reason I'm able to do this every single week is because of their support. I also want to remind everybody about   my event, is only one week away. One week from now we'll be gathered in Fort Lauderdale for Supercharge with Dental Practice 2025. If you wanna be a come out last minute registrant, you can reach out to me. I will be glad to add you as a guest of me. So please reach out to me. You can check out the content at SuperchargeYourDentalPractice.com So I said I was super excited and I'm super excited because of our guest today. And she's been a guest before and I just recorded an episode with her on her podcast. ⁓   We're talking about Kiera Dent, who is from the Dental A Team, and we're gonna be talking the CEO mindset systematizing your practice for freedom and growth today. So before I let ⁓ Kiera take it off, I'm gonna go ahead and introduce her. So she is the founder and CEO of the Dental A Team, an entrepreneur, consultant, speaker, and podcast host dedicated to helping dental professionals reach their highest potential. Through customized in-office and virtual consulting,   She empowers dentists and their teams to cultivate an ownership mindset and achieving lasting growth. With experience spanning every role in the dental practice, front office, dental assistant, regional manager, and even practice owner, here brings unique first-hand perspective to her coaching. Alongside her team of expert consultants, she has partnered with hundreds of practices nationwide, leading them to greater efficiency, profitability, and fulfillment. As she often says, we don't just understand you, we are you.   So please welcome to the Raving Patients podcast, Kiara Dent. Kiara, thank you so much for being a guest on my podcast today.   Speaker 2 (02:03) Oh, Len, thank you so much. so excited to be here. I loved our podcast we did together. I love the podcast we did in the past together. I'm super excited about Supercharge. Everybody should go. We're going to like sneak peek, be there in 2026. Like Len, huge fan of you guys. Just excited to be here with you. So thank you. Thanks for having me. And yeah, it's always a little weird and fun to hear your bio read right before you get on. So just grateful to be here and just like have a good time with you. It's always a great time when we podcast together.   Speaker 1 (02:30) Well, I'm excited to spend the next 30 minutes or so with content from you. So I always like to ⁓ start off for people that don't know who you are. I obviously read your bio. Can you just tell dentists and other people reading or listening and watching this episode how you help dental practices?   Speaker 2 (02:50) Yeah, absolutely. So with the bio you heard, I started out as a dental assistant and then went throughout and I've owned practices. My first practice I took from 500,000 to 2.4 million in nine months and opened our second location. And that was with a Midwestern grad. I worked at the dental college there. And so helping practices, what I learned was   I've been a team member, I've been in so many of the team roles. And then in addition to that, I've owned dental practices and I understand the business and I've run multimillion dollar practices and businesses. so bringing that perspective, I feel like there's the dentist perspective, there's the owner, the CEO of the practice, and then there's the team perspective. And both are necessary for practices. And so Dental A Team, say like, it stands for dentist and team. So what we really do for practices is whether it's virtual or in person, it's...   I call it the yes model line is what I like to say is number one, you as a person, we're going to focus on your vision, where you want to go as a doctor. Like what is your vision? The practice should serve your life. ⁓ because I believe that when you're supported, you're actually a better owner, a better boss, a better dentist. And then we go to E stands for earnings and profitability. We've got to make sure it's a profitable practice. And then we use those things, the vision and the numbers to then tell us what systems and team development we need to put into place. I'm really much a custom.   Let's see kind of like dentists do with patients. Like let's do a comp exam. Let's see where we're at. And then let's go for what's going to make the biggest impact with the least amount of effort. And being team members ourselves, I really think that we're able to like, Hey dentists, we want to hear your vision. We need to know where you're going and then go do your like favorite thing. It's dentistry. And then let's help your team be empowered to learn how to run the practice. So it truly is like a self-managing team, utilizing every single player in the team to their highest potential, but doing it with a ton of fun and ease. Like as a team member, I didn't want more hard work.   As an owner, do not want you to give me more homework. I'm already busy. So I feel like we really come in and bridge that gap of like where we are to where we want to go and do it in the easiest, most efficient and most fun way possible to help like team and patient experience be the top that it can be.   Speaker 1 (04:48) So I guess someone's listening to this podcast and they say, you know, want to, I want to change the culture in my practice, but I'm very much a micromanager.   So which means they're not focused on their dentistry, they're focused on managing the team. Do you help with that? Because there are so many micromanagers out there. I always wanted them for a very long time. And honestly, wasn't until I gave up that micromanaging and I just did the things I was going to do that my practice excelled. So ⁓ that's something, if someone's a micromanager, do you get them off doing that? Or how do you deal with that?   Speaker 2 (05:19) Yes, and I'm so glad you said that because I think most   Founder owners are micromanagers. think leadership we believe I I think so many there's this belief out there that we just come into this world as great leaders and we should just know it like you went to dental school you should just know how to be a leader and leadership is a journey and so for those micromanagers I think it's really fun to have the doctor and the team perspective and to be able to help both of them say like no doctor like these are the things but what I found is doctors micromanage because there's a lack of communication feedback loops so it's a lot so it's either a lack of communication and feedback   loop, a lack of knowledge, or they just like genuinely want to be a manager and they don't want to be an owner. And I'm like, great, let's just figure out what the the reasoning is. And then let's find the solution to that. So if team members have doctors that are micromanaging, first question I'm looking at is like, where's the feedback loop and what are we missing? Next is like, hey, doctor, I understand that this is where we're at. This is where I need you to be for the growth of the practice. What do you need to feel confident to be the dentist, to be the like not micromanaging like   there's a lack. And when I realize there's a lack and when teams can realize that there's a lack, like there's just something missing, we fix that, dentist is now able to be happy, team's able to flourish, everything starts to move in in a good motion. absolutely. I think being team members ourselves, we're not doctors, we're not dentists. Like, Len, I'm gonna lean on you for clinical. Like, that's not my world. I'm not here to even discuss it for one minute. But what I am here to do is to bridge that gap between doctors and teams.   Because ultimately it's same team, like everybody wants the best experience for the patient. We want the practice to flourish. So if we're all same team, let's help get people right seat, right person, help them understand what they should and could be doing. But also like office managers, there's this whole weird world for them too, where they've never been taught to be managers. They've never been taught what they should or shouldn't be doing. They've never been taught like what the difference between an office manager is and a biller and a scheduler and a treatment coordinator and how all those roles are different. And so helping people understand even what their job entails.   I think really can cut that micromanagement passion project. It's just a lack of knowledge and so teaching teams and teaching people, but we're very hands on. I really don't like fluff. That's why think when you and I get along well, I want it to be tactical. I want it to be practical and I want it to be something that's sustainable as well.   Speaker 1 (07:34) And that makes a lot of sense. And that was a great answer, by the way.   We're talking about, obviously you're very systematized. You put systems in place, the team follows, everybody knows what they're doing, runs like a well-oiled machine. Okay. And that's how my practice was when I left, when I was traveling. ⁓ I knew things, I didn't worry. I knew that things were going to be done like this. They knew the roles, team

Tiff and Dana discuss what they've seen across hundreds of practices as the best time to hold those weekly meetings. They also touch on the benefits of third-party insight, finding pockets to create consistency, the right cadence for your team, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are so excited to be here with you today. I snag Dana once again, and I always say that I snag Dana. I say that because I pre-schedule these, you guys. Pretty far out in the calendar, I always have the podcasting scheduled. And then I do a really great job of being like, ⁓ actually, I know that it's on this specific date, but maybe we could squeeze it in here. I am always looking for ways to try to maximize a schedule, but sometimes it.   requires me moving things around. So I do really truly snack, Dana, where I can and push it into our schedules, typically somewhere else other than where it had originally started. So Dana, thank you for always knowing your schedule, always considering it, and always, think, one, we typically are able to just pop it in there, which just reinforces my bad habit, but... ⁓   I do know without a shadow of a doubt that if it doesn't work, you'll tell me too. So thank you for being the kind of person that can look at something and can confidently say like, oh, great idea, Tiff, but I can't do it that day. What about this day? I appreciate that about you, about your leadership style. And it makes me super confident in you training leaders and practices out there in the world. So Dana, welcome to the show today. Thank you for all that you are. How are you? It's the beginning of our week. How's your Monday so far? And again, thank you for.   just sliding this in here today.   Dana (01:24) Yeah, of course. Thank you. And you know, like, as a fellow efficiency hacker, I love when you look for ways to just pop it in spaces, especially with how busy our schedules are. I definitely always appreciate the snag and the time with you. And yeah, my Monday starting off pretty good, you know, meetings, catch up, client projects, all the things Monday can be a fun and yet sometimes wild day.   The Dental A Team (01:49) It's so true. It's so true. My boyfriend's always like, gosh, it's Monday and like, why are you always so exhausted? Isn't this your meeting day? And I'm like, yeah, well, you know, we got lots of meetings and today I decided to snag everyone possible for podcasting. So I've got meeting on meeting and then podcasting and you're totally right, Dana. And I think it's actually really beautiful. Something we did a few years ago. I don't know, Dana, if you remember when we started, probably, probably pretty close to when you onboarded as a consultant, we started shifting.   into Monday meeting day and Friday kind of meeting slash catch up kind of admin work day because we were getting really wild with our schedule. And it's just something I think that has changed and shifted the culture of the company pretty drastically. And it gives us that space to really dial in and work on the company and not just always working on client stuff or our own personal stuff that gives us space. So kudos to the Dental A Team there and Dana that was really   really kind of ties into today's content, honestly, of really structuring a schedule and being able to see where we can best create, you know, which I know like people, gosh, what am I trying to say here? Practices are like, where am I supposed to do a meeting? Where, and then where is it most beneficial? And I know I get asked a lot and Dana, you might too, like, can I do my meeting on a Friday? I'm like, totally, you sure can. But I think from our experience, what we've seen is Mondays tend to be the best because it sets the week up.   in advance. You can set it up on Friday for sure too, but I think it really just starting the day with our Monday meeting that first, you know, level 10 style meeting first thing in the morning on Mondays really gets the whole team energized and aligned on what our week is going to look like. And for me, working from home, like it really like motivates me to get moving. And Dana, do you, do you kind of feel that same way? And do you see that with practices?   Dana (03:41) Yeah, I do. agree with you. think if Friday is the only time that the entire team can get together for a meeting short have it on Friday, but I do feel like end of the week meetings, whether your last day is Thursday or your last day is Friday. It doesn't allow us to really jump off and get started right away. There's this whole weekend kind of a lag. And sometimes I feel like we come in Monday and it's like, we maybe lost some of the priorities that we talked about, or they get filtered through our weekend a little bit. So if it is the only time that you can, absolutely. And then I think Monday just a little like, guys, don't   forget, right? Bullet points of what we talked about, what we're working on this weekend, again, just to start the week fresh. But I think if you can do them on Mondays, it is a great way to really get everybody focused for the week to be super intentional with the week and with your time and just a jumpstart for everybody.   The Dental A Team (04:27) I totally agree. I think that's super important. I love how you brought that back together on Monday morning as a refocus moment. So maybe it's not the whole hour to hour and a half, however long meeting, but it's a quick like 15, 20 minutes. Let's just jumpstart this week to get us off on the same foot and make sure we remember the things we committed to. So I love that. I think that's brilliant. And again, it ties into what we're going to talk about today. I   Love stats. love pulling the consulting team's stats. love seeing what you ladies are doing for your clients over there and really just seeing the successes of the clients. And I love sharing those successes and those tools. Something that my team loves to do is just really share all the tools we possibly can. And when you're ready to work with us, we do it side by side with you. But until then, you've got these resources that you can kind of self-implement to the best of your possibilities. And we are always here to help as much as we can.   So Dana, I know we've chatted about this client ⁓ ourselves and we're not going to get into the specifics of the client, but the specifics of the results itself. And kudos to your diligence, ⁓ to your accountability and really staying on top of what a client needs. And I think what we've seen a lot is that mostly a client needs someone doing it side by side with them as in,   sharing the emotional load and being willing to have the hard conversations when they need to be had and answer the text when they need to be answered and get on those calls every single month for an hour and a half and really bust through the struggles that the numbers are showing us and really implement the right tools and put the accountability lines into it. So when I say we do it with them, Dana, that's like a very hard line that we've learned to take.   And we do it with them by ⁓ actions of training and support. We're not doing it for you. not calling your patients. Dana's not calling on unpaid balances. But she is someone who has been able to support many clients, but specifically these results. She has been able to support practices in achieving this specific one is tripling their collections within two months of working with Dana.   That sounds magical. It sounds beautiful and it is. And the clients who do experience these kinds of results, which all of our clients experience some tremendous results. But something I do want to put a caveat on is that our clients experience results in varying degrees. And there are just so there's so many results to be had and so many results to be shared. And I think something that has to be taken into consideration is where you come into the game.   Where are you starting and where are you going? Right. So this practice had some room to grow coming into it and as do many practices. so generally speaking, Dana, I think my first question is tripling collections. Number one freaking fantastic way to go. You offered some incredible support, some incredible training and awesome, awesome tools that they will be able to use for the rest of their careers.   What did you, when you see practices come in like this and you're like, holy, holy cow, there's room here to triple your production or your collections. Like, let's do this. What kind of demographics are they coming in with? What are you seeing their stats as when they onboard?   Dana (07:52) Yeah.   Yeah,   yeah, and I will say a client like this is really exciting to onboard because when you can kind of instantly see where you can help, right, you can instantly bring some relief, you can instantly reduce stress because, you know, collections is an area that can cause a ton of just.   emotions, stress, because that's money in the bank, right? And, and that is the money that we use to pay our team and pay for expenses and keep the doors open. And so to be able to have a client come in, I can just like instantly pinpoint where I can be super helpful and massively impact just their life and their practice. It is really, really exciting. Now to get results like triple the collections, this office came in with collections sitting at around 40 % as well   as needing some growth in their production, right? So ideally what they were needing to collect, there was a fairly decent gap ⁓ there that allowed for these results, but it definitely was hugely impacted in their just willingness to jump in and get to work too.   The Dental A Team (09:04) Yeah, I totally agree with you. I think that that space is super fun when clients come in and I'm like, heck yeah, here's a target. And most clients, whether i

When it comes to the goals you're setting as a practice, it's important to establish a strategy to reach them. In this episode, Kiera walks listeners from wishful thinking to goal-driven execution. Email hello@thedentalateam.com for your goal-projection calculator today! Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team Listeners, this is Kiera. And today I like to get out of the hopes, the wish, the like, my gosh, are we gonna be able to hit our goals or not? ⁓ To actually set you and your team up to hit goals. this is just a true like, is your team set up to hit what you guys have set up? Or are we hoping, wishing, wishing on stars, doing all the like magic dance? ⁓ Let's truly, truly, truly help on this. We even have...   a goal projections calculator. So you guys can use that. And something email is Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. I'm gonna go through a bunch of these pieces today, but truly this is something that I think is gonna be so helpful for you guys. Let's not hope, wish, pray, like do that, but let's have it be a bit more predictable. ⁓ We've got to get it to where it's real. Somebody asked me like, I just wanna hit this amount. And I'm like, cool, why? And do you have a plan to get there? Every single piece. I don't care if you wanna hit.   2 million, 5 million, 20 million, all of it's doable. Let's just figure out the strategy. Let's figure out the plan. Let's create it. And then let's execute. Let's not just talk in hopes. Let's actually execute. ⁓ But it has to actually be founded actually. It has to be foundational. Otherwise, no matter how hard they try, they will not hit it. So we're gonna go from like wishful thinking to goal-driven execution. That way you guys can execute consistently.   Dental A Team's obsessed with this. Our mission is to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible and to help you have every possible amazing life opportunity that you possibly have ever dreamed of. ⁓ We want you to lead with numbers, not just motivation. We want you to be confident in your decision-making. I want you to be able to say yes to more things in your life and that's focused on you as a person, earnings and profitability and systems and team development. The yes model, making sure that you are truly set up for success.   We're gonna teach you guys how to actually reach goals that you've set, how to be more consistent. It ties into quarterly. We talk about that on podcasts. Like really it's tracking, it's measuring, but it's like foundational. We've got to make sure that we've got step one is clear, measurable, visible and realistic. So, often offices I'm like, what are we even working towards? Like, I don't know. It does not have to be number centric either. It can be patient centric. It can be whatever it is. And I help offices see that like,   the numbers equate to the number of patients. And so when we look at this back and forth, it's really gonna help us like drive these things forward. And so whatever it is, you just have to make a goal clear, measurable, visible and realistic. So I'm talking like have a thermometer in your back room and we like fill it in every single month to see how close we are.   I do not want you just to be talking about it just as noise. It's got to be visible. It's got to be specific and it's got to be realistic. And then it's broken down into daily, weekly, monthly goals that are going to help us with benchmarks on it. So, so many times you're like, it's so hard care to add an extra 20 grand. And I'm like, but is it? If we're working 20 days a week, a month, that's an extra thousand dollars. Let's talk about how easy is it to add a thousand dollars a day? Like just rattle off, what could we do?   We could do fluoride. We can make sure our X-rays are there. We could add one extra, a couple extra fillings. Like that's all it is to add an extra 20 grand to a practice, but that's broken down into a daily realistic goal. This is going to help people also know what's their number that they actually can influence to drive the goal forward. So I'm very specific. If our goal is X, Y, or Z, we're going to then make sure every single department has something that they're driving this goal forward with that they can influence. And then we have a scoreboard.   Like truly teams do not win games by hoping, wishing that they got enough baskets in the hoop. They have the scoreboard there. They see, are they behind or they on track? Are they above goal? Are they behind goal? The entire game. It's not like, well, we're going to just like look at it once a month and hope like one time during the game, we're going to just throw that score up there real fast. Hope nobody really looks at it. Cause you know, we just want them to play ball.   No, we're here to win. We're here to make sure your practice is thriving. We're here to make sure that your systems are in place to make sure that you give the best patient and team experience. We need that scoreboard visible. Otherwise, how does the team know if we're winning, losing, or if we're on track? So break it down, monitor it. And I will tell you when practices implement this, they instantly grow 10 to 25 % consistently. Like it's a no brainer because we're like what you focus on, you achieve what's in your mind's eye. It's like when you want to go buy a car,   Well, instantly you start seeing that car everywhere and like, my gosh, there's that car again. Well, Toyota don't just like pump out a bunch more cars. You were focused on it. So you started to see it more. And what this is doing is it's focusing all of us on the goal and it's going to make it visible. So step one is you need to have your goal clear, measurable, visible, and realistic. And you need to post it this week. That's step one. Get it in there, physically post it and start measuring on it. Now every goal needs to have   the role tied to the goal. So this is going to what we talking about, like you have to train each role, what metric they can control. So hygiene reappointments, that's a big portion, hygiene fluoride, hygiene production per day, having it visible, having them have their own metrics so they can see what should my daily goal be. You just give a hygienist this information, your hygiene production will go up naturally. If they start looking at it, you have them turn in their end of day production reports, they check it off compared to where they're supposed to be.   Even if you have nothing tied to it, no pain, no gain, no nothing other than telling them what it is, you will increase because now they know for an office, your billing, it's our AR needs to be X amount. This is our goal. This is our standard scheduling. We need to have our schedule filled 80 % or 90%, whatever it is. That's less than one opening per day. We track it. We measure how many days do we not have? It's like how many accident free days did we have? Doctors hitting their dollar production per hour goal.   And checking out like literally I've helped associates increase their associate production goal just by giving them a little calendar where they check on how many days they hit their goal. That's it. That's it. People love like I used to work at the dental college at Midwestern. If you don't know that, well, welcome. Hi, I'm Kiera Dent. I used to work in Arizona's dental college and it was crazy. Our endo buckets were a hot mess. I had made these pictures. I had protocols. had it. The number one thing that worked for me to get those endo buckets back clean.   was giving out gold stars to students. I kid you not, these are dental students. I had 140 of them in two different classes. So 280 and I had to get these buckets in. You can only imagine the amount of work I had to do and that we're talking gut a purchase, like the whole nonsense of these things. And the piece was if I gave them a gold star and then what people started doing was putting those gold stars on their name tags. And believe it or not, people were obsessed with getting those gold stars and tracking and measuring just with a simple gold star.   And if their bucket wasn't perfect, they got a red or green. They did not get the gold or they had to go back and fix it to get the gold star. And it's crazy. Cause when you do this, what it does is it connects the dots for team members. And then we're reinforcing good behavior of what we want more up. So when you start to have like every single role having their goals. So hygienists know what their metrics are. Dental assistants know their metrics. Front office knows their metrics. Doctors know their metrics. And we're tracking it.   They're closing, like we are hitting our goals with so much more ease and continuity. This is how I take practices from producing 150 to 500,000. Like it's not sexy, it's not crazy, it's not hard, it's just consistent and being focused on the right things. So in your next meeting, like we've got the goal posted, it's visible. In the next meeting, ask each department like.   I break this down quarterly usually with departments and I say like, all right, build your quarterly goal. What are we gonna focus on? What are gonna be the metrics that are going to help us get to this mountain over here, this big goal that we're focused on? What does your department need to do? Where are we lacking? Where are the gaps and where can we improve? And then we start tracking it every single week. We review it every single month and we start to help them exponentially grow. This is how we do it and you can have that as a piece. And then third is we need to...   track the progress and adjust it weekly. we're literally like I said, you've got the goals, we're tracking it weekly. It's on there. And when a goal is read, we talk about it that week and we say, all right, this was off. What do we need to do? If hygiene teams are behind, the hygien

Tiff and Britt celebrate all the leaders in the dentistry for National Boss's Day! They talk about key qualities the best leaders have, maintaining a humility/confidence balance, how leadership is entrepreneurship, and a ton more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript; The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello Dental A Team listeners. I am here today. This is a special drop-in This is an extra podcast this month from the consulting team You guys know our avid listeners know that we do quite a few podcasts every month here It takes a bulk of podcasts every month But ours always kind of coincide with the information that we're working on the newsletters that you guys are getting So if you're not subscribed to the newsletters go pop in there on that but we have an extra one today and I have a special guest with me I'm calling you a guest now because   Britt (00:00) Yeah.   The Dental A Team (00:30) I don't pull you in on these as much, Britt, and I have Ms. Brittany Stone. And Britt, I mean, it's gotta be nice over there, like, floating through life on the HR side, you know? But every now and again, I gotta pull you in and wrangle you back to the consulting side. So welcome, and I'm just, I'm excited to have you here today, Britt. How are you?   Britt (00:50) I like that you call it floating through life over there, Tiff, right? I'm happy to ask a person what it is.   The Dental A Team (00:54) I'm just, I'm projecting it for you. Yeah, I'm projecting   it. That way you can like create it. What we say we create, right?   Britt (01:01) Exactly.   We do have an amazing team. It's fun to be here. know consultants get the opportunity to be on here. Even Eve with marketing, so proud of her that she did a podcast as well. So I'm happy I get to stop back in for a little bit.   The Dental A Team (01:17) Yeah, I mean, you reminded   me that Eve was just on Not That Long Ago now, and I'm just mixing it up for these listeners right now. You guys are welcome. This is this is becoming a spicy podcast. So here we go. I love it. Full team. know. Next thing you know, we'll see who I pull in. But probably nothing any more exciting than this. You guys. They're behind the scenes for a reason, right? They are behind.   Britt (01:29) The whole team, the whole team.   Good luck on any of the rest of them. ⁓   I really enjoy   being in that spot.   The Dental A Team (01:46) Yeah, Britt did not, you guys. Just a quick tidbit. Britt has come out of herself quite a bit. And do you remember, Britt, I was just thinking like one of the first, I remember where we were sitting, where I was sitting, at least in my apartment when we had to do the Zoom, because Kiera's like, we got to do videos. People are doing video podcasts now. We got to keep up with it. We got to do videos. And you and I were like, what? Like, I am not dressed for this. Like, and we were so awkward and uncomfortable and it was so weird. Do you remember?   Britt (02:14) I do and you know that's like voice was weird enough for me at least you know karma works in my favor that I didn't have to go full throttle from the very beginning of doing things I got an intro of just doing voice and then eventually adding video   The Dental A Team (02:23) there.   Very fair, very fair. And I think as a leader on our team, that kind of spurs right into what our conversation today is about. And Britt, you are an incredible fearless leader on our team. And I think doing this podcast with you is divine and just meant to be. are someone that I look up to, that I know the whole team looks up to. And just that in itself, like the things that you have worked through, overcome. I remember when you first came on, I'm like, talk to yourself in the mirror. You're like, okay, crazy. Like, yeah, I am.   I am crazy, but it works. And you did it. Like you just jumped in and you were like, I'm going to figure this out. And that is just a piece of leadership that I think you're naturally born with, the figure out-ness. Like it's fine. Anything can be figured out. Whether you do it for the long run or not, you can figure it out and train someone else to do it. So having you on on the leadership piece here is actually just super like natural, right? Like it just is natural. So thank you for being here.   Britt (03:26) You bet, you're generous, Tiff. I problem solving for sure. Kiera will say there's always a solution and that is yes, being a leader, there's always a path through. I don't know exactly what it might be right now, but there's always a pathway through. And ⁓ yeah, it's, ⁓ I think also being a leader, it's a constant ⁓ humble of being able to learn is helps you continue to learn skills to be a better leader over time.   The Dental A Team (03:51) I totally agree with you. And we learn from each other, I think, and we continue to grow. We continue to refine those aspects of ourselves and those aspects of who we are and who we want to become. And it just makes it really, really cool. And today's special podcast, you guys should know. Hopefully, you know, this is dropping on a very special day. It's it's considered Boss's Day. I wish it was like Leaders Day. I don't I don't love the word boss in 2025. Yeah.   Britt (04:17) Can we have a for you to end that a little bit?   The Dental A Team (04:19) We've rebranded so many holidays and so many names of things. I think this one's definitely on the list of need. But I think of Boss' Day as like Leader's Day. I think that it's just a day to celebrate leadership and it's a day to celebrate today of all days the reason that we have, we'll say jobs, right? The reason that we're here today, the reason that we have a company to work for. And I just think it's really cool to take a moment and a special time to really thank those   those people, the entrepreneurs that we work for. And the other day someone said to me like, I'm not an entrepreneur. I'm like, they're an entrepreneur. They own a business. Like they're dentists. know they are entrepreneurs. Just like Kiera is an entrepreneur and she is the leader of this ship and she is to be celebrated today just the same as the rest of you guys are. And Britt and I thought we would take a moment to celebrate Kiera. We will get there. Kiera, don't you worry. Keep listening. We are going to get there.   ⁓ celebrate Kiera, but also to just celebrate you guys too and to really highlight some fantastic leadership skills that we've seen come about in our journeys, but also things that we see practices doing that set them apart from other practices in the leadership spectrum. And Britt, I think that it would be wild to start anywhere else. You tell me I might be totally wrong, but I really believe that leadership is a culture that you create.   and learning how to hone in leadership, think people kind of start all over the place. They're like, well, start with accountability. I'm like, well, first you gotta start where you want, how do you want to show up? Like, how do you want people to view you? How do you wanna be seen as a company and as individuals? And I think that culture piece, can be hard to understand. I might be like making things up, but I think it's something that really great leaders get.   is that they are the culture of the company. And from your perspective, Britt, you've helped create the culture of this company. You're a massive leader within our own company, but you've also worked with many, leaders, even before Dental A Team, to help build businesses, to help build successful entrepreneurial businesses and sectors. What have you seen as just important leadership qualities that really hone in   that culture that doctors and owners can take away from today.   Britt (06:44) Yeah, I love it, Tiffanie. It truly does start at the top. And I think that's probably one of the most important things for anyone who's an entrepreneur, anyone on the team who's got some sort of influence upon other people, which is pretty much everyone, is to number one, like recognize that, yes, you are a leader. And number two, like you said, recognize that it really does start with you and the impact that you have and what it shapes your culture.   I think some of the best leaders that I've had the privilege of being around or working with, I think number one, there's like a confidence humility balance that happens with them because they are confident enough, more confident than I, to like go and take this big chance and go have this business, make that investment, it's gonna be successful. So they've got that strong confidence piece in them.   while also realizing that yes, there are human sides sometimes we've got to shape ourselves a little bit to become that leader and create that culture within our team. And so being able to recognize that and acknowledge it and take that responsibility on as a leader, I even have to catch myself doing it sometimes. Right, sometimes, well, it's just, that's the way I am. No, that's not a good answer, right, for something. That's not a, that's an excuse 100%. It's not just the way I am or I'm learning about that.   thing or I'm working on becoming better at that thing instead of saying, well, that's just what it is and move on and deal with it because that doesn't get us anywhere. So I think kind of that humility, confidence mix. you know, I think anywhere you go and you've heard it before, right, people remember how you make them feel. And I think really good leaders have a genuine just want for their people to do well as humans and in their job.   And it's amazing the power that comes behind that. I'm thinking of, just had the opportunity to see one of my old bosses recently. And just like the excitement he has for what I'm doing now. And I quit, I left his office to come and do this. And he's still so excited about it. I think that goes a long ways for team members and building leaders because it builds confidence in

Kiera and Trish apply their dentistry expertise for another practice autopsy! This episode looks at a legacy practice that was experiencing stagnation in production because of numerous challenges. Kiera and Trish walk through what exactly was changed to allow this practice to hit its production goals for the first time in over a year. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera and today is such a fun day. I have one of our incredible consultants, Trish, on the podcast with me. Her nickname in Dental A Team is, go ahead Trish, say it. And explain what to da means Trish, because it's my favorite nickname of any, like it's one of the best we've come up with.   DAT Trish Ackerman (00:11) Ta-da!   Well, it definitely got sticky, that's for sure. so TADA stands for Trish Ackerman Dental A Team Ambassador, because I love referring anybody I can to us. That's either a client or somebody to come and work with us. I love this company and I want everybody that I love to come and work here too. I want clients to join, so yeah, I'll take it.   The Dental A Team (00:27) you   Trish, like it is one of the like biggest compliments that you you have referred people to our company. You have brought tons of people to us. Like you are a walking little dental A team advertisement. And to me as a boss, as an owner of a company, like that is music to my ears. But like, didn't you just take that name on for another name in your life? Like this is this is sticking. So tell.   DAT Trish Ackerman (01:02) I did, I did. It got   that sticky. So I'm going to be a grandma very soon, which just sounds awfully strange to say out loud. But we had my original grandma name all picked out, which was going to be Cha Cha. But when I heard Ta Da, I'm like, that, that is really classic. That's going to stay. And my daughter and family, they're like,   The Dental A Team (01:26) Yeah   DAT Trish Ackerman (01:29) okay, we might have to grow into that a little bit. I'm like, well, get ready to grow anyway, because it's staying.   The Dental A Team (01:34) Well, our marketing team has already been working on some pretty fancy swag for you Trish, because TADA, if you don't know Trish yet, you're gonna get to know her. If you haven't heard her as much, Trish is one of the most funny, like she, I feel like you're just confetti in a human form. Like you literally just like burst confetti everywhere you go. You make people laugh. Like you have made me almost spit water of laughing so hard on calls together. You're just a good time. And so,   If you haven't gotten to work with Trish or you haven't got to meet her yet, welcome. She's one of my absolute faves. So excited that you're on our team and that you are the to da of the company. ⁓ but today I wanted Trish to come on because I love a good office autopsy and Trish has been consulting some clients, rocking them out, having some really incredible massive wins. And so we thought, let's like, let's go behind the scenes. Let's see what that to da consultant over there has been doing in her spare time, consulting some awesome offices.   And with that said, whenever we do an office autopsy, what we do these for is to help you see yourself in other practices fabric. I think a lot of times people think dentistry is lonely and isolated and it does not need to be. So what we're gonna do today, we do mashup practices. So if you think this is you, there might be parts of you, it might be parts of another practice. We try to do that to keep practice confidentiality. But really I also hope when you are a practice that's being highlighted in an office autopsy, just know that you get highlighted because...   We're freaking proud of you as the owner too. These things can't get done without owners executing and implementing. And while yes, we as consultants are really good at what we do, we truly are magicians. We're able to grow into ways that you couldn't even imagine, but we can't do that if you don't execute. So Trish, take it away. Let's kind of talk this office. Where were they when they like joined Dental A Team? Then I always love to say like, where are they now? Like how long did it take us? And then we'll get into the how of how did you do it? What were some of the things you implemented? So take it away Trish.   Where was this practice when they joined us and now where are they at ⁓ a couple of few short months later?   DAT Trish Ackerman (03:30) When this practice came to us, this was a really, really special situation because this is a legacy practice. And it was originally owned by grandpa and then the current owner's father. So this is now the third generation of a dental practice. And when this practice came on with us, they were doing many, many, things right.   but there was no traction taking place and they were very stuck. They were very stagnant and the current owner, this is a really big deal. know, this was again, because of the legacy that it's holding and he was struggling. He was struggling financially. He really was. There wasn't a lot of, there wasn't a lot of knowledge. He didn't have a lot of knowledge around like the current overhead, what it should be.   And things were feeling, he was feeling a pretty big pinch. And I had to give him so much credit. I think it takes a lot of courage to reach out to get the help. you know, it's like, practices don't typically reach out to us because everything is going so great. It's usually when they're starting to feel something's not right, something's uncomfortable. And he did just that. And they had an extremely congested schedule.   The Dental A Team (04:46) Mm-hmm.   DAT Trish Ackerman (04:57) They have a large patient base, as you can imagine, because many are still, you know, that were patients of his father. So what was happening is because of the congestion, they weren't able to see new patients right away. was like a six week wait for that. There were several patients in the hygiene that were still active that weren't able to get in. And then again, there was just kind of like a bunch of stuff on the schedule, just stuff. So they were working really hard.   And what I did is I really walked through the specifics of his patient base to show him you actually have way more patients than you do available hours, which is why you're stuck here. And how do we do this? Well, we were also a little restricted on that because this is a five op practice. So we had an op for each doctor, an overflow, and then the two hygienists.   But what we did is we got creative because we knew we had to add hygiene. That was a must. And we also had to allow more openings much sooner for the new patients because what was happening when I pointed out that he was basically giving his new patients away to his competitors because they were waiting so long that really got his attention. we ended up, the first thing that we did is added a hygienist.   The Dental A Team (05:57) Mm-hmm.   Absolutely.   DAT Trish Ackerman (06:20) which now brought those two doctors down to one op each. And that really scared them because we were handcuffed. It was like we were handcuffed in every direction, but we got very creative and we designed very strategic doctor schedule blocks so that they know when there's gonna be production.   and they know when they can make the time for like the sand and the water appointments, post-ops and things like that. But the staggering of the schedules made a huge difference. The practice was also only open Monday through Thursday. So we changed it to Monday through Friday. So on Mondays and Fridays, those doctors do have their two ops again. So that has worked well. When we implemented that design, we also implemented some patient filtering.   so that they could get in the new patients, not emergencies, but they could get in the new patients with significant needs right away and also not take the risk of giving those away to a competitor. If they have significant dental needs, get them in right now. And we took away the focus of like, they have the protocol, a lot of doctors like for those new patients to go through hygiene first and that's a great structure. It's a great structure for patients without   The Dental A Team (07:21) Mm-hmm.   Thank   DAT Trish Ackerman (07:41) significant dental needs. So that all of a sudden opened up the door to where both of the doctors were getting very comprehensive new patients on their schedule right away that needed significant amount of dental work. Then they could eventually get into the hygiene department. With that, when we designed that, within six weeks, this practice had hit their production goal.   The Dental A Team (07:43) Right.   DAT Trish Ackerman (08:10) for the first time in over a year. The team was starting to get very numb to goals. They weren't even looking at the numbers anymore. The numbers weren't mattering to them. And then all of a sudden there was this light coming at the end of the tunnel where they hit the goal. Then they hit it again and they've hit it again. He has not hit goal in the last four months. And the trend that they're on,   The Dental A Team (08:12) Wow.   Wow.   DAT Trish Ackerman (08:37) Well, running parallel with getting the new patients with the significant needs and such. What I also did is ensure that both him and his associate were really polished on presenting treatment. ⁓ They had intraoral cameras that were collecting dust like a treadmill in a living room that a lot of people have seen happen or hanging clothes on. They got those dusted off. They use them on every single patient. There's a way to use photography.   The Dental A Team (08:49) Mm-hmm.   you   DAT Trish Ackerman (09:05) And there's a way to use photography. And this doctor, anything I encouraged him to try, anything, he did it. There was zero pushback on any of t

Expert consultants Tiff and Kristy give listeners a look inside their head when it comes to scheduling the most efficient and optimized way possible — and in a way that won't feel overwhelming. Their advice, which includes the right verbiage and what to do when schedules change last minute, will start all team members with their best foot forward for various tasks throughout the work week. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are back today. I have Miss Kristy with me. I stole her for the afternoon. If you listen to the job description, I don't know what they're gonna call it, but we talked about optimizing your job description basically and metrics. And if you listen to that one, you know Kristy is like my calm in the storm.   and ending my day with her today, I was like, there's no better way to end a Monday. So if you have the opportunity to work with Kristy one-on-one, she is your consultant, you guys. I envy you. You get more time with her every month than I do. Truly, I envy you. And you also know exactly what I'm talking about, Kristy. Your calm is just incredible. I will never not talk about it. So thank you for ending your day with me today and ending. It's a good day.   It's an exciting week for us, so thank you for being here.   DAT Kristy (00:51) Yeah, thank you for having me. It is a good Monday ⁓ ending with podcasting with you and then we're on the heels of our live event. So excitement all around this week.   The Dental A Team (01:02) I know, I agree, I agree. There's so much just, there's so much to be thankful for, so much to be excited about, and I think something that's been coming up a lot, and something that we do a ton in our own schedules, even just talking about, Kristy, your client's getting more time with you than I do, like even individually, you guys, individually, I think you see her more than I do. And there's no bad feelings, I promise, I harbor no anger. I am just slightly jealous. ⁓   But I think on that note, like it requires some really, really specific special skills to be able to plan a week and plan a day. luckily it's something we train on because I think we're really good at it and we have to be even within our own position. like Monday, we're ending our Monday with podcasting because Monday is kind of our meeting slash admin day. Friday is our secondary admin day. And then we have all of our calls Tuesday through Thursday. There are some.   people in there that slide in other days, but they know the caveat is it may have to be moved because these are our admin days. So Kristy, I think it's just like divine that this is the conversation we're having. Today's conversation is all about optimizing your schedule, making sure what you're doing is optimized. But Kristy, before we really start talking about the in practice, like dental schedule, I think it would be smart to maybe even tell me how do you...   when you look at your schedule, what is the thought process that goes through your mind on optimizing your schedule? Because I think business is business, schedule is schedule, how I schedule anything is how I schedule everything, and how I do anything is how I do everything. So how do you look at your schedule and think to optimize it?   DAT Kristy (02:47) Yeah, well, I love that you started it with us and our schedule because with anything, you're either going to be doing it by default or you're going to be intentional about it, right? And so a lot of times when we do it by default, we'll look back at the days and we're like, my gosh, it was such a crazy day. And we look at the end dollar that we produced and it was like, ⁓ why am I doing this? And then there could be another day where we hardly did anything and it felt like,   The Dental A Team (02:58) Mm, I love that.   DAT Kristy (03:17) We won the world, you know, we hit our goal. And so I think just to your point by being intentional, it's not about being crazy, right? But to your point, Tiff, we have to start somewhere. And I think sometimes people get very overwhelmed with where to start. And so obviously I like to start with where were we last year? You know, what is my goal this year?   ⁓ Obviously, doctors have to look at things from an overhead and business perspective, which is smart, and what percent are we expecting to grow this year. So knowing those benchmarks, first and foremost, but when it comes to specifically team and scheduling, ⁓ we need to know if that's our goal, where are we at today, and how can we bridge that gap to get there? So looking at what's our procedure mix.   How many, you know, take your procedure count and how many have you done in the last year? I can want something all the time. And we hear this Tiff, we were kind of joking about it earlier, but you know, doctors want to do more implants and we do their procedure count report and look and go, I want you to too, because last year you did two. just, you know, a lot of times people, you know, go to fill the dreams, build it and it will come.   The Dental A Team (04:34) Yeah.   DAT Kristy (04:41) And there is a little bit of truth to that, but I also think it has to be realistic.   The Dental A Team (04:45) Yeah, I agree. I agree. like when you look at your schedule, I look at my schedule, the first thing we're going to do is we're going to look at how many clients do I have? What's my call time? My call volume? And then we're going to add on top of that, how much time per client do I need for admin style work? I'm creating things for them. I'm looking at trends. I'm working on P &Ls.   So then we go through and it's not just call time. It's like, cool, I'm gonna bust out this many calls, but then I'm gonna give myself creative space for this. Or maybe Wednesday's my PNL day and Tuesday and Thursday's my calls, but we're gonna build it to where we can work with it. And something that I have learned over the course of eight years of this is spreading it out and allowing calls to be scheduled wherever does not breed productivity.   What happens is I'm exhausted constantly because switching from consulting brain to even podcasting brain, so even being on client calls to podcasting, being on client calls to writing a newsletter, to creating some sort of content, to doing a one-on-one with one of the team members on our team, going from one mindset, one space of Tiffanie's life to a different space, even in the same position.   is jarring and it slows down the process. And I like to say you're just not, you're not getting enough of me when I have to do that. And so a lot of times clients are like, can we do it on Monday? I'm like, I would love to give you Monday, but I'm not my best version for what you need me for on a Monday, on a Monday. Because the version of me on a Monday is Dental A Team meeting, leadership calls, like we're GSDing for the business. And so switching from that,   to a client coaching call is a different set of brain cells and it just makes it really hard. So Kristy, what I think that flows into in your conversation is a doctor who's like, yeah, I can do a root canal anytime, who cannot do a root canal anytime. Like you don't wanna do a root canal at 3 p.m. when you close at five. I don't think you do. I don't think I've met a doctor yet who wants that. But a doctor who's like, you know what, I can do root canals on Wednesdays at 10 a.m. every time.   Great, because it builds in predictability and sustainability, I can sustain that. I know what to expect with my schedule and when there is some realm and version of predictability, when the chaos comes from the outside, when things change, when things are thrown at us and people are asking us questions, it doesn't feel quite as bad as when your schedule feels like chaos, right, Kristy?   DAT Kristy (07:33) Yeah, I agree with you. I always like to say too, ⁓ I know most of us that got into dentistry have that S profile from the disc assessment, right? And we want to please, but we're never going to please everybody. And so I hope that you look at your schedule as your team and protecting your team, right? And so   The Dental A Team (07:42) Yeah.   DAT Kristy (07:56) If you're saying yes to the patient, most of the time you're saying no to your team and the schedule and your guys' sanity. So I say the schedule's a baby, protect the baby, right? Don't, yeah. And you guys don't get upset with your doctors either if they want things scheduled at a certain time. ⁓ We've all probably experienced it either ourselves or a loved one when...   The Dental A Team (08:07) I totally agree.   DAT Kristy (08:21) A surgeon says, do surgeries on this day at this time. And it's for a reason. It truly, it's not to give our patients grief, you know? So give them a little grace when they want those specific times.   The Dental A Team (08:35) I totally agree. Even just orthodontists, right? I know we've got orthodontists who work with us, orthodontists who listen to the podcast or GPs who are practicing orthodontia, but I talk to my GPs constantly. They're like, but that's not what my patients want. And I'm like, well, what do you want? You think an orthodontist is going to be like, yeah, sure. I'll ban you anytime. No, they are banding on Fridays. Like they are banding on Wednesdays. Like they're choosing it, right? My oral surgery practices are not doing   all on fours or thirds at any day of the week. They're doing thirds on Fridays. They're doing all on fours on Tuesdays and Wednesdays so that they have two or three days left of the week to troubleshoot things going wrong, having gone wrong. So, or troubleshoot just any needs, not even something gone wrong, but they're leaving that availability for themselves. And I think that's truly optimizing the schedule. Optimizing the schedule is looking at what do I need to accomplish? So what is the end

Kiera shares specific tips for how practice owners can gain consistency, confidence, and calm in their day-to-day unsteady of chaos and surprise at the unknown.  Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today's a fun day. ⁓ think how to get more stability and predictability in your dental practice. I think this is a zone where people don't know how to have stability, predictability, growth, and how to do that in a consistent way. so ⁓ some practices feel like it's like a freaking rollercoaster. Like your systems are wild and it's like, what?   flavor of the day should I be choosing? I fix my system? Should I go for a new patient? Should I be working on my P &L? And I think that that's just like what people do. And they're like, how do I get this stability? How do get this predictability? Now I heard this quote and then I tried to find this quote. So I'm just going to tell you, because I love it. I don't know if it's real or not, but I'm just going to say it's real. They said that Walt Disney said, and I love Walt Disney and I'm obsessed with Disney, but they were able to create predictable magic with systems behind the scenes.   And I think about that for practices of like, can I help you create predictable magic, predictable cashflow, predictable, ⁓ profitability, predictable, like new patients. Well, it's through the systems behind the scenes and the team that's in place. so today really working on that of like how we can go from chaos and like whack them all of like, and I feel like I do this too in my company. just so you know, I don't think anybody's ever perfect at this, but I think we can actually cut out a lot of these pieces for you to create less chaos.   more predictability, more predictable magic in your practice ⁓ to give you that consistency, confidence, and calm in an owner's life rather than the chaos and the surprise and the unknown of will I be able to make it next month? Will I be able to make it in six months? I think for me as a business owner, is the hardest part of being a business owner is that unpredictability. so trying to give you more, ⁓ more predictability and stability. So if you're tired of   the revenue swings, you're tired of the no show surprises, you're tired of the last minute team drama, like you're just tired and exhausted of that. This episode's for you. This is where today we're gonna really go into our mission of positively impacting the world of dentistry with tactical advice ⁓ from experts who do dentists and team consulting. We've been there, we've done it, we've done it multiple times, we've run it in our own practices. ⁓ Every single consultant on our team has had to have a proven track record of going through exactly what you go through.   coming out on the other side with ease and grace. So that's what we're here for and so I'm gonna just break it down into a couple quick steps for you today of just some different things that can probably help you create some more predictability in your practice to create more stability and to get you out of that, like I said, the revenue swings and no-show surprises. Now, this isn't something that's going to come easy. This isn't something that happens overnight. ⁓ I have a sign up in my kitchen that says discipline equals freedom. This is a disciplined act.   This is what the high achievers do. These are not the small practices that are doing this. And it's the, like, I feel like it's investing. Someone once told me investing is like vanilla ice cream. It's not sexy and nobody gets really excited over vanilla ice cream, but it's predictable and it's always good. And that's what I feel this is like, let's create your practice into the vanilla ice cream practice where it's not sexy. It's not flashy, but it is predictable and it's stable for you. And then from there, like add the sprinkles, add the toppings, add the chocolate. Like you can make vanilla ice cream awesome. It's a great base and a great foundation.   So today I wanna help you create that in your practice. So step one is a daily and weekly rhythm. ⁓ I found that structure is something that's so paramount. Even my mom, like there were seven kids in my family and my mom had to create structure. Like I remember summertime, a lot of parents hate summertime because their kids have no structure. They enjoy school time, there's structure, there's a rhythm, there's something that they can count on. Kids go to school at this time, kids come home at this time, there's predictability in there. And so for you within your practice, let's kind of take what we do.   in parenting and in growing up. And let's apply that to your practice because the same principles apply. And so having these different pieces ⁓ in place of how teams communicate, of how we review performances. So it's a cadence. Like I hate remembering things and I love cadences. just a couple key strategies on this daily and weekly rhythm would be morning huddle. And in morning huddle, morning huddle is one of my fastest ways that I'm able to create stability and structure within a practice if it's a good one. So we're looking at patient.   patients, goals and priorities. And we're doing it consistently and we're looking for opportunities. So a great morning huddle, Kristy and I were talking the other day and she said, I can add 10 to 15 grand to most practices just with a great daily huddle. And I love that because I agree with you. If you use a huddle strategically, it's like, why do team members like in basketball or football, why do they huddle? They huddle to win the game and that's what your huddle should be. So we have our daily morning huddle to look for opportunities to prioritize, to align, to make sure our goals are actually where we want them to go.   Then after that, we have a weekly leadership and team meetings. We're looking at our numbers, resolving obstacles. We literally teach our teams traction style ⁓ L10 meetings so that way you can run it. So we're talking about our data, any of our numbers that are off-track or an immediate issue. We teach you how to solve issues. We teach you how to rate a meeting. So they're very effective and efficient meetings using data. So we're not just sitting here like vomiting our problems. You vomit the problems, yes, but we're also going to have a strategic way of how we solve them.   And then this way we're able to catch our problems earlier. So between those two things of a daily and a weekly, so we're having a daily huddle that's focused on strategy. It's focused on winning. It's focused on opportunities. And then we have a weekly leadership. So your leadership team gets together and departments. And I know you might be like, that's so many meetings. It's fine. You're welcome to do that. But I'm like, if you want to know how the big players are hitting, like I'm talking the practices I work with that are 20, 30 million annually. This is what they're doing. And at a small level on a big level, this works.   When I had one team member, did leadership meetings every single week because I figured we need to start, like that's a big practices to do. That's a big organization to do. So why am I thinking I'm so small not to implement that? When you do this, you typically will see a 10 to 20 % increase in revenue and decrease in overhead. You'll increase your schedule. Like just doing this, you'll look for opportunities. Your schedule will start to get hit more consistently because we're tracking it. We're tracking it every single day. And people like don't love to talk about this, but I'm like,   I also don't love working out, but I want the six pack abs. So it's choose your heart. Like would we rather sit there and like hope and pray and want to have it? Or are we going to start to put in some of these daily practices and weekly practices that work for other ones? So that way you can have more predictability. I promise you what, where your focus is, like where energy goes, focus flow, like where focus goes, energy flows. Let me get that one right. Where focus goes, energy flows. So if I'm focused on the numbers, I'm focused on the things we should be doing. I'm focused on solving problems sooner.   That's where my energy is gonna go. So we're gonna start to like, if you read the book essentialism, they talk about like, don't spin your wheels on a million things, spin your wheels on the most important things and laser focus on it and get everybody rowing in the same direction, you're ultimately gonna grow so much faster. So when we're doing these little pieces, this is what it is. So I would, if I was you, add these meetings into it, but I would make sure my meetings are powerful and impactful. I wouldn't just do meetings for meeting's sake, meetings need to be done with intentionality. Number two is tracking.   Leading metrics, not just lagging ones. So a leading and a lagging, I really hate these, they're really hard for me, but it's leading ones are things we have control over, lagging is the outcome at the end. So for example, like pre-appointment, how pre-appointed are our books? What's our unscheduled treatment? What's our AR aging? What's our same day conversions? What's our diagnosis rate? Like all those things are leading measures that will help us know if our outcome is going to actually get met. So if we're looking at pre-appointment, like,   how many patients in our database are pre-appointed for appointments versus how much re-care and reactivation do we need to do? So it's these two things like, if I wanna schedule full, I can pre-appoint, I can reappoint, I can look at all those different pieces to make sure my schedule's full. Schedule full is the outcome, the pre-appointment, the reappointment, all of that is a leading measure that's going to help me get to my outcome. And then we wanna actually look

Did you know: Each position in your practice should contribute toward the practice's goals? Tiff and Kristy break down why each position should have a vision and specific metrics (starting at the job description), and how together, alongside all the other positions, they work toward the greater good of the practice. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello Dental A Team listeners. I am so excited to be here today. I am always excited to be here today you guys I love podcasting I really really do and I love podcasting with other people more than solo and I get to pull consultants in and Britt from HR Headquarters over there HQ and Eve from marketing like I get to pull in just the most fun people from our team to Just double up and get some time with Kristy   I've got you today and this is like our special time together and I just love it. So, and Kristy, I put you specifically at the end of my podcasting day. I hope you noticed that not just because of timing, but because you bring a sense of calm to my life and podcasting with you, not to say that it's not easy with anyone else on our team, but you really like, it's just so easy. You bring a sense of calm and ease. And I was like, that's what I want to end my day with. So thank you for.   opening up your schedule to me and for being here today, Kristy, how are you?   DAT Kristy (00:59) Good, absolutely. I love it too. I mean, we were just talking the other day because we don't get much time together and so I know we look forward to this time. now that I know you put me at the end of the day on purpose, I love it. I love it. I love it. Yeah, it's a good way to end the day.   The Dental A Team (01:13) Surprise!   Good. Well, I'm glad. know Mondays are busy for you. Our team does, we do meeting Mondays and so it gets a little jam packed, but it's nice because we get it. I feel like we get all of that admin stuff out of the way and we get aligned on actions we need to take for the week kind of all together on the same day. And then we just spearhead our week ready to go. Well, Kristy, ⁓ today is exciting. I   I'm gonna actually pull in what we were just talking about. you guys, you guys know, avid listeners, you guys have been here. We've been doing this podcast for a really long time, you guys, and if you have ideas on things that you want to hear, please send them in because our little brains over here are just thinking of all of these things. Sometimes they feel like, did we just record this? It's like this content sounds so similar to something else we've talked about. And so I don't know how to label this one.   But I want you guys to know we are going to chat today a little bit about job descriptions. And this is something that we find incredibly important. So we talk about it a lot. So I want to drive that home. They are so important. And Kristy, something that I recently recorded a podcast with Brittany. And something we talked about, part of that leadership skill, was being able to give direction to the team to execute decisions.   as a leader, being able to execute decisions, being decisive and having execution as leadership, but also gifting that to the team. And we talked about the vision of the practice, kind of where the company's going and the leader, the owner, being able to utilize that for the culture of the company. But I kind of think right now, these job descriptions are the vision per position.   It gives us our heading so that within my position in the practice or the organization, I can say yes, no, maybe, yes, this is the right decision right now for the company. And it brings about some clarity for everyone. Kristy, you, what do you think?   DAT Kristy (03:28) Yeah, I love that you mentioned that because for so long, think we've all understood that job descriptions should have duties, right? I truly am a fan of duties versus titles, but also I think honing in on the other aspect of, think the duties, let me step back. The duties tell us what we're responsible for, but I think bringing in the other aspect   tells us how the person should behave. And so I think they go hand in hand. And I think oftentimes we miss that other piece of it and then we get frustrated when we don't hire that person.   The Dental A Team (04:11) Yeah, I agree.   in ⁓ a layer on top of that, you mentioned job duties and kind of how to behave. But even within that ⁓ what piece, the job duties, the clarification on the job duties, if I know that my job, my goal of my position is to have the schedule full, maybe I'm a schedule coordinator, and my number one metric is 90 % full on hygiene for the next five days,   80 % full doctor, like whatever that metric is. If I know that's my metric, then I think, my gosh, this one patient, my how-to says confirmations. And step one is text message, email, text message, email, but I know this person is 85 years old and they're not getting these text messages. I don't have to question, do I call this patient? My job, my goal is to get that patient here for that appointment, no matter what that means looks like.   So I think that vision and that ⁓ very clear cut, this is what the metric is of your position. I sitting in that scheduling coordinator position can say, Julie, at 85, I'm just gonna call her. I'm not gonna mess with the text messages and wait until three days before if I know she needs a call and we need to confirm her right. Like I have this information, but we often get asked, Kristy, I think.   by different team members that they're like, well, can I do this? I'm like, well, does it get you to your goal? Is it a part of what gets the practice to our goals? Heck yeah, I think that's a great idea. It gives you the space to be creative, to get to the results that you need to get to, that are set as parameters because you know what you're driving towards.   DAT Kristy (05:58) Yeah, you said that so well. So again, I'm with you. It's not just the duties and how we behave and perform them. But like you said, then we can tie it to what metrics am I responsible for? And one other piece behind that is painting the clarity. If it's 90 % reappointment rate or, you know, whatever metric I am responsible for. Now, what system   comes behind that metric if it's not where I want it to be, right? So then I can pull up the system and say, hey, am I not working the system properly or do I need to find a new system because our system's not working any longer to get the result we want?   The Dental A Team (06:45) for sure and that's where teams come to us, or office managers, and they're like, my team has no accountability, how do I hold them accountable? Or how do I get my team to hold themselves accountable? How do I get them to own their jobs? It's really hard to own something if you don't have complete clarity around that goal that you're working towards. And so having those smart goals with those metrics tied to them, Kristy, like you just said, allows that person then, like you've said, to work backwards from the result to see   What did I do that got the result? Because anything you do, I literally just said it this morning, I say it all the time, even consistently being inconsistent is going to get you a result. Consistently doing anything will get you the result. And if your consistency lies in inconsistently, I'm always inconsistent, you're going to get a result. So knowing what your target result is in comparison to the result that you got allows you to backtrack and say,   DAT Kristy (07:25) Yeah.   The Dental A Team (07:41) Was I inconsistent in my utilization of my systems? Or is the system just flawed and I need to reinvent that wheel? Totally fine too, but it allows the space for that. And Kristy, the way you said it was it allows the person holding that metric to see it themselves and can to it, which takes training and it takes consistency from leadership to constantly point back to the metrics, to constantly be like, okay, ⁓ what   what is your metric, your standard, and then what did you reach? And when there's questions that come up like, Kristy, like, do I call this lady? You're like, well, what is your metric? Does it get you there? And I think that consistency is that accountability piece that people are lacking.   DAT Kristy (08:27) Yeah, I agree with you. ⁓ Just like you said, it's very easy once we've painted that clarity and we have understanding also for the team to report back to you. You shouldn't have to ask. But I also would say don't just report back. Report back and let them know your trend because maybe it is 90 % reappointment rate that we're looking at. ⁓ Literally, I was just on with an office that was   It's almost embarrassing to say they haven't looked at their rates for reappointment. She's like 50 some percent and I'm like, yeah, that could be a problem, right? ⁓ Yeah, let's not focus on 50. Let's talk that the goal is 90 and let's start talking about your trend, right? So even if I'm reporting it talk about your trend where were you and where are we going? And then I also like to say with that TIF is recognize what's working well and   reinforce the good. gets reinforced gets repeated, right? And then get team talking about what they will do to overcome any opportunities if we're not at the mark we want.   The Dental A Team (09:36) Yeah, I love that. I love that so much. you just, you saying that about the practice, I'm like, my gosh, that's fantastic. Like 50%, that's not fantastic, but look at how much space there is to create something different. Like that's really freaking cool because practices come in and they're like, I don't know what to do. And I don't know why it's this way. And I just need this. And it's like, this is so cool because there are spaces.   that are really, really simple to tackle that you just didn't uncover yet. And we get to come in and help uncover those. S

Part 2 of podcast guest Dr. Lauryn Brunclik (of She Slays the Day podcast fame) and her conversation with Kiera. In this follow-up to Becoming Business Savvy with a Clinician-First Mindset, the pair discusses seeking other revenue streams to obtain financial freedom. The chat includes fixing your pricing structure, living below your means, understanding the spender and saver mindsets, time management, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera and welcome back to part two of my chat. If you liked part one, you are going to absolutely love this. I am so excited and I can't wait to dive right in.   Kiera Dent (00:10) Lauryn, I'm very curious. Like you've talked about it at length. Like what do people do? Like what's the how, how do we get into this?   How do we have multiple streams because agreed all eggs in one basket? gosh. It's, ⁓ to me, that's like just a ticking time bomb. Like one bad day, one bad patient, one bad procedure. Like it's just going to explode because you're sitting like you're sitting on the edge of fear all the time to where you are in like cortisol adrenaline, like you are pumping. And then what you do is you go into complete shutdown because you can't handle it anymore. So your body and your system literally like just shuts down on you. You become apathetic to life.   Dr. Lauryn B (00:23) Mm-hmm.   Kiera Dent (00:44) things aren't exciting for you anymore. You become very numb to walking through the world. And it's like, I feel like the world of color goes into very like gray. It's very subtle. It's like, it's, there's no, there's no life left. It's just, are living life, but you're not actually being and living day in, out. So what are some tacticals? Like I'm so curious. I love to hear that.   Dr. Lauryn B (01:04) Well, so,   I mean, ultimately what you have to, I'm no cashflow expert. My husband would like laugh, not, he wouldn't laugh. He'd just be like, what's she gonna say right now? So like cashflow will multiply the more you start putting your money to work, okay? So it's very, very, step one is simple. It's exactly what you said. You have to have cashflow coming from your clinic.   Kiera Dent (01:14) okay.   Dr. Lauryn B (01:33) You have to. Like, you need to spend less money than you are bringing in. Okay?   Kiera Dent (01:42) Ooh, love that. Ding, ding. All right, great. Got it, team. Got it all.   Dr. Lauryn B (01:45) Like, so it's   it's simple. what did you say? Like you said, there's only three ways to make it happen. Like lower your overhead. Yep. Yep. See more people. Yep.   Kiera Dent (01:50) There are, either cut your costs, increase what you're producing. like for how many patients you're seeing and   or collections, because a lot of times you're producing enough, but we're not collecting the money that we're actually producing. that then costs, people are have no money. And I'm like, you have 500,000 sitting in your AR that's not collected. So you actually have money. You just have a broken system of how to collect it. And to your point, my husband said this very early on when I started that company, he said,   I care, don't lose money. He was like, yeah, I'm not going to give you any rules, any parameters. He's like, just don't lose money because that's going to cause a lot of strain on us. And I thought about that a lot. It's like, ⁓ I guess that's a great, a great plan. Like it's really been a good thought for me. But it's like, if you are going to lose money on having a business, go be an associate for someone else. Like it's a hobby at that point. It's not a business. So I'm like, if you're not going to have your business make money for you, like truly no judgment.   Dr. Lauryn B (02:24) Thanks, husband.   Yes.   Kiera Dent (02:44) go honestly be an associate, go work for someone else so you're taking home a paycheck. When owners are working for themselves and making less than they are as an associate, I'm like, we have a big problem here. And now you're mad because you got way more problems. You can't just clock in, clock out and leave for the day. And I'm like, that's actually not a business. That's a hobby. And it's a bad hobby. You have no freedom. No, it's delusional. No.   Dr. Lauryn B (02:57) Mm-hmm.   And they're like, but I have the freedom when I'm the owner. You don't have freedom? can't afford a vacation. what? You have   no freedom.   Kiera Dent (03:11) Stop lying to yourself just because you own a business. People are like, I wanted this texture, have more time. And I'm like, yeah, tell me how that's going for you. Probably not great. All right, so we gotta have a business that actually cash flows. Simple stuff.   Dr. Lauryn B (03:16) How's that working for you? Yeah.   Yes, so step   one is very simple, but not is you have to fix the pricing structure, the collections, your payroll blow. You need to look at the profit margins of your clinic. Very easy, very difficult, but very easy.   Kiera Dent (03:37) And they're   industry specific too. I don't know how it is in chiropractic, but I know in like dentistry, we say right now, even with all the things like I want 30%, we're talking all things, fringe benefits, 401k. Like 30 % for payroll, 25 to 30 is about average. And we aim for, I don't know how it is in chiropractic, but I aim for a 50%, not including doctor pay, 50 % overhead in dental practices, 30 % of doctor pay, because I'm like, that's what you're gonna get paid as an associate. It's like, let's at least pay you that.   Dr. Lauryn B (03:45) No, that's pretty yeah, that's pretty healthy. ⁓   Kiera Dent (04:04) And then hopefully we've got a 20 % profit, but that profit debt services click in and that's a real fun zone and taxes. Like I love it. No, you're not getting your W two people are not taking taxes out. You own this business. All that money comes to you. So do not get trapped in that like tax trap. but like, like that's a very simple formula and you look, what is my supplies? What are my rent? Like, what are all those things? And if you figure out the benchmarks, then you know, which one am I bleeding money on quickly fix that hole. So we stopped bleeding it again.   It seems so hard. And you and I are on the other side of that equation saying, no, actually it's like real simple. You just look at it real quick, figure out what it is. You can build your practice to support whatever numbers you need, or we cut. Usually it's easier to increase production and collections than it is to cut. But a lot of people are just overspending in ridiculous ways that I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Like I have a practice, I looked at their numbers. They shouldn't giggle. I did giggle, because I was shocked. They're like, here, we have no money.   And I was like, all right, send me your P &L. Let's take a look at it. So I did. Year to date, they produced 528,000. So they're doing about 85,000 per month is what I calculated when I ran the numbers. But when I looked at their take-home pay, they're taking home, so it's 528. I'm super happy for them. Like don't, there's no judgment on that. They're taking home 250,000 of that 528 is going to the doctor, which again, I'm happy that they're taking home the money. But what's happening is the practice is not producing enough for that.   They're running all their kids through it. They're running their cars through it. They're running everything through it, which again is not a bad thing. But if you don't have cash in your business to hire people, I was like, we're a little off on the percentages.   Dr. Lauryn B (05:37) Yeah. One of my favorite things to teach people   is because people are like, I just want to learn tax strategy. I want to learn tax strategy, tax strategy. And you're like, okay, here's the thing about tax strategy is you can only do tax strategy. Can't see I'm doing air quotes here. If you have money that you don't want to give the government, if you are spending   Kiera Dent (05:47) you   Mm-hmm. Air quotes, I see them.   it.   Dr. Lauryn B (06:06) much as you make and the government's like, yeah, you're good. You don't know anything. Like there's no strategy to be had. Strategy can only apply to profits. you know, like to money you've made. So, so that's where it's like, okay, I get that you really want tax strategy, but like you're, you don't need strategy yet. You just need to create more.   Kiera Dent (06:09) There is no tech strategy. ⁓ That is a tech strategy. No.   Yes.   You   just need money to then pay taxes on. Then we can talk about what it's gonna be. Yes.   Dr. Lauryn B (06:37) Yes, then we can talk strategy.   But yeah, so like that's where it starts. The next hard part, and this is where I kind of touched on like, we went into this career because we believed this career was gonna take care of us while we took care of other people. And so everybody's got a little different version of what that means. ⁓ What car they think they should be driving.   Kiera Dent (06:42) That's a point.   Ready.   Dr. Lauryn B (07:06) once they have made it, what ⁓ their house situation should look like, how many vacations, their spouse, if they're buying their spouse, designer bags and things like that. Like we have in our head once we make it, what life will look like. And so after you fix your cashflow thing, the next thing is like,   you gotta kind of continue to live below your means for a while. Because if all of a sudden you've fixed your profit margins and you have an extra $30,000 flowing into bank accounts a month that does not have a job, like, you're just like, we're gonna move into a bigger clinic, we're gonna hire another doctor, we're gonna do this. And all of a sudden that...   Kiera Dent (07:58) Let's go!   Dr. Lauryn B (08:04) that potential, but like you have to have money in excess to build wealth upon. If you fix the first

Kiera is joined by Dr. Lauryn Brunclik (of She Slays the Day podcast fame) to take a good hard look at clinician burnout, different sides of the working mindset coin, generational styles of work, and so much more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I am so excited about our guest that's going to be on the podcast with me today. She is incredible. We're going to be talking about all things burnout, how to avoid it, how to just like live your best life. And so I have Dr. Lauryn Brunclik. She's an entrepreneur, chiropractor, business coach, podcast host, wife, mother, and sought-after speaker known for her high energy. You guys know that this is why I like her. mean, we're birds of the same feather, straightforward attitude and ability to make people laugh while discovering their truth.   In 2010, she founded Blue Hills Chiropractic building into a thriving seven figure practice. But after years of relentless hustle, she found herself overworked, tied to her clinic and craving more freedom. Dentist, can you relate? Now you see why I brought her on here. Now you can see why I want her here. ⁓ she truly is very similar to all of you out there. She was determined to create a business that worked for her, not the other way around. Lauryn built multiple revenue streams, streamlined her operations and reclaimed her time without sacrificing income.   She took that passion and launched She Slays the Day, a podcast helping professionals and clinic owners break free from burnout by creating multiple revenue streams, recleaning time and building financial and lifestyle freedom. So welcome to the show, Lauryn. How are you today?   Dr. Lauryn B (01:07) Thank you. As you   were reading that is so funny because like in this world of virtual assistants and AI, I'm always like, what bio is she reading? And I'm like kind of holding my breath like, ⁓ and I'm like, okay, yep, that's true. That's true. this is good. I did really get sad and burnt up. It's like, I just went on a journey with you while you're reading my bio.   Kiera Dent (01:25) Usually both.   You and me both. was on a podcast the other day and I had the exact same feeling because they were reading my bio and I was like, huh, I'm super curious. Like which bio did you get? And wow, yeah, like I did just get to go down memory lane. but   Dr. Lauryn B (01:40) You're   like, that's a good bio. Good job, AI. Good job. Which is like always waiting for like the wrong thing where it's like, no, I didn't do a stint as a clown or anything. No, that's not true. That's not true. So.   Kiera Dent (01:49) Exactly.   I, Shelbi got us connected and I was super excited and you know, I was looking up on it and she's like, here, I think you and Lauryn are going to have the best time on the podcast. She's like, you two are birds of the same feather, the high energy, the tactical, the like we talk about it's like life on purpose and business on purpose and not having it to where it's the other way around. I say all the time, like your business should be working for you, not the other way around. It should be supporting your life. So I'm just super jazzed. So Lauryn.   Dr. Lauryn B (02:04) Mm.   Kiera Dent (02:17) I mean, that was a great bio. agree like kudos to AI, virtual assistant, whomever wrote it for you. Kudos to you for living that actual bio and being the human on the other side of that. So anything else you want to add? I mean, we're here today to chat shop. We're here to ⁓ share with your audience, our audience, and just really collaborate together and talk about some things that you're super passionate about and that I am too.   Dr. Lauryn B (02:22) Right.   Yeah, so I think that one of the things is that, you you kind of address of like, I think you probably typically have more dentists on   of thing and your audience is like, wait, what's happening? So I started as a coach for chiropractors, you   Kiera Dent (02:51) you   Dr. Lauryn B (02:56) this is, I see this a lot of what we do ⁓ as especially high achieving people, you know, we spend a lot of money and time getting this degree. And then we kind of, when we start to get   bored, burnt out, ADHD, whatever it is in our career where there's this kind of a couple years in and you're like, wait, is this on repeat? What we tend to do is we repurpose our current knowledge set. And so it's like, I have this degree in this, so I'm gonna start a podcast for those people, right? And so that was kind of my experience too. She Slays the Day started as a podcast for chiropractors.   But then I started to realize like as we were having these conversations and you you're just networking, you're meeting. And I started to talk to dentists and veterinarians and you know, realizing like, ⁓ you guys deal with the same shit we do? I had an ENT on a private practice, ENT ⁓ on the podcast, on my podcast because I was following him on Instagram because he was hilarious, but I was like.   Kiera Dent (03:51) Yeah.   Dr. Lauryn B (04:02) you're dealing with the same stuff we do. And ultimately, that's kind of where I expanded in 2023 to be more for healthcare providers outside the traditional hospital system, because it's like, none of us learned business. Like, we, while we were doing anatomy and infectious disease and all of this stuff, there were people outside in the college getting like MBAs and entire business degrees.   Kiera Dent (04:18) Exactly.   Dr. Lauryn B (04:31) And we didn't take a single class. we just, there's such this atmosphere of shameful entrepreneurship. What I mean by that is like, especially within chiropractic, and I've talked to vets and dentists as well, that's like, well, if you're not gonna own your own clinic, are you even like really that good? And so there's this forced entrepreneurship in a society where only 10 % of   Kiera Dent (04:54) Mm-hmm.   Dr. Lauryn B (05:01) people truly have the grit and resilience for the shit show that is ⁓ entrepreneurship. But you have like 80 to 90 % of a profession going into it. And so it's just so natural that it's like, we didn't learn this stuff. It's so natural that burnout is such a common thing. So that's where really it's like, I've realized that like, yeah, I promise you that the same stuff we're dealing with, you're dealing with too because I've had these conversations.   Kiera Dent (05:13) Right.   Amen. And it's actually funny, and I didn't mention this prior, but we actually consulted a chiropractic office and we've consulted eye clinics and ⁓ optometrists and we've gone into CPA clinic firms. And I realized business is business is business and healthcare business is very similar. I think we do ⁓ outside of mainstream medicine, which is our chiropractic, our vets, our dentists.   We're not in the hospital setting. We have more of that autonomy to have our own practices and our own businesses and I agree with you. It is a I think I think the memes out there with business ownership are so accurate the ones where you're on a roller coaster and they're like it's the highs and the lows the ones we're like holding on for dear life and you're like giggling and then crying all within a matter of seconds and I'm like that is the role that is the realm and so that's why I really wanted us to collaborate together Lauryn to talk about because   What you see in chiropractic, what I see in dentistry, what we see across the board of these incredible clinicians. like you, go to school, you learn, you, you have all this experience in this knowledge. And like you said, It does not train you to be a business owner. yet also, like you said, it's well, why not? Like, and I think that that is kind of the, it's like for team members, like you want to graduate to be the office manager. You want to be the regional manager. You want to get to that level. Like that's where you like it. There's a ladder ascension. And I think in business ownership and with   Like you wanted to be a chiropractor because you wanted to help people. You wanted to be a dentist because you want to help people. You want to be a vet because you want to help people. You want to be an ENT because you want to help people. But it's, think that there's this unsaid natural ladder that people feel there's a push to go for a business ownership when it's like, but I just want to be a clinician. I just wanted to, to do my craft, but I also wanted to do it my way. And that's where I think the business ownership vibe comes in. But you're right. It's, it's stressful, not having profits, not having   understanding cashflow, not understanding how to run teams. Like awful.   Dr. Lauryn B (07:20) The number of people,   doc, clinic owners that have been in practice for 10 plus years that I am teaching what profit margins are and what is healthy and how to calculate it is astounding. It's like, So, you know, I think that ultimately when you, you know, the different personality types, you know, when they find themselves in practice,   Kiera Dent (07:31) Yes. Yes.   Yes.   Dr. Lauryn B (07:46) I feel like they almost burn out for two completely different reasons. So let's say that you have, know, so 80 % of humans are just more meant to be more like caregivers, supporter roles. I would guess that that's even higher in someone who's called into healthcare, right? That like, they went into this, believe me, if you are about to decide what you should do with your life and you are like, I'm an entrepreneur and I wanna be.   Kiera Dent (08:05) Mm-hmm.   Dr. Lauryn B (08:15) rich. Do not go into chiropractic. Do not go into dentistry. There is so much easier ways to make money. like 99 point whatever percent of people are called to this profession in healthcare because they want to serve. So let's say you start your clinic. There's a good chance you're going to burn out from one of tw

Feeling stuck? Kiera helps listeners create a three-step framework to diagnose a growth ceiling and push through with strategy and confidence. The steps that follow can be done in order or reversed. Find your true cap rate (then get a second opinion) Rework your systems for scale Set a bold new vision Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and I hope today is just a great day for you. I hope that you're loving your life. Today's podcast date today is the day I get to share with you for whatever we're doing today. So whether we're driving to work together, whether we're driving home together, whether we're doing laundry or mowing the grass or traveling together or whatever you're doing today, thanks for taking me along with you. ⁓ it's truly something so fun. And today I think is going to be great for you to, what do do when you hit the plateau in your practice? ⁓ so   reality is we like didn't build our practices to be stuck or to feel like we're stuck or like there's no like we don't know our next move. ⁓ The reality is like if you plateaued or you feel stuck, it's just time to evolve. It's an indicator for you to know what the next step is kind of like when our seatbelt buckle beeps in the car, it's an indicator to put our seatbelt on ⁓ or we get the indicator from the gas light. It's an indicator to go and fill up our car with gas. Same thing when we're practices like it's plateaued or it's stuck. It's just like   Cool, let's diagnose, let's create a framework. Today I'm gonna help you have a three-step framework to diagnose your growth ceiling and how to push through it with strategy and confidence. So that's about what we're gonna do today. The Dental A Team is obsessed with you, I adore you. I'm so excited to be a part of your life or your practice. Our goal is to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible and we do that through helping you say yes to more. So you having a vision for you and your life and your practice, earnings to make sure that you're profitable and it's predictable profit.   and then new systems and team development to ensure that everything you want to say yes to in life, you, your team and your patients is doable for you. And we do that with fun. We do that with ease. We do that with ⁓ creativity and love for teams. And we've been there, done that and done it successfully many times. I truly can hang my hat on the fact that I believe Dental A Team is the top notch consulting company. If you want to grow, if you want to do it with fun, if you want it to not just be directed at dentists, but you want your team involved in it and to do it from experts who have done it thousands of times successfully. And that's something I'm really proud of.   Most of our offices see a 10 to 30 % increase in production or a decrease in overhead within their first 90 days. We track these stats, we're very obsessive with it, and we do it through really fun, easy dial turns. So if that's something you're obsessed with, rock on. Let's work together. Reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. And as always, thank you guys for sharing this podcast. The goal is to get this into every dentist's hands, every single practice's hands. So please share, like, leave reviews, whatever you can do to get the word out and to help me on my mission to truly give back to our community. If you're ever looking for topics or   episodes head on over to TheDentalATeam.com click on our podcast page we have thousands like literally this is a free wealth of knowledge for you that we put on because we I truly just love dentistry and I want to help you have the best life life is my passion dentistry is my platform so head on over to TheDentalATeam.com click on our podcast page and you can literally type in anything so cash flow overhead ⁓ team growth leadership morning huddles case acceptance routes like you name it   type in any of those and of every single episode we've ever done, will actually filter for you and bring anything forward for you. So just make sure life super, super easy. Ease is one of our core values and trying to make your life easy is what we're obsessed about. So today when we're going to, a lot of times I see this in like a 1 million, a 1.5, a 2 million practice where they're just like, gosh, I feel like I've just like hit my level and I don't know how to grow beyond it. It's kind of like my hair. My hair grows to a certain length and it won't grow beyond that. Like I can cut it shorter.   but it just grows and it has never once grown beyond that. It's like, I don't know how to get my hair to grow past this level. Well, some practices feel like stuck hair, ⁓ but I just want to help give you this framework of three simple steps to help you diagnose it and then figure out what the next step is. So number one is to diagnose your true ceiling. And ⁓ this is where we're going to figure out like what the true cap rate is. Now, why we'll put this with an asterisk though, because a lot of offices think they've tapped out capped out.   but maybe they're just so used to sitting in there or they don't know how to have an eye for it. I went into a practice once upon a time. They had four ops and they're like, Kiera, there's nowhere else we could ever fit an operatory in here. So we're just gonna build out, we're building a building across the street. Well, within about 15 minutes, I was able to find another operatory. They added that operatory. They were able to add 200,000 to their practice just that year.   just by adding that one operatory in place. And they were like, well, we wish we would have met you like even a few months ago before we started building this huge, expensive building. I have another client where they got huge design plans out to like expand the building. It's a huge, huge expansion. They sent me a video of their downstairs and I was like, gosh, we could add like six ops down here with less effort, less reno. ⁓ And so I think also before you like truly say you pick capacity.   maybe getting a second set of eyes on it or a third set of eyes to see is there any hidden potential in here because we're looking at chairs, ops, providers, and hygiene days. That's going to truly be capacity of what can we do. Now again, getting creative because could we add maybe an hour in the morning? Have we maxed out all five days in the office? A lot of times people tell me we're maxed and I'm like, but you're not even working five days. That doesn't mean you have to work five days, but if you're practicing your building sitting empty, that space that we could actually grow that isn't the true ceiling.   So if we are not maxing out all five days, if we're not maxing out ⁓ all the operatories or all the space that we've got, you truly have not hit your ceiling. You might just not want to do the things that are capable for you. So looking at that, could I add more chairs? Could I add more operatories? What about more providers? What about more hygiene days? What about more hygiene hours? Is there space to expand any of that? Before we truly go to expand, these might be some areas that might be able to help you get past this plateau of some other areas. Also, let's look at our leadership.   ⁓ Is our owner acting as a manager and not a CEO? Are they managing the day to day? ⁓ Are they involved in all the meetings or are they truly as a CEO? And our office manager is acting as the manager within the practice. So looking for that because sometimes just freeing that owner doctor up to be a CEO actually can expand your practice very quickly with minimal effort. You actually can have all that in place and there's very little effort that you actually have to do because now the owner is able to look at things   It's like, give me a day of nothing and I will create so many possibilities. And so getting that owner out of the manager seat and into the true CEO seat, if that's the right seat for them, can also help. And then let's look to see like, what are our gaps? are there scheduling apps gaps? Do we have block scheduling in place? Can we maximize our schedule even more? What about our case acceptance, our AR? ⁓ What are some of the other areas of bottlenecks within our practice that maybe if we look to see changing them, like I've added hundreds of thousands.   including millions to a practice just by doing a different scheduling tactic, looking at the flow of the practice, just changing up the flow with pediatric practices, looking to see where do we put our ops versus our, our profis. You can actually readjust that whole schedule and actually squeeze out more juice in your practice, giving a better patient experience with little to no effort, just reworking how we're doing things. So I really, really, really love this. Like there's a practice.   that cure were totally maxed out. Like we don't know what to do and should we like expand our practice? They already have the huge practice and looking at it, I was like, but we're only here four days. So why don't we even consider that fifth day and or evening hours a couple of days? Again, that does not mean your current team. We could hire other team members for this, but like let's just run some numbers and see just adding that extra day, those lower, those evening hours. We were able to add over 550,000 to a practice just by doing that one simple thing.   no extra cost to the building. We were able to bring in two team members for that. Everything ran super easy. So I think I would go and look to see like in your practice when you're thinking I've plateaued, run a quick audit and say, where are we losing time? Where are we losing money? Or where are we losing energy? Like what are the true bottlenecks in our practice? And this is where like a CEO has to have that visionary time. Because if we ran a 60