Are you starting to panic over how to reward your team for another year well done? Should you show appreciation in the first place? Kiera gives advice on how to figure out those end-of-year bonuses, parties, trips, and more, plus how not to stress about it.

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Transcript:

Kiera Dent (00:01 )

Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera, and I hope you're just having an amazing day. I hope you're loving your life. I hope you remember that, honest to goodness, this is such a blessing. We get to work in dentistry. How fun is that? And I just hope you remember that we are so blessed to give back to people. We're blessed to be in dentistry. Dental A Team's mission is to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. So that's what we're here for. And the job of this podcast is to give you tactical practical tips that elevate your mind, elevate your thinking.

 

help your practice be more profitable, more fun, more successful. That's what we're here for. So with that today, I just thought it'd be fun. Like end of year bonuses, trips, parties, like how do you even decide what to do? This comes up often in our consulting offices, like I don't know what to do. We had an in-person mastermind meeting and I remember the doctors, there were team members there too, so we had it. Doctors and leadership team members and the doctor was like, team members, just tell us what you want.

 

And the teams are like, we just want to be appreciated. And they're like, we know you want more than that. And so I just thought today it'd be fun to just kind of do a rift with you of what are some of ideas? What are some things you can do pros and cons? So doctors, you can work with your team of really what can I do for this end of year and what's the most powerful and hopefully just giving you some food for thought today, making this tactical for you. So when I'm looking at end of year bonuses, number one, ⁓ I hate surprises. So me as a business owner,

 

I actually set a budget for what our end of year will be, whether it's bonuses, trips, parties, I don't care what it is, I try to set that. And right now I'm trying to release this early, so hey, you could be proactive on it, but for me, we actually have a budget for it. And then I don't like to do big expenses, that's just not my jam, I don't enjoy it, unless I'm buying like a big vehicle or something like that, that I can have an immediate write off. But even that, I try to keep my cash and just get the write off for it. So with that, when I'm doing end of year, like I said, budget it out, project it out, and then start saving.

 

whatever month this is releasing, however many more months you've got through end of year, let's say we're going to do $5,000. We'll break that up over the next, let's say we've got five months left, save $1,000. I put mine into a high yield savings account. That way the money's there, I can spend it it's not hitting me in December when everything else is hitting me. So that's what I'm going to do is whether it's a bonus, trip or the party. Like you can set a budget, doctors, you don't have to let your team decide what you're going to do. And oftentimes I like to set that as a percentage.

 

of what we're doing. So if I know that we're going to do XYZ and I know my overhead's at 50%, well, I could do like 1 % or 2 % of that. That way my overhead's at 51 or 52 % with this cost, right? That makes it really nice and easy. And then I'm going to be able to figure out the budget from there. So that's one piece. Or you can just say, I want to do $5,000 or I want to do this. Or like, let me look this up if we want to do a trip or a party, let me figure this out. So for our team, we figured it out. This is how much we spend every single year per number of team members.

 

I can then plug that into my projections for the next year. So I know based on the size of the team, where we're going, how much this is going to cost us, it's really going to help you then just budget it out. And I think knowing the budgets, putting it into our projections, then we're not getting these psycho surprise expenses. This is hopefully going to help you not cry in December, because so many offices are like, I had the worst December. And I'm like, well, yeah, we have all the holiday time. We're not doing as much dentistry. And we get hit with all the expenses. Double, triple, quadruple whammy.

 

not a super fun month. So let's cut the crying in December and make this easy. Now, how do I decide if it's going to be a bonus, a trip or a party? Well, that depends on your team, depends on what you're doing it for. What's our why behind your, why you're doing this? What do you want to achieve out of this is really something I want you to look at of why are we doing this? So for some people it's like, Hey, we set this huge lofty goal. So we're going to do a bonus of X amount. Again, looking at your numbers to determine that amount. I love percentages.

 

⁓ or dollar amount so that way you just know what you need to do. So that could be a bonus system that you put into place of, hey, we crush it, we hit this. It could be for your leadership team possibly. It could also be for your teammates, whatever it is, but that can also, that could be a bonus. It could also just be, we want to thank you. ⁓ Do we go on a trip? That's again, dependent upon your team. Is your team more bonus? Are they more trip? Are they more party? Is it a combination of it? And also what feels good to you as the owner? What do you want to do? What's going to help you celebrate this?

 

That's going to be a decision for you to make. And so when I'm looking at this, you can have an anonymous survey. Some people get so excited about trips, but then when you start to get into the logistics, it's like, well, how much is this going to cost? we do a plus one? How much time is that going to be away from the business? What is this really going to cost all the way around? And is that worth it? I tell teams, I'm like, rock on. If you want to do this, figure out the cost. Let's figure it out. Put it in our production. Let's add it into our monthly piece. That way we can pay for it. Awesome. Again.

 

I don't want these things coming out of craziness. I like to plan for them, prepare for them and have the whole team help you. Now, if you're gonna do a party, a lot of times I like parties over bonuses. And I know I might have unpopular opinions on this, but what I found is as a team member, like X amount of dollars doesn't weight as heavily as something that maybe I wouldn't buy for myself. So for example, ⁓ those like red light masks, that's one of the things that are out there.

 

The Dyson and then if you don't know what I'm talking about, go check these out. The Dyson blow dart. Like that thing is insanely expensive. I'm probably not gonna spend it on myself, but it would be awesome if I were to get it. ⁓ What other things? The Aura ring. A lot of people want the Aura ring. They don't wanna drop 400 bucks and they don't wanna pay the monthly subscription. ⁓ Other gift ideas like a Roomba, a Roomba lawnmower, a fire pit, a, I don't know. We've done like AirPods. We've done the virtual realities. ⁓ Like the Apple Vision Pro.

 

Those are the things people are not going to buy for themselves oftentimes, but that weights heavier than if I were to give you 500 or a thousand dollars. Now I understand that people like cash, but as a team member, what I will tell you is I had an office, give me an end of year bonus. We got it in our card. It was based on longevity. It was based on these pieces. That cash did not actually weigh as heavy because what I did is I went and spent it on bills.

 

And so instead, like getting an Apple Vision Pro, I remember the day I got that, I was like, oh my gosh, like this is so rad. I never would have bought it for myself. How incredible, or getting a KitchenAid, or getting a Louis Vuitton wallet. And I understand that not everybody's going to want these things. like, no, I don't care about those things. But what's fun sometimes on the parties is you're able to have this really fun time. We do a raffle in our company. That's what I've decided to do. And I picked this up from Midwestern University's dental college, is every year we did a raffle. We all got to do that.

 

all these awesome prizes. And then every year they gave us some type of swag and they gave us like a holiday party. So I didn't get an end of year bonus. And what I no