Dental A Team Podcast

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Dental A-Team! Kiera encourages listeners to acknowledge and celebrate the people in their lives in real time. 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 Merry Christmas. I hope that you guys are so happy and I don't know, I feel so honored that you're sharing Christmas Day with me. I hope that you unwrapped your packages. I hope that you were able to give amazing gifts. I hope that you were not naughty this year and you were nice. I hope that like, my gosh, like I just wish that I was with you like walking down the stairs to your Christmas morning. I hope that you were with your friends, your family. And if you don't celebrate Christmas, I hope that you woke up today just feeling the special magic.   of this time of year of anticipating our next year. And I just hope that you're surrounded by friends and family and that you just feel love. I hope you feel love for yourself and just Merry Christmas. I am so, I love this time of year. I love this holiday and I did not used to love this holiday. It was my favorite growing up. And then there was a short stint of time where I hated it. Like no Christmas music, no things. I don't even know how that was possible because I was Mrs. Claus.   I worked for United Way of Utah County and I was Mrs. Claus for the year and we did Sub for Santa. And that was a year I realized that there is truly magic in our communities and in us serving each other. And gosh, I just like, I remember growing up like, yes, I loved presents and I love those things, but a lot of times it was just like my family being together and little things. And like in my family, had, when I was really, really little, we had these like dollars. don't know, they were called like.   I to say scholar dollars, but that wasn't right. They were these like little dollars that my mom gave us. And it was like little things that we did that were kind gestures to our siblings, like helping each other out. My family was lawn mowing business. And so we'd help each other with that. And growing up and getting older, I think, well, yes, it's so fun to have gifts for my siblings. The real gift that I look forward to, and I'm sure a lot of you can relate to this is   being with these people, being able to be present with them, being able to share special moments, to be able to share magic with them, that's what makes holidays magical. ⁓ And when I think about like this time of year, giving's not just about gifts, it's about like our presence. So not present, but presence, our impact, and how we're able to like show up for our families and for our teams and our practices. And so when I look at this, I just really think about like,   in the spirit of Christmas, the spirit of giving, in the spirit of that, like leadership and team culture are so important of gifts that you can give your team. And this is what can help you guys thrive. So of course, it's the holidays. I'll make this short and sweet for you ⁓ because I really want you to think about like when we're looking at our families and we're looking at today, being present with our family.   is one of the greatest gifts that we can give them. think of how many times are we scrolling on social media? How many times are we not present? I even think about me and Jason, like we're hanging out together and we are both knee deep in our phones. And I look up and like 45 minutes have passed by and I've been sitting by the person that I absolutely love. And the world is so obnoxiously annoying on asking for our time, asking for our attention. And I think that that's why we get so excited about holidays is we actually have this like   Dedicated shutoff time where we can be with our families and holidays sometimes actually bring out the worst in us I know two Christmases ago It was absolutely one of the worst days and I felt so annoyed because I had to slow down and I couldn't go anywhere and I couldn't call anybody because people with their families and I felt stuck and I felt trapped and I was like this is not a good thing Kiera you clearly are operating at such a high velocity all the time that you slowing down was actually one of your worst days and so I think when I look at like being present in life   I think being present for my team. How many times is my team talking to me and I'm slacking or I'm sending an email off or I'm not fully listening or I'm responding to a text message. I think the world today is craving people being present, of being intentional, of listening, of caring. And I think that that's like when my family gets together, yes, a gift is nice, but the gift of their time and attention is becoming more and more valuable because I think it's so hard to capture that from people. And also I think being present for yourself.   showing up for yourself every single day, having meditation time, having journal time. Like the world can be so loud. Things can be like, we have dinging things, reminders constantly that it's like being present, listening, showing up, engaged, engage with your team. I think about Britt, there's certain times that her and I would just like shoot the breeze and we're just hanging out with each other. And I'm like, those are more meaningful than our meetings. And we're just like trying to rattle things off and get things done.   And so I just think like, if we're giving a gift of presence, not present, how can you as a leader do that? And I think one of the biggest things that doctors can do is to actually be fully attentive in team meetings. ⁓ And for team members to be fully attentive in team meetings, I can't tell you how many times I watched teams and the doctors on their phone, they're not engaged. And I just think like, if you're asking your team to be here and you're asking them to solve problems, but we're not willing to be present,   Gosh, like that's just such a hard ask. And I think as leaders, that is your job to silence them, to be present, to be with the people in front of you and not to be distracted elsewhere. And I say team members to do the same. We've got to also have our minds be there. I could be completely checked out of my phone and Slack, but my mind could be elsewhere. And so how can I be fully attentive in my team meetings when I'm having conversations with people? And I will say like, doctors, this is like, Merry Christmas. Be present for your team.   ⁓ I watch often and I see doctors just scrolling on social media, even when I'm there having conversations with them. And I just think if you're willing to do that with me, that you're paying me to be here. ⁓ and that feels icky to me. How do think your team feels when they're coming to you as a leader, as someone that they're looking for, for support. And I just think for your family, the gift of like, even if it's like five seconds, even if you put the phone down, ⁓ even if you just like really commit to be there.   be there. ⁓ Another thing is like to pause during the day like a short connection. ⁓ It doesn't take a lot to be connected to people. It doesn't take a lot for you to just say hello to ask them like genuinely with no agenda, no time construction, not having your phone, not having your watch go off. Like even people is like, my watch like, hmm. Yep. huh. I'm listening. I'm like, you're not listening to me. I literally have my watch to where it will not have text messages come through at all. I use it specifically for a watch. If I need to later, I can have things pop in but   I shut off the notifications because it drives me nuts when I'm in a conversation and I'm having a conversation and they pull up their watch, they pull up their phone like, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. No, it's not uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. You're not listening to me. You're not present with me. So I think like today, practice being present with those around you. You might be Kiera who had like one of her worst Christmases a few years ago and it was awful, but I realized this is, I'm out of touch. I'm out of practice. I don't do this often.   And if we can train that muscle, gosh, what a gift it's for yourself, a gift for your team, a gift for your family to truly be present. ⁓ I also think another way for you to do it is to celebrate people in real time. So the reason why this is a gift of presence is because you have to be intentional. You have to be paying attention to them to celebrate them in real time. like look for it, look for when your assistant does like perfect handoffs to you, like.   They're handing the instruments and they're just crushing it. Celebrate that with them. Celebrate when someone closes the case for you. Celebrate when we fill this schedule hole. Celebrate when we like got that claim collected. Celebrate when like doctors, got that perfect endo, like you got all the way to the bottom of that root tip. Celebrate when you did a perfect crown prep. Celebrate and be present in that moment. Celebrate when patients tell you great things. Celebrate when we get an SRP diagnosis and we went from a bloody profie to an SRP and we told them what they really needed. Celebrate when our team   is like giving a great patient experience, celebrate when our team does a tour of the office and highlights how great of a place it is, celebrate when people edify each other, celebrate those little pieces in your life. This is such a fun, easy way, because I really do believe that we're just becoming a society that's not present. We're giving presence, but we're not present. ⁓ We're so distracted trying to be connected that   we're missing the people right in front of us. And I think about that. We have no social media Sundays in our house. And Jason and I are shocked at how many times we like go to the app on that day. And it's just a habit. It's like these habits that have been formed. And so

As the holiday cheer permeates our day-to-day, know that that same kind of energy and excitement can be found in your practice year-round! Kiera talks traditions, countdowns, and culture from a dentistry perspective. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and it's Christmas Eve. You guys know that I'm obsessed with holidays. I'm obsessed with this time of year. I'm obsessed with just so many fun things. And I hope you guys are like, yes, listen to the podcast. Sure. But I hope that more than that, you're hanging out with your families. And if you don't celebrate the holidays, I hope you're taking this time to celebrate you and to just be there with you. guys, I just love the holidays. think that Christmas is more than just about   present and like those traditions and all of that. I think it's just like the anticipation of what's coming next. And I think one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves is like the excitement that we feel leading up to it. My husband and I were on a really fun trip this year, but we had to plan the trip in like two weeks and I actually missed the anticipation leading up to it. So with the holidays, I feel like every single year we get this anticipation, we get this gift, we get this same excitement that   I really do hope that you guys are feeling that same excitement that hopefully you're feeling for Christmas Eve tonight, going into the excitement into your dental offices for 2026. Like just think about it, you guys, we are about to wrap a bow on 2025, roll into 2026. And I think that energy, that excitement, that fun, that zest, this is really what brings the magic of the season. This is why the holidays are so special. It's time for us to sit back. It's time for us to reflect. It's time to get out of our routines. And I really just hope that you guys are giving yourself the greatest gift of anticipation.   but I hope that it's anticipation with a thought out plan. I know there can be anticipation for Christmas when I have not thought about family and it is a frantic scramble. And if you are that office for 2026, I would encourage you to not be that office. There are better ways where I actually like to have our entire year gets wrapped up by December 15th so I can go into the holidays, have a good time. ⁓ I like to have my Christmas gifts all bought usually around.   Halloween. I like to just have it done and out of the way. And I would hope that the anticipation of how great the year is going to be how great the holidays will be how excited you are for people to get this rather than in the frantic scramble because both can be anticipation both can be great gifts. But I hope that you're giving yourself the gift of like true joy and anticipation of the excitement of the year to come rather than the frantic frazzles. So guys, if you don't know me, I'm Kiera Dent. ⁓   founder and CEO of Dental A Team. love all things dentistry. I love helping dentists and their teams find happiness. Life is my passion, dentistry is my platform, and truly to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. Like this is something where I just hope that teams and doctors have excitement for what's ahead and that your team and you feel energized and not exhausted. And if you feel exhausted, that's okay. We've got solutions for you and I'm here to help you with that ⁓ because   I really do believe that you and your team can crush it. And as we're on Christmas Eve, you guys, my family is so fun. Jason said when he joined our family that Christmas and the holidays were just a good time. Like it has always been so magical. ⁓ Christmas Eve, we're going to be hanging out with family. And it's been fun because we shifted it up. I was selfish. And for the first several years of our marriage, I was with my siblings because my little sister is 15 years younger than me. And so   I really want to be a part of my siblings' lives. I wanted to be there and be close to them. And Jason was so accommodating. He was the youngest of his family. And so all of his siblings were grown, that we went to my family for so many years. So Christmas Eve with his family is very different. And the anticipation and the excitement, I was a little disappointed last year when we were with his family versus my family, but it was so fun. And we were able to make new traditions and...   we were able to create fun things and his dad, I made his parents who are much older, they Jason has a complete accident, ⁓ do family Christmas pajamas and matching with us and to be able to create new memories and new holidays. And I really do think that the energy and excitement and the love that we feel at this time of year can be something that you can also do with your own practices. So ⁓ I think that like,   getting anticipation with clear goals is going to be super, super beneficial for you guys. just like when we were kids and counting down the Christmas, teams also can get excited with this countdown to goals and to what's coming up and what the vision for 2026 is. And so I just really would encourage you right now, if you haven't done it or it's in the process, create goals and topics and conversations that your team can get super jazzed and excited about. Having a vision, having a fun year.   Every year I theme my year and you guys it's not too late. Like we're only on December 24th. You still have like a week before this year is over. So take the time, give yourself a theme, something to look forward to, something that you and your team can anticipate with excitement and counting down ⁓ of clear annual goals, clear quarterly goals, and then like celebrate those milestones as they come up. Like when we hit them, what are we doing to celebrate?   and have countdowns and visual trackers just like we have advent calendars. In my family, my mom was awesome. There were seven kids in my family and each of us had an advent calendar where we'd count down the days to Christmas. And I think, why don't we bring that fun, that zest, that excitement into our teams? Why are we sitting here like, hey, we hit production. No, like let's add the spice, let's add the fun. I think teams get really excited. People are like, what is different about Dental A Team over other consulting companies? And I'm like, what's different is we bring fun and excitement and get results.   That's what's different. Like why not make your practice a little more fun? So I think that you guys could build like a gold tree in December where every like scheduled case you get is an ornament and it can be super, super fun. Like you guys don't want to bear Christmas tree. So maybe consider that. Maybe we have something that kicks off in January where we have snowflakes and or we donate and we give back. Like we talked about at Thanksgiving time. Could you create visual countdowns for Thanksgiving where it's like   for all the number of cases we do, we're gonna donate to a family in need. I don't know. There's so many ways you can do it. And I don't think doctors, is for you. This is why it's a Dental A Team and dentist and team podcast. Team members, like let's get your ideas. Let's get you on the podcast. Listen to this episode, share this with your team. But like, how can we build visual countdowns and have a fun time? Because again, the anticipation with clear goals is what's gonna help you guys this season. So number two, I think something that you guys can do is like,   just like on Christmas Eve, like build traditions that fuel culture. I was talking to an office and they were dressing up as wicked. And I said, my gosh, are you guys gonna go to the wicked opening? And they hadn't thought about that, like wicked part two. And like, that's the fun stuff that fuels culture. So like, what can we do just like at the holidays? Like we all get excited for the charcuterie boards or for the matching pajamas or for stockings or in my family, we did baby stockings on the tree in addition to regular stockings.   We had countdown chains, had advent calendars. The holidays are so special because of the traditions. And so what traditions can you guys put into place in your practice? So could we have our tradition at like end of quarters when we crush it, we do X, Y, Z that people can look forward to it. We can get excited for it, that our goals are leading us to these like fun ideas. Could we do annual CE trips or retreats that everybody looks forward to? Our company cut them and then they got sad about it. And then we like, I get it.   There can be pieces, but like this is culture. Our team all gets excited for fun Friday on morning huddle. We all get excited for ⁓ Wednesday is core value shout out days. Like all these little things drive and thrive with culture. And so what can you guys do that can make it fun? Can we have a shout out jar that everybody gets gifts? Can we do like, I don't know, once a quarter, we do a, our favorite things, gift swap. So many little things that are going to just building traditions that are going to fuel your culture because   We have the countdown of anticipation of goals, but goals are not met with crummy cultures. A lot of times when I look at offices, I'm like, how is the culture? How was the leader? Those things are going to impact you far more than anything else. And so what is the tradition of culture that you guys can do? And I have a practice and they started celebrating their team. So every single month they had shout out jars and we shifted a whole culture who used to be like mean girls status. They were actually just women. There were men too, but like the movie mean girls.   to being this team of loyalty, of camaraderie, my team was even that way. I remember saying like, I felt like I used to be on Johnny Depp's ship. I was in the middle of the ocean, my boat was burning. My te

Tiff and Trish discuss the need-to-know info for the buyer of a practice, including team member transparency, new patient inflow, software use, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello Dental A Team listeners. We are back again I have Trish with me because I freaking adore her and I the we just recorded a podcast We record a few at a time. You guys know that I batch them It's called efficiency and that will be on my tombstone per Kiera. She tells me that every day It will it will if it's any vision. I'm like, oh my gosh, this is like grating cheese by hand like come on anyways   We are here today and we just recorded a podcast. So these are kind of serendipitous that they're back to back and it ended up this way in a weird way. So I don't have to go down that rabbit hole, but we just recorded a podcast on this seller's perspective of how to ensure that you're always ready and prepped to sell no matter where you're at in your journey, making sure that 10, 20, 30, five, two years down the road, you can sell your practice and that it's not as...   as stressful an event as it would be if you were unprepared. So I can't say we can remove all the stress. I can say that we can remove some stress that is just unnecessary. So today, now, I really wanted to look at the buyer's perspective. And we kind of hit on both a little bit on the last one, but this one's gonna be a little bit different. So make sure that you listen to both. Doesn't matter which order, I don't think. We'll find out by the end and I'll tell you if you should have listened to the other one first.   I know, I know, inefficient, but it's okay. So Trish and I are here today. You guys know I adore Trish. If you just listened to the Sellers one, which you should, ⁓ you heard me just rave about Trish. And Trish, love, I realized when I was recording with Monica a couple of weeks ago, which those were fantastic, you guys, if you need information and ⁓ ideas on training your team and operations manual, et cetera, all those pieces, Monica has some stellar ideas over there. But I realized Trish, while I was   Recording with Monica, I love podcasting. I love this aspect. I'm just a weirdo like that. But I love podcasting with you guys. And I realized in the beginning ⁓ with Monica, it was our first time podcasting together. And it was the first time that I got to rave about Monica and just really say all of the things that I love about her and I think is just so incredible about her with her consulting and just who she is as a human.   And I get to do that with you guys here in this platform. And Trish, you're one of my favorite people to rave about. love all of our consultants. You guys hear me rave about them, but Trish is such an incredible human being. It is impossible to describe you. You're just multifaceted. And I realized this is my brag session time. And I'm like this, I love it. It makes me so happy inside.   DAT Trish Ackerman (02:37) Thank   I that.   The Dental A Team (02:49) to just watch you guys thrive and to get to just tell the dental community how amazing you guys are and how special it is for them to get to hear from you and to get you guys in person with them and working with their teams and the leadership that changes the profitability that I've seen come out of everyone's work is so cool. And I realized with Monica, I'm like,   this is why I love podcasting with them because I love getting to love on you guys. It's just so cool. So thank you for, I hope so. Dana's over there. just always like ask her about workout stuff, you know, and I'm like, she's, I love on her too, but I'm always like, what's your hair product? What's your, what's your workout? It's fine. It's fine. ⁓ so thank you for letting me have this space Trish and for, ⁓ always being open to all of the things that I need. ⁓ your,   DAT Trish Ackerman (03:19) We'll take it.   Thank   The Dental A Team (03:43) one of those people that I know I can trust to just be myself. So thank you for that. Thank you for being here today. Of course, of course. I love my job. So with that said, number one piece of suggestion that I have before we get into this buyer side, Kiera and I, have been at this for a little while with the Dental A Team and   DAT Trish Ackerman (03:46) You're welcome to attend, thank you.   The Dental A Team (04:06) Carers Dental Consulting and Dental Masters and whatever name we decide it's been the Dental A Team for a long time and it's going to stick the Dental A Team, it's not changing. But we have had a couple of renditions and one piece that I know we have gotten really, really good at, but that we've really had to work hard at. And from a buyer's perspective, a seller's perspective, I think this is insanely relative, the people. We have worked really, really hard at the people aspect and   pouring ourselves into the people and figuring out that that's actually what we love to do. We love to consult. We love to be with the teams and the doctors and we love to see all of those pieces. I love being on stage. I do. But pouring into our team and creating a business that's not solely dependent on Kiera and I and a company that could thrive if we're on the road, if we're on vacation, that has been a massive transition in our company.   And once we realized that and we got really good at it, we started attracting some really, really cool people. And Trish, you're one of those people and you do not shy away from letting us know that it's working ⁓ or letting me know when I'm not on my best A game of that. And I love that about you. And I love that about our team. think I can count on any one of you ladies to be that person for me. thank you.   And doctors and business owners out there, think this is a huge piece of selling or buying a practice. And Trish, you mentioned that towards the end of our sellers one is the team and really making sure that the team is there for the longterm, but they're really supportive. know if, you know, we built this company to be a sellable company. That's a known fact. It would be wild for us not to do that. It does not mean that Kiera is selling the company tomorrow, but she could.   if she needed or wanted to. And Trish, from a team perspective, just real quick to hit on that, as a team perspective, how does that make you feel ⁓ for the doctors and practice owners out there to kind of hear?   DAT Trish Ackerman (06:13) You know, this is a hot topic. I won't go down bunny holes, but I have seen many, I've been with a lot of doctors that have purchased a practice and they have acquired that team. And I've seen the bright side of it and I've seen the dark side. The bright side is what I'd like to share today because we'll put the light on that. And I also do want to, I want to add something to what you just said, Tiff, about how you and Kira are also feeling like   The Dental A Team (06:26) Yeah.   DAT Trish Ackerman (06:42) you're in a different space now in the company because of the people. But I also want to remind you that that is something that you and Kira, you built that. You built, it didn't just happen. You guys built that. you do have to, like for Kira, there is a level of trust that has to take place. And I'm sure it's really difficult. I mean, this is a livelihood. And this is the same for these dental practices. So when a buyer is coming in,   Typically they do acquire a team and it is the responsibility of the selling doctor to be very transparent. We can't leave team members out when they get shocked and just told I sold and there's a buyer coming in there. could we I've seen I've seen entire teams walk out like, okay, we're out. We're not we're not dealing with it. But when there is a lot of transparency introduction to the incoming potential buyer, sometimes they haven't even bought yet.   The Dental A Team (07:30) Yeah, thumbs up.   Yeah.   Yeah.   DAT Trish Ackerman (07:41) ⁓   and just letting the team, ensuring that the team knows that they're going to be safe. They're to be safe. There's change coming, but they are going to be okay. And if they value and adore their doctor, which many of these team members do obviously, and if they've been there for a long time, then they also want to be part of that support. So being a part of this whole process is, I always say number one, like start there.   The Dental A Team (08:07) Yeah, I totally agree. I love that. So taking that to the next layer, right, as a buyer, I think that would be a a great inquiry when looking at practices, right of what is the team's knowledge on this situation? Do they know that you're selling? How far into those conversations argue how prepared is the team? And really like, what am I walking into? I think is massive. think if you were dating,   and you are on whatever dating platform, because that's where you're finding people these days, right? And it's like, yeah, I have three kids. It's like, cool, what am I walking into? You would not just walk blindly into a family and expect everything to be just fine. It would be, you know, there's a, yeah, yeah. Like there's a courting period for both, for the parents, right? For the...   DAT Trish Ackerman (08:53) no family.   The Dental A Team (09:03) boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever it is, right? And the kids, there's a courting period for all of it. And they think that we devalue that in the buying and selling situation. I think, that was great perspective. If I'm a buyer, that's definitely a great question and inquiry to ask. And I think when you're adding additional practices, we have a lot of dentists, a lot of doctors who want to, they have their flagship and they want to expand and they want to reach more communities. And so they're adding,   another family and now we're the Brady Bunch and we're meshing these two families together, but not having that knowledge of who am I meshi

It's office autopsy time! Kiera shares the story of a practice that recently discovered $2.5 million going unnoticed. She talks about the doctors and their (very) busy schedules, the need for an additional hygienist, and what the cold, hard numbers told this practice about next steps. 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 today I am excited. I was just in a practice and we were going through a lot of really fun things. And whenever I come from an office, I get so excited to come back and chat with our podcast family of things that you and your practice should and could be doing. I was told when I was in this office, this is the Dental A Team magic where we physically fly to your practice. We work with your teams. We work with you as a doctor. We uncover hidden pieces that maybe you didn't even know to bring to a call.   I think it's so magical to be able to do this for practices. And so today is a little office autopsy of finding $2.5 million left behind on the table in ways that you would never expect. Sound interesting? Well, I hope you're ready because I wanna take you through and uncover hidden little cashflow pits that you might not even be looking at. So number one, we decided to go through...   because this doctor is so busy. So many of you tell me I'm so busy, Kiera, my schedule is jam-packed, and I say congratulations, but what is the cost of that? So for example, if you have your hygiene department, you should be looking at your active patient base. So an active patient base for a general dentist should be 1,500 patients as an active patient for one doctor. High end, like where you can kind of get by is 1,900, but beyond that, that's very high. And we're talking 12 months and 18 months. So take a look at both of those numbers.   and just look to see where are you at. So this practice, they have about 4,500 active patients with two full-time doctors. They're at capacity. So what's happening is we have options. We can add more hygiene, but then that's going to have our doctor to hygiene, AKA our exams at the wrong amount. What's happening is they're dropping periopatients because they don't have space for their...   Regular prophy patients, then they're diagnosing SRPs, but they have nowhere to put them for six months. They're pushing new patients out for four to five months. So we did a little bit of fun math and we didn't even, this is just gonna be some hypotheticals, but I think for you just to hear like, what are some of the things that actually can hurt your practice and how much are you leaving on the table when we do things like this? So for this practice, when we went through and we looked at it, we thought, all right, let's take an average prophy and whatever it is for you.   Maybe it's 150 up to 200 for an average prophy. We're talking prophy, x-rays, cleanings, or just even prophy and an exam. How much is that for you and your practice? Now, look to see how many active patients you have. If we've got 4,500, well guess what? You get a double that because those patients are coming in two times a year. So have fun with those numbers. We divide that by 12. We look at how many patients we're seeing per day. Now that doesn't necessarily mean how many you are, but that's how many you're going to need to see.   Then we look to see how much hygiene we have right now today to see, we actually have enough hygiene spaces for it? But let's not forget that we also have to add new patients because in addition to our active base, we are constantly adding more patients. Yes, we are losing some patients, but my hope is that you at least are adding more than we're losing. So we've got to look at those two together and see how much time we actually have in a week, in a month that we need to be seeing patients. This is gonna then show you your gap. So for this practice, they had over 200 appointments   that they were short every single month. That's at a minimum. So clearly they're ready to bring on another hygienist. This was great numbers to see, do I bring on a hygienist? Do I not bring on a hygienist? But the problem is they're already at five hygienists with two doctors. You can start to do the math. So it's like, well, great. Well, we're not diagnosing perio either. So options are we could bring on a sixth hygienist and that hygienist would just do SRP. That doesn't mean just that person, but we'd have eight hours of SRP in a given day.   spread across all the hygienists. That means we don't increase our exam numbers, but we do increase our number of perio. We do increase our number of hygiene spots. That's going to help in some instances. But even if we fix that problem, remember we still have all these patients that we're not seeing. So this practice right now, they told me, hey, Kiera, we're pushing our patients out about eight months is where we've got to put them. We can't see them on the six month mark. We've got to push them to the eight month. So I did the math and I was like, okay, average pro fee is going to be about $150 per patient.   but you gotta take all those patients that would be seen in one month and we times that by 150. Now, I understand this is very loose math, but it gives a good idea because think about it, those patients, if we saw them every six months, that's money from insurance and also from seeing them on a regular schedule, plus not just that, but patient care. We see them on the six month interval, but these ones we're not seeing every six months, we're seeing them every eight months. So that means there's two months that we're missing out on opportunities to see them.   So when we did the math, it averaged out to about $450,000 with this patient base annually, just of miss hygiene. And that was only on one month. If you want to do it on two months, which is realistically what it would be, that's almost a million dollars worth of revenue, just in hygiene miss opportunity. That's fascinating to me. This is why I think a consultant is so powerful because we come in and we do crazy numbers like this and we look at your numbers and we look at where you're at. And it really gives you the confidence to know, can I bring on an associate? Can I bring on more hygiene?   I feel like this, what does the number and the data suggest? So just looking at that, I was like, a simple fix is bring a hygienist in, let's have our perio go up. And then also we need to bring a doctor in for whether it's full time or not. So we ran scenarios of if we brought a doctor in, if we added more hygiene, if we had our doctors do this, what do we need to do? How do we keep our doctor to hygiene ratio running all these scenarios to then say, my gosh, this really would help our practice out.   And when I think about this and I think about practices for us, are you looking at numbers and metrics like this? Are you calculating the cost of missed appointments or not scheduling our hygiene patients back? Not to mention that we're certainly not doing 30 % of our patient base as perio. What these hygienists are doing is they're seeing that they need perio, but they don't have space to put them. So they don't want to have the conversation. This is no knock to a hygiene team. Several hygienists do it because I'm going to tell you, you've got this awful disease.   but then I'm not actually going to be able to get you in for X number of days, weeks, months. That feels really, really, really hard to try and convince a patient of this. So what do we do? We clean it out and we say, you know what, we're just gonna get it next time. But next time then fumbles and then we gotta have these conversations. Then we don't wanna have these conversations. We're constantly looking at like, we're just punting the ball down the line. So what do we need to do on this? What are the scenarios in this option? How much money is being left behind, but also how much patient? And this is great.   Other options that we considered are, we cut insurances? Because, hey, if we've got this many patients, what if we cut out our lowest producing insurance that pays us? And the doctor said, no, my mission and vision for this practice is that we care for the average patient, that we are here to take care of them and support them. And that's what this doctor wants to do. So it's like, great. They have an incredible building. They've got more space to build out. Fantastic. Let's bring in the other doctors. Let's bring in more hygiene. Let's serve these patients because instantly if we brought on one or two more hygienists,   Guess what? We could backfill very quickly with all those patients. Plus we need to hold space for new patients and perio that would be ideal based on the number of perio. So then you look at your patient base, you figure out 30 % of that. That's going to tell you how much SRP spaces you need to hold every single month in the practice. Don't forget, once you have SRP, you also need to have perio maintenance is in there. So this you can see is like this amazing web of data, of knowledge, of fun.   to figure out how much is your practice actually leaving on the table unintentionally. And when I looked at that, the doctor, he was like, well, Kiera, number one, you're always worth your weight in gold. You come in and you find little things. You guys, that is one small change that's worth 450 to $900,000 just in the amount of pro fees. That's nothing else, nothing. Like that's all we did. And to be able to uncover little opportunities like this and so,   for you to look at your practice, this is why I wanted to give you this scenario of this practice. There were several others that we looked at that we found that we were able to just quickly identify. But I think so often people are looking for big moves. They're looking for these all on X cases. They're looking for what could I do her

Kiera compares the stages of a business to the stages of the human life cycle, from the infancy of a startup, to the chaos of money flow without systems, to the growing profitability of early adulthood, and so on. The goal is, of course, to reach maturity, where the business can run on its own, there's work-life balance, money flow, and more. Kiera gives listeners the common factors for each "age group," and what needs to be done for practices to reach their prime. 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 are having an amazing day. I hope it's an epic day. I hope you're loving your life. I hope you're having just so much fun. ⁓ I love dentistry. I love podcasting. I love connecting with so many of you. I just met people this week that are Dental A Team fanatics and it's always fun. And it's funny on calls when I get to chat with you in real life, people are like, Kiera, you sound just like you do on the podcast. And I'm like, that's great because guess what? It is me.   So I am so excited to podcast with you guys today. Welcome. If you're new to Dental A Team podcast. Hello, I'm Kiera Dent. Dent really is my last name. And it's because I love all things dental. ⁓ I love my husband, even though he's not a dentist. ⁓ I love, I just love life. I love helping people. We had a, in our consulting, we have what we call our doctor mastermind. It's a doctor only mastermind and it's on ⁓ Tuesday, the first Tuesday of the month. And we call it Think Tank Tuesday for our doctor mastermind.   We had all of our doctors there this week and we had several doctors come. It was just a really, really fun time. And as I was sitting there, I tell everybody that this think tank is supposed to feel like you're sitting in my living room, hanging out with me. We're all just here having like a good time. I love to see there's one doctor pushing her daughter on a swing. There was another doctor making dinner. There's another doctor sitting at the office, another doctor driving home.   It truly is a like, let your hair down, come be, let's come hang out, let's all be together, let's all work together. Cause honestly, dentistry can be super hard and challenging. And ⁓ as I walked away from that, we were talking about the life cycle of a business and people were just talking about where they were and here's where I am and how do I get to the next phase of my business? What are some easy moves? And it was crazy because it's actually not that hard to move from one part of the business to the next part. ⁓ A lot of times it's just having somebody pointed out to you.   ⁓ giving you the confidence that you can do that. ⁓ And then having a group of people around you that are just like you. And as I walked out of that meeting and that just fun hangout time, there's always Kiera's after party, which is not recorded. It is Kiera unfiltered. I just thought, I'm so blessed to get to know these human beings, these people that we get to work alongside with, that we get to collaborate with. I get to see them go through all the phases of business from where they were to where they are.   working with us, get to see their production increase, I get to see their ROI ⁓ tenfold, I get to see how happy they are in life, I get to see when they were once stressed to where now they're exuberant and happy and fulfilled and that is why Dental A Team exists. That is why the podcast exists is because I want all of you to feel like you have ⁓ someone in your corner, someone who is rooting for you, someone who has answers where you feel like there are none, someone who sees the path more clearly than you can.   someone who's created a community of like-minded doctors that are either where you are or have been where you are and can help you get to the next step. We have doctors who mentor each other. have ⁓ masterminds in person. have where we come to your practice. So if you're listening to this podcast and you're feeling like, gosh, I just don't even know what to do. The answer is there's actually always the what's next to do. There's always somebody who can help you. It's just you having the courage to book the call to   ⁓ invest in your practice in yourself and decide that you're worth having the life and the practice that you know, you're capable of having. And so if that resonates with you, reach out, come join our doctor mastermind, come meet us in person, come hang out with me in real life. I would love to have you be a part of it. ⁓ my mission truly is to change people's lives. and that's luckily I get this amazing platform of dentistry. So, reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com because honestly, I believe that it is so fun and so powerful. ⁓   to go from that. And so I teased out a little bit of a life cycle of a business. This came from Tony Robbins. I really love Tony. I love a lot of things that he teaches and ⁓ there's a lot of wisdom. so just to kind of to take this on for the podcast today, I feel like, hey, we talked about this in our Dr. Mastermind, but I think it'd be very beneficial for all of you to hear. And this is my adaptation of it to take it to dental offices and kind of then giving you some of the things that I see in a practice so you can kind of understand.   But basically we have kind of like think about the life cycle of human beings. It's where we start out as infancy. We're born into this world and then we're infants and then we're toddlers. And then we go into this like middle life, like middle school. And then we go into high school and then we go into young adults. So college or young adult. Then we go into maturity or our prime of our life. Then we go into this kind of midlife evaluation. That's right before we retire. Then we go into aging. Then we go into institutionalization and then we go to death.   So we think about how people go around and it's interesting because there could be say a 25 year old, 30 year old, 40 year old who actually could be on the aging path even though their age is not where you would think that they would be. And so the idea of this is to kind of look to see based on like a life cycle of us where your business is and what maybe is like the pain point. So when we look at a business and we look at like children, so an infant,   They're screaming, right? They're screaming all the time. Yes, they're alive. Yes, they're there, but they're screaming and they're hungry and they don't know how to make money and they always have all these problems and it just feels like it's problem after problem after problem. That's like when you first start a business and it is chaos and it is exuberant and it is blissful and it is terrifying. Like Tiff and I were actually joking about it when we were on our doctor mastermind and we were talking about how like Dental A Team when it was in its infancy stage.   I literally was paying Tiffanie via Venmo. I did not have any payroll set up. I don't know why Tiff stayed with me. So Spiffy Tiffy shout out to her today. ⁓ But I really truly was such a naive business owner. I did not have protocols. I did not have a lawyer. I didn't have HR. I just said, I want to be here in this world and put something together, but no processes, no systems. It was screaming mayhem all the time. And then you go from that infancy stage to toddler, right? Toddlers, they can sleep through the night.   They're more independent. They can reason on certain things, but they're not this middle schooler, right? ⁓ And so when we look at that toddler that like they're going to elementary school, they're kind of in that middle stage. This is now where a business has elevated. It's not like paying people via Venmo, ⁓ but you still don't have the cash flow to be able to hire great people. It's still this like very new. You probably have one or two people. Practices that are in this realm are more the   the startup phase. So startup is like your very infancy, whether you're buying it or if it's a scratch start or you already have it. But it's kind of that screaming and then you move into toddler where like we can afford like one or two people on our team. but maybe we're moonlighting at another practice. cash flow is not consistent. ⁓ Systems and processes are not in place. And it's really just in this like delicate, but more stable, like we're like, okay, we're not we're not gonna go broke.   We know we can kind of handle, but at the same time, cashflow is not there. Then you move into middle school and you think about a middle schooler. This is where like we're starting to hit production. We can kind of have a few team members in there. We kind of maybe have a little bit of money, but not quite. ⁓ And we're starting to get a little more established, but we're like very gangly. We're very awkward. ⁓ We're doing the dentistry, but we're still, we're still not quite making it. And so from there, when we move from there,   You didn't go into a teenager and you think about a teenager, they think they know what they're doing. They've got the keys to the car. And this is where you've got money, but you're blowing through it because you have no systems, no processes. Like you are mayhem. Like you're making the money, but you're not keeping the money. And you're running on all four cylinders. But it's just chaos. It's wild. There's a frenzy. There's an excitement. And I think when Dental A Team was in that phase,   We had a little bit of money and so we were hiring people, but we didn't have quite enough money so we're not hiring experts quite yet. And you can just feel there's like this teenage energy and ⁓ then you move into like young adult and young adults were like perfect. The company is making money. We're able to hire more experienced people. So like we can bring on an office manager. We can bring on a better hygienist. We can have more things in place. And

Tiff and Trish discuss the often ignored practice transition — are you looking ahead for your practice? Ten years out? Thirty years? The two consultants discuss what to keep in line now so that any changes on the horizon are received with minimal panic and damage. 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. We are here today with some really, really just fantastic information. We're rounding out the year, if you can believe that. It's almost 2026, so whatever year you're listening to this in, hopefully it's also still super relevant, but we are heading into 2026 here soon. And we thought that it would be really fun to just wrap the year with a couple of different practice strategy kind of.   don't know, just like how to progress where you're at, from where you're at to where you wanna go. Strategy podcast. So I'm just super excited. I have one of my favorite human beings in the world here with me today. I have Ms. Trish Ackerman. She is a prized possession on the Dental A Team team here. She is a traveling dental consultant with our team, which means that she does virtual consulting. So we do.   coaching calls, video calls, we team training calls, all those pieces, you guys know that, but she also travels to practices and sees different practices in person, kind of helping them strategize and train the team and get things working again, kind of oiling that machine. And something I like to say is, I always tell my practices, Trish, and I think you probably feel the same way, I always tell my practices that we have the most incredible practices that join the Dental A Team. We really attract the most incredible people, but   more than anything, I always know that I'm coming into a practice that's running really well. And my job is to find the areas where they just kind of feel a little bit stuck. Maybe something's a little bit inefficient. Maybe there's just something that's like, gosh, if we tweak this a centimeter to the left or a millimeter to the right, kind of I think of like implants, like, you know, you gotta just get them just right. And if we can make that little tweak ⁓ with them in office and find those areas, then their lives become.   less stressful. like to remove the stress. So I always tell practices, gosh, like I just don't get invited to practices that aren't doing well. I'm always, I'm always just so shocked at how well practices are doing. And Trish, I know you've consulted for a while. You've been here with our team for a little while, but you have just so much, there's like a wealth of knowledge behind you and all of the aspects of everything that you've done. And I'm so excited for you to be on this team. I know your practices are thriving because you're here.   We are thriving because you're here and we're all better people because of it. So Trish, thank you so much for being here today. I'm excited to pick your brain on these practice strategies. How are you? Your hair, we already talked about your hair is stellar. I had a weird hair dream. So hair is on the mind. It's like, it's a thing today. So welcome with your beautiful glasses and your beautiful hair. And it's 8 a.m. in the morning. What were we thinking? But this is a great way to start our day. Trish, how are you today?   DAT Trish Ackerman (02:44) I'm doing great. Thanks, Tim. I always like doing this with you.   The Dental A Team (02:47) Okay, thank you. Thank you. That makes it much easier ⁓ when I schedule it that you enjoy doing it. So thank you. I appreciate that. ⁓ I do enjoy life with you. You shed a lot of perspective for me. So thank you. ⁓ Yeah, definitely team listeners. I had this, okay, start over. Marketing, our marketing department, they help us come up with a lot of topics. And then the consulting team, we kind of look at them more like, hey, is this relevant? Is this something that   DAT Trish Ackerman (02:55) Welcome.   Thank you.   The Dental A Team (03:17) we're seeing pop up in our worlds of consulting with our clients and our listeners is this something that's going to be super beneficial. And this topic came up and I was like, gosh, actually, it's kind of super cool to end the year with this because now we get to look into what next year is going to be. And this could be a lot of strategy that helps build, I think, Trish long term visions. It might not be something that someone's thinking about today. Just like I know we have.   you know, lot of new graduates who listen and, a lot of doctors who've been in practice for 20, 30 years, or even three years, five years, wherever they're at on their journey, I feel like this is information that we like to shed light on for all of our practices. That's like, always be prepared. Just like, I don't feel like, I don't feel like we buy houses. We don't have a home and not know the value always. Like we're always making sure we know the value. We're making sure we know, you know, our prices right.   our interest rates are the best that we can get. Do we need to refinance? We're always looking at those aspects, but I think that we forget to duplicate that and look at it in our business as well and make sure that we always know the health of our business. And Trish, when we're building out goals, I know you and I both do this. We like to look as far ahead as we can, like 10 years ahead to say, what could that look like? And when do you want to retire?   Right, when do you think that you want to repair? How long do you want to work? And even if that's 30 years down the road, making sure that at any point we could be ready for that. And so today is really talking about practice transition strategies, what that might look like. And Trish, I want to know from your perspective, you've done quite a few practice transitions, I would imagine, in the history of dentistry that you've got behind you there. What are some of the...   What are some common to start, like let's start just broad. What are common practice transitions that you have seen that you've worked through? Like what does that even mean when a doctor says I want to transition or we say transition in there to understand that? What does it mean to transition? What have you seen?   DAT Trish Ackerman (05:24) What I've seen is doctors that have been with the practice for many, many years, they built their legacy and they are ready to pass the baton to a new dentist. And it's a big decision. And sometimes they're sometimes they have sellers remorse because then they realize that, shoot, maybe I wasn't quite ready. But I have, I have seen it where, I mean, most of the time the sellers are very ready and, the new buyers coming in are very ready. So   you know, it's a transition. We make sure that the doctor, both doctors are aligned, the seller and the buyer, and that it's a good fit for both.   The Dental A Team (06:03) Yeah, I love that. love that. So transition could mean a sell and a buy, right? A transition is a change, right? Transition is we're making a change. We're looking different in the future than we do today. And I agree, I think a couple of pieces that on both sides are super important, I think is that alignment word that you used, right? And making sure that we know where we want to go. I think a seller needs to know where they want to go. Why do they want this practice?   the or why do they want to sell this practice and the buyer needs to know why do I want this practice and being in alignment with that is absolutely key. Now, when we're prepping for selling ⁓ and transitioning, we'll call it transitioning, what are some of the things that you have advised or you've worked on yourself while helping practices to sell? How do you prepare for selling? Like what do you need to make sure is in place if they're not?   We'll take it two ways. Maybe someone's not selling today. They're like, well, one day I might sell. And then maybe someone's like, gosh, I need to sell. want to sell. I'm ready to get out. So what would you advise someone who says maybe one day I might want to sell? How do they keep their business prepared for that?   DAT Trish Ackerman (07:16) Well, that's always the best way, like start a plan. There are times when it's like an emergency and need to sell, when they have the, when they've got the time to plan, you really want to ensure like the, like you were talking about, tip that the selling of the house, you don't sell your house if the flooring is just a hot mess or if, or if the roof is caving in, you get those things fixed first. And in a dental practice, you really need to protect the patient base because the new buyer   or even somebody transitioning in to purchases, what does the patient base look like? And if we're adding a partner, do we have a patient base for them? If we don't, this is the time that we, the doctors need to be hyper-focused on growing that patient base. That also requires like, what does the accounts receivable look like? What is the collection ratio? Is this practice producing but not collecting? And though you do like kind of a full analysis on the top.   five KPIs typically, and then ensure that they are in really good condition. You want your practice to look appealing and you want your practice to be healthy. And when you're selling anything or transitioning in, the patient base is always number one. So if you have the syndrome where the front door is open, but the back door is open as well, we need the time to strategize to get that back door closed to ensure that when we go to sell this new buyer,   The Dental A Team (08:35) Yeah   DAT Trish Ackerman (08:43) or new partner knows that there's a solid patient base in place. And then again, the counts receivable, that's another really big one. That's got to be cleaned up pretty well. Again, to look appealing and to be worth something.   The Dental A Team (08:55) Yeah, I love th

Dr. Pia Lieb returns for a second part on the podcast. In this episode, she talks about being obsessed with your craft, and why that extra 10% for patients will take you miles. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:10) I love that you, ⁓ I think this is probably what's made you really great. I don't know. I've heard a lot about you. But I think what you do is you make sure that the patients are obsessed with the results and not that Dr. Pia is obsessed. Like you're obsessed with the craftsmanship of what you've done.   You're really talented at that. But like hearing that you let people walk out and go try these on and what is it going to be like before you do it? That to me says that you are so obsessed about the outcome and the result for the patient. And then your job is to make sure you have the most excellent craftsmanship, the best product, the best techniques, the best method to get them the outcome they want. And I think hearing that, I'm just so proud of you. And I'm so grateful to hear that there are clinicians in our industry that   are obsessed about that rather than the reverse. Because I think some people are obsessed about maybe the dollar, maybe about doing these types of cases, but they're not the best at it, or this is what I think that they should look like. You really want to make sure that that patient is like a walking raving fan of you before you even do the work on them. And that I think is very special about you.   Dr Pia (01:17) Thanks, but you know, I like to say that, you know, like, the thing that people don't understand is I'm technically the Hermes of dentistry because I, it takes a long time to make a Birkin, right? It's all made by hand. So are the veneers, hence why it's so hard to get one. But look, I   Kiera Dent (01:39) Mm-hmm.   Dr Pia (01:42) 22 years old and it still looks brand new because it's the quality of the craftsmanship you know and I tell all my patients you should get anywhere between 20 and 25 years out of the mirror okay this whole nonsense of five years and ten years that's because they want to redo the case and for you to pay them again if you're doing good quality work the only reason they should be replaced is because you have recession due to old age   Kiera Dent (01:55) Wow.   Mm-hmm.   Wow. And you don't have any issues with these super, super thin ones popping off.   Dr Pia (02:17) No, because okay, let me let me explain to you. Let me explain to you physics. Okay. Okay, do you know why they pop off?   Kiera Dent (02:19) Let's talk about this. I'm so, cause a lot of people haven't popped off and it's so scary. So I'm like, let's talk about this.   You know, this is why I'm asking you. Cause I don't like, feel my guess is that they were not bonded on correctly. And that's my guess. Okay. I'm ready.   Dr Pia (02:28) Okay.   No, it's, two things. There's two things. That's   one, but that's the second one. Right. But let me explain to you. Do you remember when you were in high school and we went to, ⁓   Kiera Dent (02:37) Okay.   Dr Pia (02:43) ⁓ chemistry and we had the microscope with the two glass slabs and we were looking for amoebas and all that stuff. Okay, remember how we were all a painting that you know what and we all tried to pry those two glass slabs apart and it never worked? Well that's the same principle with veneers. The thinner they are the stronger they are.   Kiera Dent (02:51) Yep.   Yeah   Fascinating.   Dr Pia (03:06) Okay   and I'll tell you why because teeth you know because you're in the business so teeth we all have ligaments right the teeth are hard it's a hard structure the bone is a hard structure so we have the dental ligaments right they're horizontal they're transversal so those are like the shock absorbers that hold the tooth inside the bone socket. Now   Kiera Dent (03:12) Mm-hmm. Right.   Mm-hmm.   Mm-hmm.   Dr Pia (03:30) when you're speaking and when you're eating those teeth move microns not visible to the eye but your teeth have mobility just like trees have mobility in the wind right we don't see the trees move unless it's a hundred mile an hour winds but if you have a five mile an hour wind you don't see that tree moving right but it does move   Kiera Dent (03:44) Mm-hmm.   Right.   Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.   Dr Pia (03:56) So   when you're doing these 3D print and you're filing like the turkey teeth where you have the little pegs left and the ratio of tooth to porcelain is 50-50 or you're having 60-40 or 70-30 that 3D printed porcelain does not flex.   Kiera Dent (04:05) Yep.   Makes sense.   Mm-hmm.   Dr Pia (04:23) but your tooth does. So that's the number one issue why they pop off. The thicker they are, the easier they'll pop off. And the number two reason is the dentist has no idea about occlusion. Because if you have a premature contact or you have lateral excursions or a protrusive, you're going to pop those off like there's no tomorrow.   Kiera Dent (04:23) True.   Interesting.   Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yes.   Totally. Yeah.   Dr Pia (04:51) So these are   the basic principles. If you don't know occlusion, you shouldn't be doing dentistry. I'm talking about GPs or it's the holy grail of this profession. Occlusion, occlusion, occlusion.   Kiera Dent (05:03) And I will tell you as a patient who has the most obnoxious bite, ⁓ there are dentists who do no occlusion and there are dentists who don't because my bite you adjust one teeny tiny little micron and the whole bite gets thrown off and they're like, no care, it should be fine. And I'm like, I can always tell if you're just doing blue paper and you're having me bite chew all around, I know you don't understand occlusion because I'm like, you're never going to get it. I'm going to be, you're dancing all the way around. Like from the patient who has sat there,   four hours upon hours and had to find other dentists because the dentist who thought they could do it truly can't do it. And this isn't me being a jerk. This is me being the patient who has to suffer through a dentist who doesn't understand occlusion. Like what you just said as a patient, ⁓ and like there's some, know, you can have it like completely off and like, yeah, it feels great. And then you have patients like myself that teeny, teeny, teeny tiny. I can feel it. You can't even find it. And I'm like, no, it's off. My bite is not, my teeth are not coming together.   Dr Pia (05:59) You always know, the patient always knows. They're always right.   Kiera Dent (06:02) always. And please don't have me laying back.   Please don't have me lay back. Let me sit up. Let me lay back. Let me tell you on both of them, because it's always different. And they're like, no, it's good. And I'm like, it's not. You're not sitting in my mouth.   Dr Pia (06:09) Yeah!   Because   you most probably have long centric, right? So you have one occlusion when your head is back and you have a different occlusion when your head is forward. Now, if that's the case, you need to check both.   Kiera Dent (06:18) Mm-hmm.   Absolutely.   Correct. Thank you. Preach, please, for the patients like myself. These are the pieces. And I don't disagree because when I have seen dentists and they're not checking that and the patients are constantly popping off, I'm like, just maybe check to see how those teeth are hitting in all directions because they will pop.   Dr Pia (06:43) ⁓ but let   me interrupt you for one thing. The other thing that's an issue, okay, if they do it and you're anesthetized, you're not going to get a good read. You always have to call the patient back the next day and check the occlusion again in all the positions when they're not anesthetized because I will guarantee you on my career that it will be off.   Kiera Dent (06:53) ⁓ no, never.   Yep. Yep.   Always. And they're like, no, you can bite when you're numb. And I'm like, I don't even know how I'm biting. I have no clue. I know I'm biting differently. Preach. These are the things and the conversations that I've said. And having somebody like yourself who's so good at this. I mean, you guys, has a referral-based practice. Like people are flying in to see her. I can see why, because how you speak about this is so different. And I think today, one, I hope people are inspired of things to do, things to not do.   different ways to do this. I also love the risk that you took. I love the growth. I love the determination of self of I will be the best. You have the passion. You've got the grit. You've got the tenacity. I have doctors who are great surgeons that are truly incredible at this. I've got doctors that are amazing at occlusion. I've got doctors that are amazing at fillings. There's a doctor and one of his patients said like, have the smoothest fillings in all the land. And he's like, that's really weird. I had him fix a filling that chipped.   And I'm not going to lie, he has the smoothest fillings in all the land. Like I've never felt a feeling as smooth as this man did for me.   Dr Pia (08:12) That's because he polished it afterwards.   99% don't polish them. You know, I had a colleague, checked, he did a, we put a crown in and I'm like, Joe, can we polish it? He goes, no, you're good to go. I'm like, no, I'm not. He's like, but I polished it. I'm like, okay, there is a porcelain polishing kit that you've got to go red, blue, white.   Kiera Dent (08:18) I was shocked.   Hahaha   Dr Pia (08:40) and the white has to be on low rpms and you have to make sure that it's shiny and polished and he's like i don't have the patience for that go do it yourself in the office and i did   Kiera Dent (08:52) But I think like that even I feel like dentistry you It to me what I'm hearing is a lot of dentists. It sounds like go 90 % of the way But it's like that extra 10 % is what really in my opinion makes a lot of difference for patients It's doing the polishing. It's doing the small finesse like

Kiera is joined by renowned cosmetic dentist Dr. Pia Lieb to talk about Dr. Lieb's journey in her field, as well as her insights into what the rich and famous ask for (and pay for) when it comes to their teeth. 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. I have an incredible doctor on our podcast. Dr. Pia is coming to   from New York, Manhattan. And this woman is incredible. She has been able to build and sustain a high-end cosmetic practice. She's figured out how to be, you guys are gonna love this, a referral only destination for patients seeking discretion, innovation, and ultra-personalized care.   This woman has been named the Michelangelo of dentistry and I am so excited to welcome her on the podcast. Welcome Dr. Pia, how are you today?   Dr Pia (00:32) Thanks for having me, Kiera.   Kiera Dent (00:34) Of course. Well, I have been so excited about this podcast. I don't often get to bring clinical guests onto the podcast. And so to just kind of hear of how you do your cosmetic dentistry, how did you become this practice of being so sought after? ⁓ How did you become the Michelangelo of dentistry? So kind of just walk the listeners through how did Dr. Pia go from where she was to where she is today? Kind of just give us a background on, on who you are and what your story has been.   Dr Pia (01:04) Well, I'm gonna start with, it all started in dental school. There was a lecturer by the name of Dr. Gallup Evans who has passed away since. And he was giving a PG, which is obviously post-doctoral course on cosmetic dentistry. And his reputation was he was the one who did.   the supermodel Polina Povaskova's veneers back in the early 90s. And I went up to him after the lecture and I basically said, I'm a sponge, teach me, tell me what to do so I can do the same thing that you're doing. I've completely fell in love and cut out a class to go to that course. And after the course, he turned around to me and said, well,   sweetheart. You're either born with it or you're not. So I went home and I cried for five days.   and he completely tore me to shreds and that really got me upset and ⁓ I was a great student. was the youngest in NYU as a student. I graduated high school at 16. I was the nerd, right? And basically what I did is I was asked to start teaching after residency and that was my...   Kiera Dent (02:03) Absolutely.   Dr Pia (02:26) way to make sure that I would never allow anyone to speak to a student like that. And my whole point was, I want to empower the dental students. I don't want anyone to feel the way I did by this particular person. And basically I had nowhere to start. So I started taking all of these courses, these PG program courses, and I met up.   Kiera Dent (02:37) Mm-hmm.   Dr Pia (02:53) When I was actually in dental school, I went and I met the holy grail ceramist who invented veneers in America. And I went up to him and I said the same thing, I'm a sponge, please teach me. And he was like, great. Okay. You have a car. And I'm like, yes, I do. He goes, all right, come to the lab every Friday after school and every Saturday, let me teach you how to prep and how to do veneers. And this man who also passed away has taught me everything.   Kiera Dent (03:12) I'm   Dr Pia (03:23) that I know because the doctors were not doing it and there was only two guys in New York that were doing veneers in the 80s and in the 90s and those were older men in their 40s and they were not going to take a young 20 year old female and teach her what to do because they were you know insecure that we were going to take over the business from them.   So that's how it all started. And obviously, I taught for 18 years and I did do that what I set my mind to do. I wanted to give every one of my students the best experience that they can have with dentistry and with cosmetic dentistry. And we're still friends after all these years. So I must have done something right, that they still love me to invite me for dinners into their houses.   Kiera Dent (04:10) Thank   ⁓ I think that you're speaking to my own heart. mean, having that love   being in the dental colleges, of   to give back, like that's the whole reason Dental A Team exists was because of those students that you just fall in love with. And kudos to you because I got really lucky and I worked at Midwestern University's Dental College in Arizona. And I have been told that the culture there and the experience there is not like most dental schools. It was a very empowering, very enriching. There was no smashing of models. There was no...   ⁓ destroying people's dreams, but I know that that's not everywhere. so kudos to you for ⁓ making a stance and also not giving up on your dream. And I think something I took from that is how often are we maybe told something that's not true and we believe it. We take that on as an identity and yes, crying for five days. I don't blame you, I would have done the same thing, but ⁓ it is.   Dr Pia (05:03) No, it's demoralizing, you know, like it's   just here you are, you're this young bright-eyed and bushy-tailed eager beaver who wants to be the best at her profession and then you get some 50 year old man telling you, ⁓ honey, you can't do this, you gotta be born with it. I'm like, really?   Kiera Dent (05:20) Hmm.   Maybe I am born with it and have you seen it. ⁓   Dr Pia (05:25) And you know what I was and that's that's the   thing and it's just but it's the way he said it but we'll get back to karma because 18 years go by and he was lecturing again and karma if it's a small I don't want to say the b word on a podcast but   Kiera Dent (05:42) Mmm.   Hahaha   Dr Pia (05:51) it is. So he's got the lecture, same thing, same before and afters. And this time I'm wearing a white lab coat and scrubs underneath and I had you know, and at this point, I was clinical assistant professor and there were like 350 doctors in the audience. And he's like, Does anyone have anything to say? And I'm at the back wall, I wasn't sitting down, I was standing up and I raised my hand and I was like,   He goes, and he goes, I know that name. You're in press and you're my competition. And he was like, and you know, what is it that I said? said, you know what? Thanks to you, I am who I am today. I want to say thank you. If you didn't say this to me and make me go home and cry for five days, I wouldn't have.   done everything humanly possible to be your competition and here I am I didn't know if he was gonna slap me or kick me out or just whatever it was but it was not what I and he said you know come on down and just tell us more about it he goes you've got so much pressure all over the place and it was funny because at that point   Kiera Dent (06:52) Ha!   Dr Pia (07:08) That was like maybe 10 months after I did 10 episodes on TLC of 10 years younger. And I was all over the place. Like everybody knew me from TV and from press and ⁓ the New York Times wrote that I'm the Michelangelo in Smile Boutique. And it just got to that point. I got the recognition that I worked so hard for. he was like, all right, give me a hug. I was like, thank God.   to   get a slap. But I was ready to get like thrown out or to. So that's kind of what I wanted to do is I just want to empower every single person out there. And you have to understand, when I went to school, we there were no women, it was 97 % men, we had   Kiera Dent (07:43) You   Dr Pia (08:02) maybe seven girls in the graduating class. I mean, not that we had a lot. We have much smaller classes back then and we were 97, but seven out of 97 is a low percentage.   Kiera Dent (08:14) That is,   yeah. Wow, that's such a fun, ⁓ I think kudos to you. And one of my favorite lines through life has been, life is not happening to us, it's happening for us. And I'm sure in that moment, you felt like life was happening to you. Like, who is this jerk? And they destroyed my dreams. And yet, ⁓ again, not to say that that's ever the right route to go. But I just want to highlight and compliment of you took something that people could have said would be sour grapes and you actually turned it into beautiful wine.   and you turned it into something beautiful and it was fuel to your fire to make you into this incredible woman that the world needed. And so I'm very curious, how did you then go from, okay, here we are, how'd you become this renowned cosmetic dentist, getting on TLC, getting all the press, like what was kind of the way to get into that? Because I'm sure there's a lot of dentists who want to live your dream. How did you do it?   Dr Pia (09:04) I think the   way in was truly like in 1998 or 99, I don't remember what year it was, but it was the first gen art fashion show for Fashion Week in New York where they took up and coming young designers and they had a private fashion show with about 10 of small up and coming, which we don't have anymore. mean, New York Fashion Week is no longer what   used to be. But I go there and I had a patient from Belgium who had a really good friend who was an up and coming crazy French designer and he was showing the runway and I just basically went with her and I remember that we were after the fashion show there was a VIP with champagne and we got these wristbands and so forth and my   my patient was, you know, late 30s, single and ready to mingle. And there was this really cute male model that did the runway for ⁓ another designer that wasn't as big. And she was like, my God, he's so cute. And here I was, I had no makeup on, right?   Kiera Dent (10:07) Yeah.   Dr Pia (10:23) this long Margiela dress and I have like Doc Marten boots, my hair up in a ponytail, just like mascara and red lips on. And I went up to this guy and I said, hi, I'm Dr. Pia. You know, my friend Jacqueline wants to meet you. And he had this woman who was

Trish shares with Tiff and listeners her experience with a practice that started with a whole lot of uncertainty under a new doctor, and the steps undertaken that lead to a thriving workplace within a year. Specifically, she touches on how trust, flexibility, and numbers each played a role in this success story. 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. I am so excited to be here today. We are, I have Trish here with me. So we are here just hanging out today and we, I'm so excited actually that we did this at 8 a.m. It's way more fun. At first I was like, ⁓ that is early to be ready. But then, know, we're like, spray our hair's great. Our makeup is fresh. Like it's actually super fun. So thank you for spending your morning with me Trish. How are you today? We are hot to try.   DAT Trish Ackerman (00:27) Thank you. We are hot to trot.   The Dental A Team (00:31) Trish, I got to love on you already twice, so go listen to the buyers and the sellers version of practice ownership, you guys, because you'll get to hear how amazing Trish is. But I want to pull a random on you, Trish. And I have not asked in a while, and I think that the Dental A Team listeners in the world out there needs to hear, how are the piggies? And yes, I said pigs, like oink oink, how are the piggies?   DAT Trish Ackerman (00:56) The piggies are great. So I do have two pigs and ⁓ they are very well known with my friends and my colleagues. I have, it's Miss Daisy and Joey and that is spelled J-O-Y-E. And well, they're doing great. However, winter's here is coming. It's winter in Arizona. we think they don't like the cold. They don't like the cold at all. So we have been having some loud piggies that like to come indoors and they do. So we have in and out pigs to go in and out with dogs.   The Dental A Team (01:07) course.   Yeah.   Ugh.   Yeah.   DAT Trish Ackerman (01:26) We have a total podcast just about that. anybody's thinking about getting a pig, please call me first.   The Dental A Team (01:30) Yeah, yeah, and that's true.   I, Trish, I think actually, like, save the pigs. I think that's a really good point because I and we can, you can take any theory and apply it to anything, right? Anything, everything looks great. ⁓ And when you're in it, you realize maybe I didn't do enough research, right? So this sounds like a great idea, but maybe I didn't do enough research. And I've known people, aside from you who have had   pigs as pets. And I know one family that just thrived loved their pig and ⁓ they live a long time. You guys, there's a lot to know about pigs. are incredibly smart. ⁓ but I do believe they're very smart to the point of like stubbornness, right? But there's like so much to learn and Trish, something that everyone should know is a passion of yours is these, the pig projects.   Right? And that stems from that right there, in my opinion, of people not understanding what they're getting into. When I was young, I wanted nothing more than a little pig. I wanted a little piggy. Right? And so many people in the early 2000s, in the 90s, they got a little piggy. And what happens to a little piggy, Trish? This little cute little oinker does what?   DAT Trish Ackerman (02:49) it gets real big real quick and then it roots everything and people are not prepared very and loud we prepare yes life's not   The Dental A Team (02:50) They're so big!   They're so big, they're so destructive.   loud. My mom was like, you're not getting a pig. Yeah. Thank God.   So, so everyone knows Trish does, she volunteers ⁓ for, there's a whole, the whole place here, the volunteer that takes piggies and cares for them and loves them. And it's just something that she's really, really passionate about that I didn't even know existed until meeting Trish. So thank you for bringing that to my life. But   I love the analogy that can be taken from that, right? Because we do that with everything. We're like, okay, that was so cute. my gosh, sparkly, do it, yes. This is an instant yes. I want it, I need it, I want a goat, right? I want a highland cow, a mini highland cow, because why? Instagram shows me pictures of them next to a fireplace. I wanna cuddle with a mini highland cow. That sounds dangerous, right? Like I also want a coyote.   DAT Trish Ackerman (03:40) Yes, yes.   Yeah, it's great.   The Dental A Team (03:57) Like there's so many things that we want in life because they're cute and they're sparkly and they feel like they're gonna feel amazing. And then we get there and we're like, ⁓ shoot, I did not do the research. I did not realize this pig was gonna get so giant, right? So I love that. Thank you for letting me take that journey with you. And so if you do have piggy questions, Trish@TheDentalATeam.com. It's her direct line. You can make sure.   DAT Trish Ackerman (04:03) ⁓   Mm-hmm.   Thank you.   I'm your girl.   The Dental A Team (04:25) And it's going to be just fantastic. It's going to be so much fun. okay, on that note, practice owners, doctors, know, teams even, we all get into that space, right, of shiny object syndrome, or it just sounds like it's going to be amazing, or it looks so pretty. And we sometimes tend to miss some of the underlying pieces that we've got to know. And I think that's where consulting is super beneficial.   for practice owners. There are so many things that you don't know until you know. And a lot of those pieces are healthy patient base, right? What is a healthy patient base? How do I keep, maintain, create a healthy patient base? What the heck is billing? How do I even do that? What is insurance? Why do they tell me what I can and cannot do? These are literally real questions that we get from doctors and, or team.   Why does my team hate me? How do I make my team like me? Well, my team likes me, but they don't respect me. Culture is massive. And all these things are things that we don't always think about when we purchase a practice and we get into this like beautiful building or the, ugly building that we're going to make beautiful or whatever it is. And just like the piggies, it was so cute and such a good idea. And then all of a sudden it's this massive.   Mass, like how much do they weigh Trish? Like a full grown pig weighs what?   DAT Trish Ackerman (05:56) I mean, I don't have the hogs, but Miss Daisy, I mean, she's close to 90 pounds and Joey, he's about 110 pounds and they start out little.   The Dental A Team (06:01) 110.   Yeah, yeah, and people think like a St. Bernard is wild. Like no, these are pigs, right? Like it was so cute. They are really cute still. I'm not saying they're not still cute. I'm just saying they come with some baggage, you guys. So when we're looking at these practices and we're helping these practice owners, these are pieces that we have to dig for. We've got to be like, hey, like that's a truffle finder. Like that pig is going to tear up your backyard.   but we can safeguard it. There are things that can be put into place to make sure that your backyard is safe, right, or as safe as possible. Same thing with your practice and your consulting. And that's what we do. We are good. Trish is great at pigs. She is great at many things. Recare, reactivation, AR, billing, team, culture, leadership. I could literally list the millions of things that Trish is really, really fantastic at.   And I think sometimes she's like an octopus that can just like all these arms are just going in different directions and she's just so fantastic at it. And Trish, we've talked about a specific client before and this client is just super cool, super amazing, super fun and a go-getter, like quietly a go-getter, which I love. I love that it's like a sneaky go-getter because he's so quiet. ⁓   So we talked about them before, but something I wanted to kind of highlight and focus on today during our podcast is yes, they've done these amazing things and with your leadership and your guidance, they have implemented some really incredible tools that we have talked about in the past, ⁓ you know, for handoffs and exams, mentorship, like all these pieces and it's worked wonderfully and the doctor is doing fantastic, but something I don't think we highlighted in the last podcast on this.   on this topic and conversation is the work that you've done with the manager and the team and like how that has flowed and how the doctor's leadership in the last less than a year has really molded the culture in the practice that that practice has now become, it's thriving. Like it's a practice that is safeguarded. It's a practice that has the systems in place that the team is really excited to be there still.   and has the like and the respect. I want to hear those tools, because those are sometimes the tools that we miss in moments of get our operations manual done and do all these checklists. And I want to hear how you helped them do that. I know he did it, they did it. And that is something that we can truthfully say. They showed up. They did the work. But what were the...   They did, and how did they do that? Take me through all of those pieces. How did you help them do that? How did they do the work? How are they showing up that's different than practices we're not working with right now?   DAT Trish Ackerman (09:00) This practice, it's so special to me because of the legacy behind it. just to reiterate this, we've got our current doctor in there now. It was his dad's practice and it was also his grandpa's practice. so he had something that we knew, he had something that we knew we had to preserve and grow and just blossom more than anything that practice had ever seen before.   And this doctor, he's kind of like your, he's just like your perfect implementer. And I never, and that doesn't happen all the time. And it did with him. And he, this is a doctor that has a stellar OM, like a real OM.

Kiera provides very specific tips for how a visionary CEO can keep their practice(s) flourishing on multiple levels without sticking their fingers in all the pies. She gets to the quick with a single question a leader should ask anytime a new task comes across their desk: Just because you can do something, does it mean you should? 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'm excited about today's topic and I hope you are too. Delegation, I feel like it's such a, ⁓ feels so hard. It feels like what should I do? What should I delegate? What should I not delegate? And this is for like helping you get to multi-level success. So whatever your success level is, whatever you want it to be, delegation is a huge portion of leadership. And I feel like,   especially in multi-practices, if you want to get to multi-practices, that's kind how I'm going to highlight this today. You have to ⁓ really get good at delegation. It's not about doing more. It's about doing more of the right things ⁓ and doing less of everything. And so really, really, really getting into that zone of genius, helping you out with that. So I'm excited about this. ⁓ I'll kind of work it through in a couple of different parts to make this easier for you. It's helping you know, what should I delegate? What should I keep?   and how to lead across all the locations with clarity. Because as you scale, a lot of people forget that they have to delegate, that they have to get different pieces. And so what happens is things just start to fall off the wagon. And that can get really, really scary. And then you're trying to like catch it all. And so many people, when they get into multi-practice ownership, they tell me like, I wish I would have just stayed at one. And I think, well, yes, there are benefits to staying at one. You had a call inside, you're so wanting to grow. It's just hard right now because we didn't set it up as   successful as we could have. Now, I am not one to judge. I did the exact same thing. And so I know the the taffy pole stretch of trying to do every single piece when you're a multi-practice ownership. And so this is coming from real life tactical, curious life experience of what we see with clients to give you the tips of the trade, to give you the secrets to success and doing it here on the podcast in such an open, friendly, welcoming, no judgment zone. More to just give you a hug to tell you, hey, you're doing better than you think you are. And let's give you some tactical practical tips to help you out.   So, A Team, we're obsessed with single practices, so multi-practices. We love to help owners build thriving practices at all levels. We love to work with practices anywhere from the startup zone all the way to the multi-location zone. Whether your plan is to build it into a legacy practice or to sell to a DSO or to whatever it is, there is no right answer with Dental A Team. It is your right answer. It is what is best for you, your life, your practice, and also allowing you the freedom to change that. So.   working with doctors and their teams to get to that high level success. ⁓ We are ultimately here to help you have the most profitable practice, the happiest team, the thriving practice of your dreams, and to do it on the easiest way possible. So that's what we're about. This is for ⁓ true, true, helping doctors become true CEOs, not ⁓ operators of their businesses to own their businesses to act in that seat rather than being the managers that oftentimes they are. So step one, when you're moving into this multi-practice ownership,   you are shifting and I want you just to know your identity is going to be stripped away. You're going to become the same thing that you feel very uncomfortable in because you've never done this, but this is what your organization needs and I think so often owners fail to rise to the need of the organization of what it needs and they like to stay where it's comfortable. And I remember as an office manager, I like when I truly stepped into the office manager role, I'm like,   Well, this is weird. I don't even know what I'm supposed to do. And you've got to just settle in and you'll figure it out very quickly. so helping you just know as the owner CEO of the company, what you have to own, like your true role is to own the vision strategy and culture. These are things that do not get delegated out. They're the core of the leadership. They're you setting the example. And when I realized, like, I remember one day I Googled like, what does a CEO do? Like I truly did not know.   ⁓ because I'd been a manager for most of my life. I'd been a doer most of it. I did not realize that my job was to own the vision, the strategy, and the culture. Now, not all CEOs, not owners of businesses actually enjoy the vision. You might not be a visionary and that's okay. You might just need to have somebody paired with you who's a really strong visionary. There's usually a visionary integrator according to Traction by Gina Wickman that I choose to, I subscribe to the strongest. So I'd be like a CEO and a COO. ⁓   The CEO is the visionary, the CEO always operations the day to day making the dreams happen. So it's like Walt and Roy Disney ⁓ are some good examples of that too. So when I'm looking at as a portion that you cannot delegate away, you've really got to own this vision strategy culture. That's you, you're the culture master, you're the strategy, you're the vision. So where are we headed? What does that look like?   ⁓ What's our 12 month? What's our three year? What's our 10 year target? That can still be, you set the like framework, the team builds it into a full complete picture. And then what's the culture that we want replicated across all the teams. So ⁓ when we start to get that vision strategy and culture aligned and ⁓ owners don't delegate that, you then can bring in hires faster. You can have core values. You can have KPIs like, because we know it's very clear. How do we act?   What are we going towards? And then what are the things that we need to measure? So this is truly something that when I realized like that was my job and it was the bigger picture piece, there's other people that do the day to day. It felt awkward. I'm not gonna lie. Like I was like, ⁓ I feel like I'm putting on a different t-shirt today. And like, I don't even feel comfortable. Like I don't look good in yellow. Well, you might not look good in it, but this is what the organization needs and nobody else is doing this besides you. So ⁓ the question is, if you're a multi-practice ownership and you're in this ownership role, question one is,   have I clearly communicated our vision? It's like, if Kiera or the Dental A team were to walk into my practice today and ask any team member, would they know the vision of our company? That should be a resounding yes. And if not, you have not communicated it enough and it has not been clear enough. Does your entire company know the core values and do they live them? And does every single practice know what their targets are for that practice and the KPIs they're tracking?   It's very simple way to ask yourself this. And I love to ask this and I love to come to offices. If you were to ask any member of our team member, they would be able to tell you, yes, we know exactly what our core values are. We know what the mission is of our company. We also know where we're headed. Now, I think I could be a bit more clear of where I'm headed in the three and tenure. My leadership team knows that a lot better. My core team knows where we're headed this year, what our core values are, and what the core values are of a company. We have this on a...   So some of them could rattle it off, our new team members, this is part of their onboarding. So helping you really figure that out is going to be paramount because now all your practices, all the locations are operating the same way and there's strong clarity. Step two is you're going to delegate operations for leaders. So this is kind of like the CEO versus the COO. So like realistically owners of like CEOs of DSOs and multi-practice ownership, you don't have to be a DSO for this. It can be multi, it can be private still.   I have a lot of private practices that are three, five, 10 locations. That's totally fine. You can do that, but you can't scale if you're still solving the supply issues and front desk drama and putting them. So you have to have a regional manager and a lead at each location. That's paramount. You need to have it. They need to have their KPIs and what they're tracking. They also need to know how to make decisions. Like what's the decision framework and how, what do I have decision making autonomy over at the office manager or regional monitor level versus what needs to get approval?   And then also we've got to have like training, not just tasks. So that way everybody has training of what do we need to do when we have that set up consistently. So you teach your team and you have a set protocol and process of how to run huddles. Like a system to me is something that no matter who you are, where you come from, whether you've been with us for one day or 10 years, you should be able to do the same thing and get the same results. So a huddle should have a form that everybody follows. You can have it broken down for me. I even have minutes next to it. Like this part's two minutes, part's five minutes. So it's a true 15 minute huddle.   for every single practice. Our one-on-ones have a set protocol of how do we do them, when are they run, and how often are they done, where are these things stored? We have a process of how we set up our rooms. We have a process of how we schedule. All these things that you start working on, and doctors who are owners and visionaries might not be good at these processes. S

Onboarding a new team member has turned into a very transactional process. In this episode, Tiff and Monica discuss how to add authenticity, connection, and engagement to the mix. 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. Welcome back. I am just so happy to have all of you. know there are so many people out there that support the Dental A Team in so many amazing ways. And you guys being here downloading these podcasts and having that little, I know Apple allows the like auto download. I always love that. Cause when I'm on flights, I can just, you know, podcast. But you guys being here.   pushing those through for us, being here to just support who we are, what we do is so truly incredible, whether you're a client, a future client, or someone who's just here to listen and you're like, ⁓ you know, never gonna sign up, we don't really have a preference of how you get to us. We just love that you're here. We wanna deliver all of the most amazing information that we possibly can. You might notice we share a lot of information, a lot of tips and tricks, a lot of like, I don't know, feel like, Monica, I feel like they're like.   secrets, trade secrets, right? And people are like, gosh, I'll just listen to your podcast. I'm like, fantastic, do that, do that. When you're ready for someone like Monica, who I have here with us today, you guys, to be like, I'm gonna push you a little bit further. She's here, we're here, and we're ready to help you get to that next level. And as I said, you guys, this is a truly, truly exciting day for us. I have Monica back on the podcast with me today. I am so excited to have you here, Monica. I know.   Monica Gomez (00:57) ⁓ yeah.   The Dental A Team (01:20) Previously, I've kind of given a good spiel of who you are and how we found you. And we got to record a podcast, if you haven't listened to it yet, about this really hiring tips and strategies. But there's so much to learn about Monica, her coaching style and who she is in that episode. So if you haven't listened to it yet, go do that. And as an introduction today, Monica, welcome. I'm so excited to have you here. And I just I'm excited to pick your brain. love I love watching.   I feel like I get to watch the flow of how thoughts come to you and it's just really fun and I love our time together. Thank you for blocking out your morning and being here with me this morning and Monica, how are you? How was your weekend? How's life? How's Monica?   Monica Gomez (02:05) ⁓ Life is great and I'm starting off my week with podcasting with you ⁓ and this is so fun. This is my second podcast and I'm so excited to be here. Our first one was really, there was a flow to it, right? It was a ⁓ great little conversation, valuable. We dropped lots of gems, you guys, so go listen to that podcast and I'm excited to be sharing this space again with you, Tish. Thank you for having me.   The Dental A Team (02:21) Yeah.   Thank you, thank you. I do love this and it actually makes me think this is like a little off topic here, but just for a smidgen of time. love the podcast space with you consultant ladies ⁓ on our team because I love that this is a space where I get to, I think I get to share how much I love you guys. Like how much admiration I have, how much I look up to you guys and get to like extract so much.   knowledge and input from you. And I think this is our space of like, truly having some connection time. And we have our one on ones, I mentioned that before, but those are so goal driven and work driven. It makes me think I love relationship and community. And I think that's something that humans are learning again, we're relearning that we need that. I think we lost that for a moment of time here recently and   in the years and we're coming back to that. You kind of don't know what you have until you lose it sometimes and we lost that space. And I think this is our space of true community. We do have our weekly meetings, we have our one-on-ones, we have our data-driven, work-driven time together, but the podcasting space is actually really special to me because I do get to, I get to get to like, want, we get to put you guys out there and I get to just spend this time with you.   And it makes me think you mentioned something on the last podcast that we had recorded together. You mentioned that intentional team time together and that like just clicked. As you're talking, like it clicked for me. This is our intentional time together and instilling that into, infusing that into the workplace. It's really special. And I want doctors and owners and leaders and anyone who's here, dental assistants, treatment coordinators, I don't care who you are. I want you to...   know from the bottom of my heart, this is a really special place and you don't need to go start a podcast unless you want to. But having that intentional time, like coffee time, like go in the break room and have coffee together and talk about your weekend. Like me getting to hear about Monica's family life and Charlie, her puppy, getting to know those pieces of you personally, it changes and it shifts our dynamic. So I wanted to highlight that because as you were speaking, I was like, my gosh, this is   Monica Gomez (04:44) Yeah.   The Dental A Team (04:57) something we haven't had yet because this is only our second podcast together, but that I know I do have with the other consultants and it just totally clicked for me because we just, think, mentioned that in the last one. So Monica, thank you for being here. Thank you for letting me say all that and for giving me this intentional time today.   Monica Gomez (05:15) Yeah, thanks, Tiff. Yeah, I think ⁓ this time together, we get to peek, a little peek behind the veil, right? And yeah, we do have a lot of connection time. It's structured time, right? But the value of unstructured time is just gold. is, ⁓ it builds trust, it builds ⁓ camaraderie, it builds affinity, it builds ⁓ an endearing, right? An endearing kind of sense of   The Dental A Team (05:23) Yeah.   Yeah.   Monica Gomez (05:44) of viewing the other person in a different light. So yeah, I think this is a powerful, like meaningful time. I agree with you. I agree with everything that you said. This is definitely a special magical space. Yeah.   The Dental A Team (05:53) Yeah.   Yeah, thank you.   Awesome. Well, thank you for being here. And again, if you didn't listen to the last podcast, I know this is the third or fourth time we're saying it. You should. This is kind of I think Monica actually helped me choose today's topics that she wanted to speak on. I think they actually naturally flow together. So I would maybe even listen to this one after the last one or listen to this one. And then I don't care which order you do it in, but listen to both of them is my is my point here, because today we really we're going to talk about onboarding.   Monica Gomez (06:07) You   The Dental A Team (06:28) And you can onboard anyone, but I think maybe when we add in onboarding the right team member, because the last podcast we recorded was really how to hire the right team member and hiring with intentionality and meaning behind it. And the onboarding, Monica, I think has to flow off of that. If we're not continuously showing up as the person we wanted to hire, like we talked about in the last one.   If we show up in the interview space and we're like, this is who I want you to be, but then we're onboarding and we're like, meh, meh. We're like, this is boring person and we want somebody who's dynamic and fun and engaging and speaking to the patients, but we're like, not that person. I think it makes a huge difference. So Monica, as you've trained people, as you've onboarded, you've trained practices to do this, what are some key highlights that you like to infuse into the onboarding process?   Monica Gomez (07:16) Yeah, great topic. And I agree, this one goes hand in hand with our previous podcast. know, onboarding traditionally has been very much transactional, right? Here's your cubby, here's what you do, here's where you sit, here's how you answer the phones, right? We've got to move. Well, there's a part of it that has to be transactional because you have to learn, you know, what your job is and, you know, the daily to do's.   But I think if we lead with that, it's a mistake. ⁓ As I mentioned before, and we talked about how the workforce has changed, ⁓ and we're leading with connection and engagement and authenticity and all those components that make us unique, I think we, I really feel that we need to move.   from a transactional place to a transformational or transcendental. ⁓ It's gotta be more about behaviors, right? And how we wrap our arms around like this new person that's joining our little family, right? How would you like to be welcomed into a team that would make you feel welcome and received with open arms and warmth? That's how we have to welcome our new people.   The Dental A Team (08:19) Yeah.   Monica Gomez (08:37) You know, we've invested so much time and energy in interviewing our job post, our, you know, filtering our candidates, interviewing, that whole hiring process, offer letter, the whole nine yards. And then we just throw them in, sink or swim. We've got to add, we've got to be intentional and we've got to add more value to the onboarding piece because, you know, people sometimes are left thinking like, gosh,   The Dental A Team (08:55) Yeah.   Monica Gomez (09:06) this is not the place that I thought it was gonna be, right? Like make it the place that you post it on your job ad, right? Like create, you get to be the creator. You're the co-creator, right? This is your platform. Like what do you wanna create for your new people, right? And I think transaction.   It's always part of our industry and in the workforce, right? T

Kiera goes into the key pieces for a worry-free practice, including systematizing your stress points, providing boundaries around time and energy, and leading proactively. 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 having an amazing day. I hope that you are excited for today's podcast. I am, because like, why don't we create a stress-free practice? That sounds like, sign me up. Yes, please. Thank you. Happy to take you guys through that and how to create a stress-free practice, at least at a base level, at least certain tactical tips that you can put into place today to start exploring that, experiencing that. And honestly, I just love, I love the game of business. I love the art of business. I love.   ⁓ I love the impact and the change we're able to make. And I truly just love human beings. I love helping people just experience their best life, whether it's my sister or my friend or my neighbor or our community or our podcast family, whomever you are, wherever you are, I'm just so grateful and honored that you're here with us today. So if you love our podcast, if it's changed your way in any way, shape or form, do me a favor today and just share it with somebody that you think this could make their day better. Whether it's today's podcast or another podcast.   Go to our website, TheDentalATeam.com, click on our podcast tab, search any topic that you ever could want, make sure that you're able to access all the free resources that are available to you. And if I can help you personally or professionally in any way, you guys, truly like, I built this company to be a friend in the industry, to be somebody who has vetted all the different people out there to help you out. And it's so fun because I used to work at Midwestern University's dental college before I started consulting. And it was so fun. The other day I was on a call.   and my phone, like I was on a video call and my phone lit up and I looked at it and it was literally a dental student. we're talking throwback to the past, shout out to my Midwestern family. And I was like, oh my gosh, I've not seen that name on my phone and we're talking eight plus years. And so as soon as they finished the call, I called them back and I was like, dude, it's been so long, how are you? And it just like, my cheeks hurt from smiling so much right now.   It made me so happy to be able to have been in the industry long enough to have worked with so many different clients and have so many different resources that no matter what has been thrown my way with different clients, this student that I haven't talked to in eight years who's at a pretty awesome crossroad of their practice and their life and what they're doing, to be able to truly give them ⁓ advice, to give them resources, to help them out. And I realized once again,   that that is why this company exists. It is to truly be that friend in the industry. And he's like, Kiera, like, your time is valuable. And I was like, are you kidding? Like, this is what my time has meant for my time is meant to help and to serve and to be that resource and advocate. Whether you work with us as an active client or whether you're an massive advocate of the podcast, ⁓ or if we're just someone who have we met in passing, just know that you have somebody out there who is truly committed to making you the most successful, the happiest.   all the best resources I can possibly bring to you. That's what this podcast is about. So share this with somebody who needs this. Make sure that you get this into the hands of all these dentists that need the help, that need the resources, because this is a free resource. There's no strings attached other than just asking you to truly give back to those around you, in your community, in your study clubs. Make sure everybody is a raving fan listening to the podcast, because my job is to help you become the best that you can possibly be.   So with that today, like I said, I teased it out a little bit. We're gonna help you figure out how to create this, you know, stress-free practice. And it's honestly going to be through nothing sexy, nothing hard. I hate hard things. I like it to be easy. One of our core values is ease. So everything I bring to the podcast, everything we do in consulting should make your life easier and not harder. like honestly, stress-free practices come from systems and leadership. That's the bottom line. It's systems and leadership all day long.   And it's the discipline to follow through on both of those. That's what it is. So this is something where it's like, we're going to reduce the chaos. We're going to protect your energy and help you truly feel so much better in the practice because this is what we're about. Like this is how we're able to get you guys there. And so the systems and the leadership done with consistency will help you have stress-free practices. Now, a lot of times it's, know what you should do, but you don't do it or you don't consistently do it. It's like parents, it's like, I know I shouldn't give my kid candy, but I do it because they're screaming and I just want the screaming to stop.   Well, is that a temporary fix or is it a long-term solution? And so for this, making sure that we're systematizing. Now systems for point number one are going to be exhaustive. You will never be fully systematized. You will never be fully done and perfect in all the pieces. There will always be an evolution. And I just want to like get rid of the hope and the wish that, my gosh, like maybe I could do this or maybe it would change or I will one day reach this mountain. You won't. So when I work with offices, like how do you get them systematized? How do you do it? What's your magic diet pill? And I'm like,   Well, I systematize the stress points. I systematize what's causing the most pain that's going to give me the most gain. And I do that immediately because then the screaming stops, but it stops forever. Did you hear the difference? The screaming stops, but it stops forever rather than just feeding my baby candy. So they stop screaming temporarily. Well, then they're going to start screaming because they get a tummy ache and then they're going to throw up on me. And then that's a whole nonsense rather than just giving them the food that they actually need and want and doing that consistently to help my baby out.   So for your practices, we're gonna systematize those stress points. So what happens from this is, I usually when I go into a practice or our consultants go into your office or we're working with you virtually, we're going to look for the top three pain points that you tell us are the pain points. Then we're gonna use the data to actually tell us additional pain points. And then we're gonna look at those two things combined and we're gonna pick out the top three things that are going to move the practice forward. Like literally this is what we do.   So sometimes it's a scheduling and efficiency. It's a communication like that happens all the time. It's a billing, it's a profitability, it's a lack of production. It's a, don't know what my next step is. It's whatever your pain point is, like, my gosh, like I was talking to an office the other day and like, I'm so sick of the like time off requests and people calling out sick coming to me as a doctor. And I said, that's funny. Who's your office manager? Like what's your office manager doing? Because that should never be coming to the doctor. Should definitely be going to the office manager. That right there.   is a simple, easy fix. We put up a system, we put up a process, we just tell the team, here's the new organization chart, here's who goes to who, boom, pain point gone and resolved as long as you stick with it. So what we wanna do is we wanna look at what our top three recurring pain points are. Again, we talk to the team and then we look at your data. What do your numbers tell us are truly the issues that you're having? And then what we do is we create systems, SOPs or protocols, and then we have accountability with it. So like when I go into a team and,   there's an issue of our scheduling. Well, great, let's put a scheduling template in. Let's roll it out to the entire team. Let's let everybody know what the rules of the game are. That way everybody can play the game. And then we put it into place for six weeks and we reassess and we refine and we change it up as need be. And when you start to do this and you start to systematize, and for me, I don't like systems that you have to remember. I like systems to just be in place. So a scheduling template just goes in place and everybody can follow it. We tell them the rules of the game, but it's very easy. Like don't make it where it's like,   This green block is for just treatment, big treatment. Well, what the heck is big treatment? Let's do this green block is for a $2,000 and you can have X, Y, or Z that can go in there. Fantastic. Well, now I know when I'm looking for green blocks, any person who's a crown or quads of fills or endo or implant, like anything 2000 or above can go here and I can stick it in. Now, now that's easy. I know it's $2,000 instead of big production. That's so much easier. Then what happens if I can't fill that?   Well, great, 24 or 48 hours, whatever we decide as a team that feels good to us, we hold that block for that long and then we can go and change it. Now what happens is somebody is like, but Mrs. Jones just wanted to go in that spot. I know I'm not supposed to. What happens then? Well, great, the person who's scheduled gets to call Mrs. Jones and move her. We don't play the game. We don't get to do this. Like unless it's 24 or 48 hours, that block is held for that exact procedure. And I checked to see whose name did it and they get to call that patient with me.   awkwardly

Happy Thanksgiving! Kiera gives ideas of service opportunities, from a personal to a practice-wide scale.  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 happy, happy Thanksgiving. I am so honored to share today with you. You guys, I love Thanksgiving. It used to not be one of my favorite holidays, but gosh, you know, the secret to living is giving and to have a day dedicated to gratitude, a day dedicated to love, a day dedicated to families and friends and to just come together and to remember how good our lives truly are.   I think is beyond special. And I just want to say, for me, it would feel crazy for me not to jump on here and to say thank you to all of you. You guys are my favorite humans. You're the people that I love, that I get to talk to so many times a week, that I get to hang out with, that I get to see your stories, that I get to know personally and professionally, that I get to see your wins. I get to see you tag us on social media. I get to see the emails that come in. I get to see your reviews that you leave. I get to see you positively impacting the world of dentistry. And just to truly know,   that you guys are doing so good out there. And I just want to say thank you. Thank you for being here. You guys, this podcast was a hope, a wish, a dream when I was hiking up, I'm not joking, Half Dome in Yosemite. And I thought there is nothing out there that's serving dentists and teens. And it's a niche and it's a space. And I'm going to come in and I'm going to positively impact. And I'm going to get both sides of the coin to come together to really, truly influence and impact dentistry in the greatest way possible. And that is such a huge testament to all of you for being here.   for being a part of the Dental A Team family. So I just wanna say thank you for being here. And to this, I just wanna say like, if you've been an OG, thank you for being here from the beginning. And if you're a newbie, welcome. I hope that you feel loved. I hope you feel appreciated. I hope you just feel great. And I hope you remember how amazing life truly is. So I want you guys to just know that watching this podcast evolve, to seeing millions of downloads, to seeing us in so many countries, my like...   It's mind boggling to me. It's crazy because when I built this, didn't know how many people would listen and to see the fans, to see the love, to see the raving fans, to see the clients come through, to laugh with you, to celebrate with you, to cry with you. I just want to say like, gosh, like this is a journey. It's a joy and it's an honor and it's a privilege because I know your time is your greatest asset. And so I just want to say thank you. And today with it being Thanksgiving, you know, I really just want you to know   that I believe that the secret to living is giving. And we have a portion of our company called Live To Give. And I've talked about it on a few other podcasts. I've talked about how like, you know, it was back in 2019, I went to a Tony Robbins event. And a lot of you know how much I love Tony Robbins. That was because I caught one of my lightning moments in life where I was in a space so focused on myself and it was random because I was building a company called Live To Give.   and that was where we were non-believable and we were like getting donations to help these nuns who didn't even have a house. Like it was crazy and we raised so much money so quickly and I've done it a few other times. Like another one idea was the Vibe prison ventures where inmates were actually like I went I actually went to the prison and it was crazy and I was scared out of my mind ⁓ but I saw these inmates take their skills that got them into prison which were not the best.   and turn them into good and they pitched us their business ideas and to be able to sit there with them. That was another business that I got that was part of the Live To Give to be a part of that and to give back. And I found that so many of the times in my life that are my happiest moments are those where we like went above and beyond. And a few years ago, I talked about like probably my favorite Live To Give moment that we've ever had was when we were able to, one of my friends in Arizona, her son was struggling with stomach cancer and   I really wanted to do a make a wish and make a wish is like really, really hard to get in touch with. And I had committed that year. I was going to do a make a wish. I didn't know what it was going to look like. I didn't know how we were going to do it. I told my team, this is what we wanted to do. And we found this boy and his goal, his dream was to go to Italy. And I was like, this is it. Like guys, this is it. We have a team member who's a stomach cancer ⁓ survivor as well. And I was like, this is it. This is our live to give. And our whole team was able to participate in it. We're able to give this, this   child who's 12 years old, him and his family, a complete all expense paid trip to Italy when he got done with cancer and to give him the hope and the wish. And you guys like that moment in my life, I think about the ones that really impact us the most, the ones that changes, the ones that are like those lightning bolt moments. And I, the bulk of them are ones that we've been able to give to serve, to love. ⁓ We were able to last year as a team go and like help so many kids at the children's hospital.   our team has done angel tree where we go and like shop for these families. And Shelbi and I, I remember we went shopping for a family of nine and that was the exact of my family. I think back to when I was at, ⁓ United Way and I was able to bring holiday magic to hundreds of families from the donations of others. And I remember there was a time where I just was feeling grumpy about life. I realized like, I haven't checked my, giving like vitals.   in me in a while. I think about businesses and I think about all of you and we are constantly looking at our KPIs of our business. We're looking at the KPIs that drive us to success, but I'm like, what are the KPIs of our life that drive us to success? And maybe those are some of the pieces that are there. And I've just realized that giving and serving and loving should be an area that maybe we want to check those vitals, especially today.   of where is my giving my love, my service, KPI? Is it high? Is it low? Is it on track? Is it off track? And I will say that if it's off track, today's a great day to get it on track. And maybe a couple of ways for us to give back is just to love a little bit more, to text someone today that you might love. A few years ago, my brother-in-law and I have a kind of a unique relationship. When I met...   He was a business owner and I always thought he was so grumpy. I didn't really like him that much. was like, Jason, your brother is so just rude. I did not care for him. And as I become a business owner further into my career, I understand this brother-in-law so much. And he's kind of like, I don't know, I would say like a little crusty on the edges. He's not soft, I'll put it that way. And I was actually really, really scared to text him.   But just cared about him so much and I appreciated so much of what he's done and he's been a mentor to me. And I just said, take a risk, a gamble. I remember I was sitting on the beach in Maui and I texted him and I just said, hey, I just want you to know how much I appreciate you. I value you. And how much of a mentor you've been to me and you've given me hope when I didn't know that there was hope. And I'm just so grateful for you. And he wrote back, he's like, Kiera, I don't usually cry. And that text meant so much to me. And I just think that's our giving.   KPI. So what little love bombs could you send out? What service could you and your team do together? Our team, every year in December, we do a Live to Give. Could you guys adopt that in your company and together collectively as a podcast family? Think of all the lives that we could give back to. I think about my husband was talking about another brother that he has and this brother literally is in such a hard place in his life right now and   does not have a lot of money, has a lot of family dynamics, I won't get into it. And when I say like, pretty much homeless, that's literally what's going on with him. And I only highlight that because his situation is so hard. we were, Jason was talking about struggling with something and he was like, ⁓ I could help you with that. And Jason and I talked about it and we thought about who are the people that give to those that are struggling? A of times it's those that are like, not hardly better off than they are. And I think like,   Could today or this next month, could we maybe boost that live to give side of us where we look for people in need, we look for opportunities that can be in our patient base, that can be in our team base, it can be in our community, it can be in our families. Can I give out little love bombs? It might be cold in your area. A few years ago, we did a coat drive and this came from one of my friends in Utah who...   would ask all his friends to donate coats that they're no longer wearing and would drive around and hand out coats to people on the side of the road that could really use it. I'm not here to say you've got to go do that, but I just think like, what a blessing to those people. What a space for us to be able to share and to love and to give back. Like you guys, are so insanely blessed. I promise every single person listening to this podcast today, we all collectively could say that we have been unruly blessed.   in our lives. And so where is that? Could I text a team member and tell them like, Hey, you're doing such a great job. I'm not joking. I have a little list over here to write thank you cards to my team m

The Dental A-Team often hears from team members who feel like they're not good enough. In this episode, Kiera shares with listeners how to switch from harmful self sabotage and comparison to a healthy awareness of growth and positivity. 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 want to dive into something that I think is really important. I feel, hear this from a lot of people. I've coached a lot of dentists. I've worked with a lot of team members. And so I feel like I've got a pretty good background on how to talk about this. And I think just as human nature, and I'm not saying that all of us are there, but   Every dentist, every office manager, every team member I talk to, no matter how successful or how terrible they're doing, they say, I'm not doing well. I'm not doing enough. Like I'm not doing good enough. And I just wanna like dig into this a little bit today because I think it's a lie that we all believe to some level. We feel this imposter syndrome. We feel this... ⁓   I don't know. It's just this weirdness that I want to help you rewire that story and to maybe give a different perspective on that, because the reality is you're doing better than you think you are. And I want to reset and reframe that internal dialogue because I believe being your own best cheerleader or your own worst critic, both of them have pros and cons. And I think like there's so much icky in the world that why don't we start to become your best cheerleader? I truly do believe the quote that ⁓ Tony Robbins says like where   where focus goes energy flow. So if we're focused on not being good enough or why am I not good enough or I don't know how to do this. Well, yes, there's a line of humility that I appreciate. There's also a line of self sabotage that I think we need to start to cut that script and become even stronger. really, Dental A Team's mission is to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible and to help you build thriving practices, thriving leaders, not just surviving, not just hoping and like skirting along. Dentists always want to know how they're doing compared to other dentists.   And so really just giving you kind of that baseline to help you out. ⁓ This is the emotional side of leadership. This is the self-worth, the confidence that rewiring the not enough trap that I wanna just like dig into. And it's just more of a conversation and hopefully bringing some insights and some highlights to help you stop that narrative to really highlight the growth that you can have and just to give you some better. I don't know, just a hug. You're doing so good out there. And I think like as a proud mom of you.   ⁓ Just reminding you of how good you are doing, not better than you are, not worse than you are, but realistically where you are. And I think so many of us accidentally self-sabotage the goodness that we have rather than celebrating how great we're doing. ⁓ And again, momentum builds. So let's build momentum of positivity rather than momentum of negativity. So ⁓ I think the first thing that I like to look at is like, what is the root belief that causes you to have it? So like these thoughts are coming from somewhere. So is it past experiences? Is it comparisonism? Is it perfectionism?   ⁓ I went to a Tony Robbins conference. I do love Tony so much. I have a great time there. I don't think everything's perfect, but I think a lot of great things are, are good in it. And I went to, my favorite thing is date with destiny. And I went to it last year and, ⁓ Tony always has this talk about our towards values and our way values. And, he says, why is it that we try it? We do so good in life, making it hard to feel good and easy to feel bad. And I think about this a lot. And so last year, my word was comparison and.   He actually has you go on this whole rant. So if you can imagine, I feel I present in such a different way than how I was at that conference. ⁓ The beast was unleashed, we'll put it that way. One of my dear friends was with me and they said that they've never seen Kiera like 4.0 version come out. And what Tony has you do is you actually go through, cause comparison was actually one of the biggest things that was holding me back in life. I was comparing to all these other women about my body, about my looks, about my business, about everything.   I realized that my self-sabotaging was from a deep-rooted piece and like prior to that, ⁓ was fear that I let go of. was fear of all these things. And what Tony has you do is you go on this monologue, this rant to basically just see how much of life you've lost by having this. So I went into comparison and I said like, Kiera Dent, see, hear, feel, and know that I will never, ever succumb.   to the limiting and self-sabotaging and ludicrous lie of comparison. And then you go on a rant. And luckily Eminem, I do have a side nickname of DJ Skittlez. Yep, I wanted to be a rapper with Eminem. So I figured Skittlez with a Z was gonna be my rapper DJ name. So if you ever come voting with me, DJ Skittlez does come out voting to make your perfect playlist.   But Eminem was on and it was such a good thing for me. And I remember just unleashing the beast of this comparison and you yell and you scream and you just like, you know, like, and the goal is that you, you look at your life from this lens of how much has this self sabotaging piece taken from you. And when I looked at it, like I wasn't participating fully with my family. wasn't working out at the gym because I didn't want to be compared to other women. I wasn't, ⁓   being as bold in business because I was comparing myself to what other people did and just how much of life was being sucked away from me. And so with that, if that's something like for you to just look to see where is it and what's maybe the one or two ⁓ values that you're holding onto that make you feel bad, that I would encourage to be a way value, not something we want to go towards. So for me, I have on comparison and like comparison only shows up for me when I forget that I am like just, ⁓   For me, like what I will say, I do believe in God, that I am God's greatest creation. when I, so now what I've done is I've taken comparison and I flipped it. So like, if I ever start comparison, it's only due to me forgetting that I'm God's greatest creation. And that quickly for me eliminates that. And so, and it's like fear only if I forget that I have like magic and brilliance that spews from me.   So what the goal is, is you take that root belief and you flip it and you figure out what it is. And then what is something like, it's only if I were to forget that I am like brilliant and have like unlimited potential within me. So like for fear or comparison or perfectionism or whatever it is. And so what is that? Where did that story begin? And maybe you don't know. ⁓ And maybe go through a rant if you want, or maybe just write a new definition and make it harder to feel that. So for me,   It's actually pretty hard for me now to feel comparison. Like I can go back to that, like Kiera 4.0, if you were to call my friend Pierce, he's been on the podcast, he will tell you Kiera 4.0 came out on that comparison rant to where I feel like I literally was able to obliterate it to where it's not there. And for you looking at why am I not good enough, maybe if we can find one or two of your route towards values and away values, what are those away values? And could we...   Could we acknowledge it? Could we see why it's there? And could we maybe decide to put that to rest for a little while? ⁓ And I think when I do this exercise and I write out what success means, it's crazy how many weird rules I have to put in to be successful. And maybe even for yourself, writing out like today what you feel you have to do to be successful. Oftentimes this is why we feel like we're not enough is because we've made this laundry list where it's impossible for any person.   ourselves or someone else to ever hit that level. ⁓ I talked to a friend once and she was like, yeah, for me to be successful, I have to have, I think she told me like 10 million in her bank account, which she was not even close to that. She had to have her body size be X. She had to drive a certain car. She had to live in this. And it was like, wow, well, no wonder we feel this. That's the root belief. It's so hard for us to even feel successful versus I feel successful anytime I make a patient happy.   What you do on that is we're not changing the rules of the game, but we are making it easier to feel good and harder to feel bad. So the only time I'm ever going to feel comparison is when I forget that I'm God's greatest creation. Well, yeah, like I'm not going to forget that. Like I really do think that. And not to say that I'm better than anybody else. I just truly do believe that all of us in our own way are truly God or the universe or whatever's greatest creation. I, gosh, like I feel emotional about that. I really do just believe that that's who you are.   I believe that human souls are that way. I believe that. and so it's one of those things like as a proud mom for you, if you want to take that on for a hot minute, go for it if you want to write it. But when doctors can rewrite, when you feel behind or you feel like you're not enough, maybe what enough feels like you could look at it, like list it off, but then maybe make it a bit easier for you to feel enough today. maybe being enough is reminding myself that like just being alive is enough.   Like think about how the magic of being a living soul is. Well, shoot, that is enough. And like, what does enough even mean? What does success even mean? And what's wild about that is this, there's maybe a few pieces to it. So call to action on it. Cause I like to make this tactical, even though it's s

Tiff and Trish spell out exactly what practices should do to shift into growth mode — whether that's case acceptance, patient base, or whatever else — as well as how to commit to positive changes long-term. (Positive changes, by the way, including what's too much for a team member or practice's workload.) Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review  

When it comes to scaling smarter, not scattered, there are three mistakes owners make that hurt efficiency, profitability, and leadership. Kiera talks about how Dental A-Team helps practices simplify methods so that success is humming across all locations. 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 you are having such an amazing day. Today is podcasting day and I actually did a little reel for you guys to come and enjoy getting ready for me on podcasting day. My husband and I, we did this funny thing when I got like amped myself up and we're like, I love my life. I love my job. I love podcasting. And I don't know if you guys have seen that little girl.   who does that where she gets so excited about life and it's like, I love my bed, I love my hot tub, I love my view. And truly I love all of you. And I'm just super excited to be here with you podcasting, to be talking about great things in dentistry. And today I think that this one's going out to our multi-practice owners. And these are three costly gaps that I've noticed within multi-practice ownership that really try to highlight some of the gaps because at the end of the day, the podcast was created   to help all dentists elevate, to help all of us rise, to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. And that's what we're about. That's what our mission is. That's what I'm about. And so today going out to those multi-practice owners, or for those of you thinking about multi-practice ownership and do you want to do this? do you want to like, what are some of these gaps that maybe could also impact solo practice owners? So at Dental A Team, do work with solo practice owners, multi-practice owners. We work with...   like from basically one million, you know, you're maybe at that 650, one million range, all the way up to that 10, 15, $20 million range as well for practices. And there is a no one size fits all in Dental A Team I'm very, very, very, very big on who we hire and who the people are within our company. And with our clients that this is your life. This is your dream. There is no ultimate destination that we're trying to get all of our practices to. There is no final   You've got to hit this in order to be excellent within Dental A Team. is what is your life? We have some owners that are working at two or three days a week. We have some owners that are working six days a week. We have some that want multi-practice ownership. have others that want solo practice ownership. We have some that are solo practitioners doing 4 million in one location of about six to seven operatories. We have others that are in multi-locations doing 2 million. So really there is a no one size fits all. It's more what do you want to be? And we call this the yes model. So where do you   personally and professionally want to be. stands for earnings to make sure you're profitable and S stands for systems and teams to support that. So really making sure that way you can say yes to your life, yes to the things you want in life. That's what we're about. So with that, like when you look at multi-practice ownership, it does not necessarily mean adding more profit. I've talked to several multi-practice owners that are actually making less money in multi-practice ownership than they are.   prior to expanding to multi locations. Think about it. You've got one location that's doing really well, the other one's not doing so well, well, your good one has to then support your not so cash flowing one. So sometimes it actually can be a lot more costly for you. And so for you to just realize that some of the ways that we can do this will actually impact solo practitioners. ⁓ And so the three things that we're gonna work on today are like,   things that hurt efficiency, they hurt profitability and they hurt leadership. So when we look at this, doing a deep dive on that, that's really what I want you to look at of like how you can scale smarter and not scattered because really with multi-practice ownership, I remember the day we opened our second location. Our first practice was doing, it was 500,000 to 2.4 million in nine months. And then we opened our second location and you better believe that it was like just adding more fuel to this already burning chaos fire. I think that's really, really clear. And I hope you heard that it was adding more fuel.   to the chaos fire, not to the profitable fire, but to the chaos fire. ⁓ And that was really, really, really struggling. ⁓ It was hard on me. It was hard on our practice. It was hard on the team. I was not showing up as a great manager. I was not showing up as a great ⁓ leader. I was not showing up as a great partner. ⁓ I was not showing up great in my marriage. It was like literally just trying to swim through and feel like I was trying to survive rather than doing it smart. And so that's something really big that we've been wanting to do for all of you is   to give you this smarter way. Dental A Team was really here for you. It was built by people who are just like you, who have been in your shoes, they don't just understand you, but have actually been in your shoes, who's walked the walk, talked the talk, and we've done it very successfully. So I love to help offices. Hopefully we're helping you. ⁓ And if you love this podcast, please be sure to like it, start, share it, because that's how we're able to help and influence more people. number one, the biggest number one miss is no centralized operations. So that means ⁓ we don't...   we don't have a central plan and instead our practices are individual islands. This was very much my practices. We had our one and it was doing certain things and we had our second one and it was not doing certain things. And so going from each practice felt like I was going to multiple different locations, multi different pieces and that really gets hard. And so we have inconsistent systems which means we have unpredictable outcomes. And then on that, like we did not have a set way that we'd schedule. So we'd schedule one way at our first location another way at our second location.   Our billing was not the same. The way we were insurance verifying, our fee schedules weren't even the same because we were in two different cities. And so we had different fee schedules. ⁓ Reporting was not the same. We did not have leaders in both practices. We did not have SOPs that could scale. Like truly our operations manual was not done and we just thought buy another practice and let's go through this. Rather than having a set standard, and this is something I'm really big on when people want to go to multi-practice ownership or they're already in multi-practice ownership. This is really where we start. There's a practice that we're working with and   I think about them, were, the solo doctor was running around to every single location, trying to out-produce the problems instead of fixing the problems at the base level. And that's going to be through this of like centralized systems and getting systems in place and like having our scheduling and our billing and our cashflow consistent and looking at each of the individual practices ⁓ to make sure that they are centralized. And so when we work with multi-locations,   What we do is we actually simplify it down. So you don't necessarily have to have centralized billing or scheduling like right away. Once you get to that four or five, usually it's very recommended to have centralized billing or I've got some practices that are multi like it's one location, but they have about 15 to 17 operatories. Well, that does count in my opinion as multi ops, multi practices, cause a lot of times multi practices are like five ops or more. So you think about a 15 op practice that's like three practices, but just under one roof.   So even in this larger practice, I often recommend we start to centralizing. So we have a set standard of how we're doing billing. We have different reporting metrics. You've got to have the KPIs. We've got to have the set system. So what we started to do is we standardized the operatories. So all ops are the same. We standardized how we're scheduling. We're all in the same softwares. We have an SOP. So we've got our front office, our back office teams, and we do the exact same way. So how we're doing it. We had both practices auditing each other so that we standards were not getting missed and it wasn't.   Well, this practice does it this way and this one does it this way. No, we're trying to make these standardized. that way, again, it's not so that way we can't have our own flare and variety at the different locations, but it's so that way when practices show up and doctors show up, we're actually able to be efficient and effective because we're able to have it be the same. It's like, could you imagine ⁓ if your practices were like everybody's varying different houses? So the way I put my silverware in my house might be very different than where you put your silverware in your house.   So just imagine we've got five different houses, how much easier it would be if we all walk in and we all agree that silverware goes to the right of the dishwasher. Well, now, no matter where the dishwasher is placed in a house, we know silverware will always be to the right of the dishwasher. Just like when we walk into an operatory, we always know that the ⁓ disposable, so our gauze, our cotton, is always to the right of X. It all practices. So as much as we can get them similar, so that way it's just more efficient, it's more streamlined, everything is working together rather than against each other.   but truly getting centralized operations in multi-operatories or multi-locations is going to be one of the biggest ways to cut costs, to save time, and to make it more efficient for a better patient c

Fostering leadership growth within a team takes intentional execution. Tiff and Trish discuss what it takes to lead a team versus managing, including self-awareness, delegation, team-wide trust, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review

Operatinging a practice is very, very different from owning a practice. Kiera walks listeners through what the path to CEO ownership looks like, including the difference between the clinical and business sides, how performing a time audit will get you started, the ideal approach to establishing a vision, and more. 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 today is a great day. I am so excited for this podcast. I am excited to be chatting with you. I feel honored. Where are we at? Are we hanging out? Are we going on a walk together? Are we getting ice cream together? Are we picking up the kids? Are we driving to work? Are we driving home from work? Are we sitting in traffic? Wherever we are, I hope it's a great day. And I hope that even if it wasn't the best day that you're choosing to make sure that today is going to be an epic day, that you're choosing yourself, that you're choosing happiness.   that you're choosing this incredible life. And you remember at one point, at one point, the life you're living is the life that you were dreaming of. And how blessed are we to be able to live this magical life that we get to. So today I just wanna walk you through how to go from a practice operator where you're doing all of it to a true CEO and what needs to change to be able to lead at the next level. So I think this is so fun because owning a practice is very, very, very different than   operating a practice, would you agree? And so like if you're still in the weeds, you're still doing the day to day, you're not yet the CEO of your practice. And so this is something where I wanted to kind of walk you through like, what does that even look like? Because for some of us, we don't even know what the destination looks like. So we're like, well, I can't even visualize it. So therefore I can't even like create it. And I want to make sure that I help you see what that path can be, help you understand what it can look like if you choose that you want to do it.   This is something where Dental A Team's mission is to truly help doctors stop running on survival mode and start leading strategically. So whether you want to be the CEO where you're out of the chair, whether you want to still be the operator where you do some dentistry, but you have the options because you know what that can look like. So that's what we're about. And today it's going to be going from busy operator into visionary, going from day to day to the big picture. And so fun because I actually was talking to a client this morning who actually it's been about a three year journey has now   rounded the bend to where they had their last day of clinical dentistry and they're stepping fully into the CEO role. And as we were chatting, we talked about how it's a mind trip. It's a full blown mind trip and how I told them, said, it's crazy because I'm actually doing this podcast today. I had already planned that I wanted to talk about this. It was so serendipitous that we chatted today. ⁓ But I said, isn't it wild how like what we dreamed of, like you go through dental school and you go through all these things. ⁓   to walk away from that, have associates, to have different people. Just like me, I consult, I still do some consulting, but I do a lot more of running the business, owning the business, and not as much in the day-to-day anymore. And I'm so grateful for the team of Dental A team that allows me to be in my sweet spot, the visionary role, to enjoy it and to allow them to be in their sweet spots. And this doctor and I, were chatting and he just said like, Keir, it's weird.   I don't even know what being a CEO looks like. And I have another doctor and he said, Garrett, it's so weird to go from being clinical all the time to working on the business, but it's so fun to work on the business and to be the CEO that can look. And as I was talking to the doctor this morning, they're thinking about doing a DSO and wondering what they want to do with that. And he's just like, you know, I don't even know. So we started talking and we were rattling off all these things. And he was like, that's what I need to be doing as a CEO. That's why I need to have the time not in the chair is so that way I can.   I can drive this business in the direction it needs to go. And so again, today's podcast is not to say that you need to step away from the chair. As you can see, there's one client who is completely out of the chair. There's another client who works one or two days clinically. Myself, I still do ⁓ a day of consulting and then I still do podcasting and I do the things that light my fire that I still enjoy doing. But there's a path of how do you get there? And it was kind of like when I used to be a treatment coordinator and a dental assistant and I became an office manager and I'm like,   I don't even know what I'm supposed to do. All of these are different layers. I almost want you to think kind of like the wifi symbol. Like you just, you go through different layers and it's different identities. And it's kind like you pop through and you look around and like, don't even recognize this neighborhood. Like I don't even recognize the neighborhood of CEOs. I don't even recognize the neighborhood of working two days of clinical. I don't even recognize the neighborhood of where my leadership team does the bulk of all the pieces that I'm doing. Like I don't actually have to do the hiring and firing anymore. I don't have to do all the one-on-ones anymore.   you pop your head up into a different neighborhood and it's a loss of identity and it's a taking on of a new identity and it's a morphing. I remember talking about this, gosh, this is like in the archives of podcasts. If you wanna go look, go to TheDentalATeam.com, click on podcasts and type in like sloughing and snake and you'll probably find it. But I talked about this years and years ago of how when you evolve from being this operator to this owner, it's kind of like a snake and you have to like literally like slough off.   the old version of you to allow space to become the version that you need to be. And so just kind of going through like, what does it even look like? And if I wanted to, or just maybe propose or think about, because I always believe like the more knowledge you have and the more, I think vision or maybe just like thought, right? Like I never even thought about it. Like I never even thought that my practice could make a hundred thousand. Like what if it made 200,000 a month or what if it made 300,000 or.   There's a practice doing 550 a month or there's a practice who's literally doing a million a month. I have an office that like all their offices are producing. They've got multi offices and they're producing between 350 and 450 a month. Every one of their offices. And I say this not for you to compare and to beat yourself up and say like, my gosh, I'm not even there, Kiera, I'm only doing 30,000. I want all of us just to say there are other neighborhoods, there are other visions. And I wanted today to just show a picture.   And then you get to pick up whatever you want or don't want from this vision. There is no right you have to get here. It's just, I want to show you and paint a picture in case you're thinking about it. So that way you look at life, look at your practice, look at your decision-making differently at whatever stage you are in your business. So there's no judgment. There's no expectation. That's something I love about Dental A Team is I've got clients that are producing 7,000 a month and I've got clients that are producing, oh gosh, like 1.2 to 2 million a month.   It's insane. I've got clients that are at 80 % overhead. Don't worry, they're brand new. All the way down to a 35 % overhead. All of us are in different journeys, we're on different paths, we have different priorities. And there's not a one size fits all in Dental A Team. It is a one size fits you. And then let's just make sure that we expand your knowledge base. That way you're making decisions educated rather than placed upon you. So step one, as you're kind of shifting into this role, is going to be...   shifting from doing to delegating. And this is something where I think as founders, as owners, myself included, we build the, like we've built this so we know how to do all the pieces and it's very hard to let go. The CEO builds the machine, they don't run every part of it. And so really thinking about that, like your job is to build the vision, your job is to do these bigger partnerships, your job is to build the culture, to be the lighthouse on the hill, but not the one rowing the boat. And so,   The way we do this is kind of like a time audit. So we write down every single thing that we're doing and we look to see who could do this 80 % as well as I can that we could delegate. And there's ⁓ in some of our other podcasts and on our summit and in some of our things, we talk about a delegation ladder. And basically we like look at administrative tasks and scheduling tasks and TC tasks and then all the way up to marketing and leadership tasks. And so how can we start to delegate these tasks out? And so you're not doing them all.   And then what we do is we have leads and we have scorecards and we have ⁓ decision pieces to help people understand what decisions they can or can't make. And what happens is when doctors start to let go of this, empower their team without letting go, so they're still in the reins, they're then able to work on growth and strategy and you're able to build the vision. You're able to have the time to go to those big networks. Like the doctor here, like Kiera, all the people you told me like, that's why I need to go make phone calls with. making those phone calls are big decisions for the business.   don't happen between patients and they're not happening aft

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