Episode : #1,000: We’ve Spent 1,000 Episodes Together.

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Kiera reflects on some of her most memorable episodes and experiences across 1,000 episodes (!!!) of the Dental A-Team podcast!

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Kiera Dent (00:00)

Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today feels like a ridiculously special, amazing, incredible day. We are at 1,000 Dental A Team podcasts. Like, can you honestly believe this? I can't believe it. I can't believe that we have hit record on this podcast a thousand times. And honestly, I wanna say thank you to you as listeners, to all of you who have made this podcast a reality. If you're new to the show, welcome. I'm Kiera Dent. I love dentistry. I love making people happy. I love.

truly enjoying life. And this podcast came to me while Jason, my husband and I were hiking Yosemite. And I said, Hey, I've noticed that there's this area where they're unserved, where doctors and teams are not communicating on the same way. And like, there's really got to be a better way to help practices scale, to grow, to evolve. And being a team member myself and a business owner, I thought let's combine both of those perspectives. So truly it's an honor. ⁓

I honestly cannot believe that we are here. So if you've been here since episode one, please send me an email. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. I will send you a personalized thank you to you. I am just so honored. If you've been here for at least like 900 of them, let me know. But truly it's such an honor to be able to have this podcast where we're able to give back, to serve, to share, to laugh, to grow. This podcast has been such a healing space for me. And so today I thought it'd be really fun.

for us to actually go through some of our most powerful success networks that's helped hundreds of doctors. It helps you. And I've called it the yes model. ⁓ that's focusing, wow, that's focusing in on you being able to say you, earnings and systems and team development. So focusing on you as a person, helping make sure that you're profitable as a practice, and then having systems and team development in place ⁓ to make sure that you can really, truly say yes to everything in life that you want. Because I truly, truly, truly believe.

that running a practice, having a successful team, having a team of people that are accountable does not have to be hard. And so really that's been the whole purpose of this is to make it tactical, practical. And I thought like, Hey, this is going to be something really fun. We're actually going to pull from our framework. But what I'm going to do is I'm actually going to pull from past episodes, some of our hottest episodes, some of those fun episodes to kind of help you see how we can focus on you as a person, how we can focus on your earnings and profitability of the practice and helping with your systems and team development.

Now, something that is fun is that there actually were several episodes that were our top downloaded episodes over the years. And so this is just something fun if you enjoyed it, amazing, but truly we looked back and these ones stood out. And so our episodes were episode 469, 10 Practices in 2 Years with Lewis Chen. So such a fun one to inspire, to ignite, to help all of us like really just get, I remember that practice and I was like, my gosh, I thought I like.

rampaged up and in like two years we had three, but to do 10 practices in two years. Our other top downloaded episode is episode 501, What Office Managers Need to Know and really helping those office managers highlight, elevate. Being an office manager in dentistry, I feel is such a tricky zone because there's really no rule book for it. And that's what we tried to create at Dental A Team is what is an office manager supposed to do and giving support to office managers and doctors so you can truly have these incredible leaders in your practice.

And then our next most downloaded episode was episode 607, A Day to Remember. And that was actually released on Thanksgiving. So shout out to you guys for having these as the most popular downloaded episodes. But like I said, I want to give you guys that framework for being able to say yes to everything with some podcast tools. Don't worry. You want to go back and listen to them if you don't want to. But trying to chunk that so you can really look at your life and your practice.

Kiera Dent (03:41)

So breaking into the you section, this is about you as a person. This is about you being that visionary, that owner, that fulfilled human, because honestly, if you're not fulfilled and you're not happy with what you're doing, honestly, your practice can't be there. And when we build the yes model, we purposely put it in a specific order of you first, and we focus on you as a person. Then we focus on earnings and profitability. And then we focus on systems and team, because what I found is if we put them in this order,

You as a person first, kind like take the oxygen mask off of you, put it on you. Like you've to take care of yourself first before you can help other people. If we put that oxygen mask on yourself, then what we do from there is we can give and serve to other people. Then we focus on profit. Cause honestly, so much of stress comes from cashflow. Like honestly, the bulk of offices who sign up with us and not all, but a lot of them are struggling with cashflow. They're struggling with profitability. They're struggling to learn to read their numbers. And then we do systems and team development.

And a lot of times we think like, let's put the systems in place, cause that's gonna fix everything else. But what that does is it doesn't make sure that you are fulfilled and we know where you're headed as a person. So focusing on you as a doctor, scaling honestly starts with you, but that doesn't mean we're doing more. It means that you are the leader that your practice needs. You know where you're headed. You know what the direction of the practice is. And that's where this can all come together. So some of the episodes that we pulled out for you guys from all these thousands of episodes, like literally we have a thousand. ⁓

would be number 17. Like let's go way back in the archives. If you have not gone, you guys can always head on over to TheDentalATeam.com, click on podcasts. You can search any topic and you can go find all thousand episodes. But going back clear to episode 17, I love this one, is Goals are lost without Accountability. So when we're having those, like if you don't have accountability in your practice, if you don't have things to help keep your team accountable,

Honestly, doctors, you can have all the goals that you want, but you've got to have the accountability with it. And so I really love to help doctors and teams come together within Dental A Team and our consulting ⁓ to make sure that your goals are hit because we have accountability and that means your personal goals. So where you want to be and your professional goals. And we have a client that really like was struggling with some of their goals, but they knew where they wanted to go. They wanted to get a beach house. They wanted to be able to take care of their children in college.

⁓ And what was really lovely about that is because we knew where they were going to go, we were able to help hold them accountable to it. And then we were able to the E portion that we'll get to, we were able to help create the profitability within the practice using production and metrics to be able to help them get there. But really looking at goals are lost if you don't have accountability. Like truly, if no one's holding people accountable, you doctor have to do it all. But even a lot of times things just get lost. And so making sure

that we really are working through these different pieces to make sure that your goals are not just a wish and a hope, but they're actually being measured and we're tracking them. We're making sure you're living the dream life that you want to be living. that would be an episode. Another episode in here would be 551 Leaders, You Need to Decide and helping you as a leader know that your team can't read your mind. You've got to make decisions. More is lost through indecision than a wrong decision. I have a quote over here by Theodore Roosevelt that

any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The next best thing is the wrong thing. And the worst thing you can do is nothing. And so making sure that on there, you guys are making a decision. Doctors like you have to decide. You have to be clear. You have to know where you're going. And I think deciding the life you want to live. ⁓ I have a quote that we say often, your practice should serve you, not you serving your practice.

making sure it's really giving you that dream life. Otherwise, go be an associate, like honestly, but there shouldn't be the stress and the heartache. And I know that there's stress with running a business. That's not something that we can ever take away, but really making sure we're fulfilling your bucket, your cup, making sure you're taken care of is a big portion. ⁓ Episode 940 was another popular one, What Leaders Should Not Do.

I thought this is a really good one to help doctors like realizing your role has to change. You have to become this incredible person. We have to know where you're going. We have to know this vision. But honestly, like leaders, you should not be doing everything. You should not be fixing everything. Otherwise you're enabling. And I remember another great ⁓ thought is when we empower our teams without accountability, we actually create ⁓ entitlement. And so what are we doing and are we fixing everything and helping?

Like we think we're helping, but we're not actually having our team rise to the table. so really looking at like, these are the things not to do. These are things that won't help you become the leader and the person that your practice needs and really relies on you to be. So another great episode of what things should you not be doing. think that that sometimes helps again, because as the visionary, as the leader of the practice, as you, as a person, ⁓ making sure that you're not running yourself ragged, trying to make everybody else and pleasing everybody else. But that way you're truly working as a team.

You need to show up as a CEO. You need to show up as the dentist. But you also need to have good working hours and good life ⁓ balance and life happiness and making sure that you're fulfilled and that your cup is being full. Otherwise, you're going to burn out and really making sure we take care of you as a person. Last episode to highlight in the you section is 948, The CEO Visionary and The OM Implementer and pulling from EOS and traction where

We literally have like CEOs, you're the visionary and how to have your office manager really be a yin to your yang to help support, to help make the visions come to life, to help bring all these pieces to the table ⁓ really, really truly can help. How do these two roles operate and who should be doing what and getting and gaining that clarity because again, when we focus on you and we know where you want to go and we know the pieces.

Then you're able to settle into your role as CEO of the practice too. And you're able to settle into all these different pieces, but really looking at you as a person, like not doing more, you as a leader, you as the CEO, you as a spouse or a partner or a parent or a sibling or a child, whatever it is, but you showing up as the best version of you. so yes, these are.

four episodes a lot on leadership for you. But really in that section within the Yes Model, I want you to really look at your life and I want you to see, are you truly living your best life? Are you truly fulfilled? Are you delegating to your team? Are you leading your team? Are you ⁓ working hard? ⁓ Or are you doing things smarter and actually working?

happier and more enjoyable. When I ask you about your personal relationships and I ask you about your personal life, do you have an identity outside of work or is it just work? ⁓ Do you find joy in the little things or have you lost that joy and sparkle because you're so consumed with the business? Those would be some things and if we're not taking care of you, it might be time to give a little TLC. I remember there was a great ⁓ podcast guest.

And he said a comment, he said, we should take care of our billion dollar asset, AKA our body. And I've thought about that a lot of do we take care of us, our body, our mind, our psyche, our happiness, to make sure that we can show up as those leaders that our practice and our patients and our community needs. ⁓ And so this section, I really hope that you highlight, yes, being that leader who needs to evolve and rise, ⁓ but really making sure that you're the human that you wanna be.

we've got the North Star dotting to where you ultimately want to go and really just spending and highlighting that. Okay, so the question to that is what do you need to stop doing in your life right now? Practice or professional or personal or both. So that way your team can start owning more and also so you can start having more fun in life. What do you need to stop doing? Like literally I'm sitting there with you pretend I got my pen and paper and you're like, okay, Kiera.

This is what I need to do to feel more fulfilled, more happy, more like me. What do you need to stop doing? Notice I didn't say start because you want to go like, no, I need to start journaling. No, what do you need to stop? Cause I'm trying to help you see that a lot of times less is more and you actually can create more by doing less. All right, next up is earnings. Making sure that you have profit with purpose. Collections don't equal profits. And so...

What I've noticed is like in larger practices, oftentimes they do protect their margins and they measure what matters. And so really making sure that when we're looking at the numbers, so we're looking at our earnings, this is moving into the second portion of the yes model. ⁓ Are you paying attention? Are you using your numbers to guide every single decision in your practice? And what I've seen is when practices come to us in chaos and move into clarity and more into control and more into ease, they know their numbers forward and backward.

Like they truly know, they use their numbers to make decisions on who to hire. They know their top line numbers. And what I love about this, like with our clients, we work hard on getting them an overhead scorecard. ⁓ So they know what their overhead is. We look at their monthly costs slash their BAM, their bare ACE minimum. We're looking at projections in the practice of what do we need? How do we hire? We're looking at other pieces for that I really just love are looking at their overhead as well to make sure. we've got our overhead, we've got our monthly costs.

We've got our profit margins to make sure we're looking at debt services to make sure that with the debt services, we're still profitable and we have cashflow in the practice and that these practices are thriving. And then we use KPI scorecards to make sure that the metrics within the practice are leading to the profit for a profitable business to make sure that doctors have a cashflow. And also in there, we include to pay doctors, like doctors you've got to be paid, otherwise it's really hard. And so again, just because we're producing, producing and collecting drive me wild.

I don't care what you're producing on a gross level, I care what you're producing on a net level that we can actually collect. Gross is gonna feed the ego, net's gonna feed the family. So make sure we have those numbers dialed in. So when we're looking at this, I want you to make sure that what I'm producing is actually collectible and also that we're producing enough and collecting, but that we also have our expenses in line. So we try within our clients to have them at a 50 % overhead, 30 % doctor pay, 20 % profit.

Now, obviously those things can be impacted by other things, rising costs, different pieces, but really a quick benchmark for you. And a couple different ⁓ awesome podcasts to kind of tie into this to just go back through the archives would be episode 618, How to Make Your Practice Profitable. So a lot of times we think it's production. We think that we've got to like produce more and create more, but really sometimes you don't have to produce. can't produce our problems. So looking at our P &L, looking at our costs, getting our whole team on board, having KPIs, having accountability within our team.

really can drive more profit. ⁓ I remember in Traction, was like at the very end, I'm probably gonna slaughter this section of the book, but I remember them saying that a lot of times the profit margins don't get bigger, the bigger your business goes. So like the problem, like your problems just get bigger with the more you produce. So an example, like they said, like a $1 million business with a profit margin oftentimes has the same profit margin as a $10 million business, but the headaches are more. Now, of course, ⁓

10 % profit margin on a $1 business compared to a 10 % profit margin on a $10 million business, there's obviously going to be more dollars. But it's the question of could I have more profit in a smaller practice? I don't know, that's questions for you to answer versus maybe always growing and chasing the next thing. So really looking to see how can we make it more profitable? How can we squeeze more juice out of it? And this is actually really fun because when we interview consultants to come into our company, we actually look to see can they find...

how to make a practice more profitable with a basic scenario. Because at the end of the day, if we can make you more profitable doctors and you can use your business more efficiently and with less stress and like better utilization of team members, you actually are way less stressed because you have cashflow and monies aren't as big of a deal. And what I found is the bulk of stress comes from cashflow issues. So really doing that, another great episode from this would be episode 871, Increase Profitability with Your AR.

So looking at cashflow leaks that kill growth. So AR is a huge zone and a lot of practices are like, we don't have any money. And I'm like, you have 160,000 sitting in AR, you've already done the work, we just need to collect the money. So making sure that we are actually helping you and your team get that money that should be paid to you. I had an office on a coaching call and they're like, well, Kara, our front office feels bad for calling patients to collect bills. And I was like, they feel bad.

No, they're doing these patients a service. Like we did a great job. Now these patients should be so happy to pay for us. And the reality is we should never be chasing money. We should just be collecting at a time of service. So really helping that profitability with AR because collections you can produce all day long, but if we're not collecting your profit margin is going to really, really struggle. So a lot of times it's not even a production issue. It's just a collection issue. That's a very simple system, which will come next in the S model. But when we see the numbers and we see where the leaks are,

then we know which systems we need to put into place. So this is how like you as a person know where you're going. Then we look at your profit, the numbers will tell us where we actually have true broken problems within our practice. And then we build the systems to fix those problems. And then it just chips up the line and you're able to say yes to more in your life. Another great episode was 884 Use Hygiene to Increase Profitability. So making sure that your hygiene department is about 20 to 35%.

Wow, excuse me, 25 to 30 % of your revenue ⁓ in your practice, depending upon what it is, that's usually for a GP practice. Hygiene's obviously, ⁓ in a pediatric practice, it will be different. Same thing within surgery practices and also some big GP practices that are doing a lot of surgery, hygiene might not be able to keep up with it. Or if I've got a doctor that's maybe slowing down, hygiene's actually out producing the doctor. Well, that's a concern that shows me that that doctor's not diagnosing and there's something going on.

But really utilizing your hygiene department, making sure our hygiene department's very thorough. This again, if it's not, and we don't have enough ⁓ perio within our practice, if our hygiene department's not ⁓ calibrated, we're not aligned, that then is a system that we'd wanna put into place to make sure we're able to help that. So really just another great episode. then 890 was, episode 890 was Hacks for Increasing Profitability. So ⁓ just some different pieces of like, what do we do? How can we increase that profitability?

certain things that we look for are one, like what are we producing and collecting? So let's look there first. Two, we wanna look at our BAM, our barriers, minimum and our costs and making sure that it's realistic for there. ⁓ And then also looking to see, could we renegotiate some of our pieces? Could we look at our lease? Could we look at our rent? Could we look at ⁓ our marketing spend? Could we look at our payroll? And again, I'm not here to cut team members. Don't worry team members.

I just want to make sure that each team member is being maximized and utilized based on the profitability because we know that most businesses should be able to run on a 30 % allocation to payroll. And so looking to see, we utilizing and maximizing our resources like we should? So really just looking for some of those hacks for profitability. But I love that so many people are obsessed with production and I'm obsessed with profit because profits, what's going to feed you profits, what's going to help you profit is going to be the piece.

that's going to actually make you thrive rather than just survive. Production, if we're not collecting and we're not profitable, it does not matter. And I go to a lot of business conferences and I love, they're like, yeah, my business did 10 million last year. My business is 100 million. And I'm always like, I don't care. What's your profit margin? And a lot of them come back. I remember there was this guy and we were chatting and he has a $30 million business and yet his profit margin was 5%. And he's like, Carrie, you're honestly probably taking home more than I am.

on a smaller business. And so again, I don't care about your production and top line number. It does play a role, but what I care more about is are you profitable and are you obsessed with being as profitable as possible? Are you reviewing your PNL every single quarter? Are you looking at small cashflow leaks? Are we making sure that we're collecting the money of what we produce? Are we making sure that our write-offs and our insurance is correct? Are we making sure our hygiene department is... ⁓

appropriate and are we using like KPIs to track this and to measure this to make sure that we're actually doing it. So that's kind of within the earning section for little highlighted episodes for you. And so then some thoughts to wrap that up would be if you're producing more but taking home less, what number are you not watching in your practice? So really look at that and see, gosh, like I'm producing this, but I'm not taking home as much. What number or numbers are you not watching that maybe you should start watching Food for Thought and

put it into play, you'll be much happier when you're profitable. And then last but not least, this is one that everybody obsessed with, systems. We want systems care. Please, please give me systems. I just want my practice to run on autopilot. And like the answer is like, yes, we should put systems in. And I think about like McDonald's and Chick-fil-A and they're able to give a very incredible experience with systems. And Walt Disney said like, he's able to create predictable magic with the systems behind the scenes. And so for you and your practice, how can you create predictable experiences?

predictable revenue, predictable production through the systems. So a couple of great episodes that we had with systems, systemization I think is like sexy and not sexy, like cool, that's great. But like really, if you focus on you first, then you focus on the numbers, you then know which systems to put into place. So you don't have to actually do all the systems. People are like, here, I just need a whole systems like repertoire. And I'm like, no, you don't. You need the systems that are actually gonna get you the results. I believe that we should focus on results, not on busy work.

So a couple episodes that kind of just highlight some systems for you are episode 381 Systemization: Where to Start? It's a really good episode for you of like how to like you don't just build 100 SOPs just like we were talking about. You literally start with the systems that are going to impact your revenue and profitability first. And those are the ones we're going to build right away. So a good one to help you prioritize that because a lot of times it can feel very daunting. Like I'm trying to eat an elephant. So where do I start? ⁓ Episode 872 Are Your Systems Outdated? And so with that one, just because it worked in the past,

You gotta also update the systems. Do we have a new software? Do we have a new process? A lot of times these systems get like written and we're so excited we made our ops manual, but they get put on a shelf and cool, we never even touched them again. So making sure that you keep your systems up to date, that they're current, that everybody's using them and if you actually are using them, they don't get outdated. So having a set cadence and process for that. Episode 881, Priority Scheduling: Ideal Week and Ideal Schedules

So figuring out like, does our ideal week look like? What are our ideal schedules look like? And so with that, we can figure out how to schedule and do block scheduling to actually build, like that's a great system to put into place to help us get our profitability, to help us get our production, to then help us get the life that we want. So do you see how like the yes model at like, we start at the top with you, go to earnings, go to systems, and then we work on systems to impact the profit and production to impact you and your life. So really I'm obsessed with block scheduling. I obsessed with?

I deal weeks, I'm obsessed with being a master of time rather than time mastering you and really helping offices realize what needs to happen and prioritize. think prioritization is a really tricky thing for a lot of people and having a consultant or an outside view help you out, I think is something really magical. And then last but not least, episode 959, Build a Practice That Can Run Without You. This is what people ask for all the time. And so I love on this. You'll never have true freedom.

if the business only runs when you're there. And so looking at that of, like I said, Disney, Walt's not there and it's still able to run. Chick-fil-A, I don't even know who the owner is, you guys know, but like it's able to run without the owner being there. And so the owner I feel creates the vision and the magic. That's like what your secret sauce is. But the systems are so people can run and operate without you there. And for office managers, same thing with you. I hate the like, if you got hit by a bus, I'm like, I don't ever want to be hit by a bus.

So instead I'm like, if you were at home with a broken leg and then had two office managers literally be out with broken legs. So, ⁓ but I think it's a great example. So watch out, don't break your legs. But I said, if you were out, could the practice run and could you know that the practice isn't running, AKA with your KPI scorecard and being able to look at your numbers, would you know what system needs to be implemented and if systems were being followed or not when you're at home? And so oftentimes that helps you figure out, again, we look at our numbers to see which systems do we need to put into place.

But then beyond that, we're also going to look and say, all right, so these are the numbers that are telling us we have a broken system. But then when you're not there, does the practice still run without you? And does it still operate? And if you were to come in as a fly on a wall on a vacation, so pretend you're out on vacation, I surely have done this to my team. I'm out on vacation. I pop in a day earlier than they think I'm supposed to be back. Is the practice running the way that it should? That's how you know you have great systems and great leadership.

I don't believe that just good systems will create a great practice. You also need great leadership to ensure that they're staying accountable, that they're following systems, but also making sure that less is more. ⁓ The KISS model, keep it simple, silly. I prefer silly over stupid. But really look to see where are maybe the systems that we need to do. And I love in Dental A Team, we do our 12 systems. And that's something I really love to just kind of give an outline of which ones per month.

would help out. So just a quick overview of Dental A Team's systems for success. We say that January is office management, mastery and leadership. And if you guys want to go back in the archives, Tip and I actually did like, I think it was from November through December a few years ago, we went through every single one of these systems. We broke it down. We gave tactical tips for you on those. So January is office management, mastery and leadership. February is doctor optimization, making sure we're utilizing and maximizing everything within the office. March is billing with ease.

April is five-star patient experience, May is smooth scaling scheduling, June is maximized case acceptance, July is dynamite dental assistance, August is elevated hygiene, September is competent marketing, October is complete operations manual, November is practice profitability, and December is A-Team hiring and onboarding. And so utilizing these systems for you to look to see, and again, there's, that's kind of like a category overview, but looking to see where maybe some systems broken within that category.

that ultimately could impact our profit and production that ultimately impact us as individuals. And doctors, I know I highlighted you a lot about you as a person, but also your team members as human beings too. How can we make it easier? How can we make it more fun? How can we make it to where we have more fun at work, more enjoyable rather than more stress? I think is something super, super important. And so when you look at this, I think to wrap up our system section, what systems or system category in your practice

still depends on you and is it keeping you stuck in your practice or preventing the growth? Are you the bottleneck in an area? And to maybe just ask yourself, what is that and what's holding me back? So really, truly just some fun, like, my gosh, you guys, after a thousand episodes, ⁓ I think I can confidently come on here and say that the formula for growth hasn't changed. I think we've gotten smarter. We figured out what's the priority. How do we prioritize it for you?

the $5 million practices, the $2 million, the $1 million, the 500,000, the startup practice, they say yes to leadership clarity, profit strategy, and systems that scale. So that's you, right? Leadership clarity, you as a person being happy, earnings, profit strategy, and as systems for success that scale. Now again, systems that scale, so you're able to grow and you have options. This is truly what I think is so valuable, and I thought.

on a thousandth episode, we've got to have something very powerful, very impactful, giving you just kind of a recap of all the time together. Talk about how magical it is to be able to be here together, to be able to share. And what I will say is, ⁓ I'm obsessed with helping offices be able to say yes to more of their life, to be able to say yes to more of what they want, and to be able to get back their time, their team, their life. And that's something that I'm just obsessed with. So if you're looking for help with that, if you...

I want more yes in your life and less stress and more happiness. Truly I do believe and I've seen it work with hundreds of offices and something just so powerful to be able to share, to give to you. And I just wanna say thank you. Thank you for making the Dental A Team podcast real. Thank you for being listeners. Thank you for sharing this podcast with so many of your friends. Thank you for commenting. Thank you for tagging us while you're driving to work. Thank you for being dedicated listeners. Thank you for being clients that work with us.

Thank you for truly wanting to change and impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. It is truly an honor. I just feel so honored and I'm so freaking excited for the next thousand. So let's do it, let's rock. And at the end of the day, all of you, I want you truly remembering that dentistry is the greatest profession we could ever be a part of. I want you saying yes to more. If we can help you in any way, reach out Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.