Episode : #1,209: Let’s Have a Real Conversation About End of Year Planning

Podcast Description

It’s Kiera and Britt on the pod together, with listeners getting a live look into how the Dental A-Team is thinking about the year’s end — plus ideas as to what could be copied over to dental practices. There’s a large emphasis on cost estimates and budgeting, including knowing when to fine-tune production or start cutting, and finding alignment as a team over those decisions.

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Transcript:

Kiera (00:00)

Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today, wow, today feels like it should be written in the history books. Me and the Brittany Stone, No BS Britt coming on the podcast today. Britt, how you doing today?

Brittany (00:12)

Good, was just thinking it’s been a minute since I’ve been on the podcast.

Kiera (00:16)

I know. I always message Britt when I need like certain topics. I’m like, hey, you want a podcast with me? And Britt’s nice to say yes to me. I don’t I don’t bring Britt on as much as we used to. Britt doesn’t actively take clients now. Britt hangs out in the background with me more often. So Britt, I think that that’s like a win. I’m gonna say it’s a win. Like Britt gets to be a little,

Brittany (00:36)

I’ll take it as a win.

Kiera (00:38)

yeah. We work on some cool, crazy projects. We’re working on a real fun one right now, getting ready for next year.

Britt, that spreadsheet’s sexy. Spreadsheets are kind of my love language. So reviewed that

Brittany (00:48)

Thank you.

Kiera (00:48)

this last week and we’re excited. There’s some fun things coming up in the company for all future clients and our current clients. So Britt and I work behind the scenes, but yeah, No BS Britt. If you guys don’t know her, she has been a consultant for quite a while. She has like three favorite clients that she kept when she decided to, you know, move along. And then she works in our operations in HR. And Britt is just a wealth of knowledge. She also’s a hygienist. So

All things, but Britt and I decided we’d get on the podcast. AK I decided and asked Britt if she would join me is really how this shook out.

Brittany (01:16)

Yeah

Kiera (01:20)

we want to talk about like some of the things we’re doing in Dental A Team for end of year planning. And I figured Britt and I, like these are our real everyday conversations, helping you guys plan and prepare for end of year. And Britt, maybe I’m a little psychotic on end of year planning, but I figured like let’s kind of go through what we do together in our company, how we set up, and then hopefully again for offices you guys can be prepping for.

end of year. So that’s my that’s my plan for today, Britt. I hope you’re on board with that.

Brittany (01:45)

I mean, I like it. think our company sometimes has a little bit more, has a few more variables than like dental practice

Kiera (01:51)

Yeah.

Brittany (01:52)

end of year planning. think we’ll just say that on the like psychotic comment, but dental

Kiera (01:58)

Yeah.

Brittany (01:58)

practices, not to say there aren’t variables involved, but you know, cost of travel and stuff like that is real fun right now.

Kiera (02:07)

I mean, seriously, our travel costs, we were going through all of our expenses this year and I was like, wow, we are up a lot. And a lot of them are just travel costs. Like I was shocked at how much travel has gone up. There’s just a lot of things, right? Everybody’s dealing with inflation. And so

Brittany (02:20)

Mm-hmm.

Kiera (02:21)

as we go through it, I think systematically Britt and I start planning our year around September time. So we’ll be going through and we’re gonna pull up all of our costs for last year. So we’re gonna look to see.

We’re gonna look at 2025 and then we’re gonna run from 2026 from January till September. What is that? And then I don’t know what the word is, Britt. Like when you just I think it’s project out. That’s the word I’m looking for. We’re gonna project, yeah. Choose the word. We’re

Brittany (02:43)

Protect, forecast, choose your word.

Kiera (02:46)

gonna project your forecast out how much we think we’re gonna spend for the rest of the year. So that way we can get a good glimpse of what does everything look like? How does this work? What what are we actually doing? And then becomes my favorite part until I hate this part.

You then go

Brittany (02:59)

Zzzzz

Kiera (03:00)

to what we plan for next year. And so

Brittany (03:02)

Mm-hmm.

Kiera (03:03)

Literally there’s a line item of like what’s 2026? And then what do we think 2027 is? And man, Britt, we got our booties burned on some of the things we projected last year. Like we thought it was only gonna be 90,000 and it came in at like 120. So I definitely recommend looking at that. but also like Britt, what are some of the things you see for us and then also for offices? Like when we’re projecting out for next year.

What are some of those costs to be planning in? Cause you’ve got your everyday ones. We’re going need to impact for inflation. Like you said, like we’re going to sell travels. Like we’re going to have to need to boost that up. You still got merchant fees. You still have your rent. You still got these different pieces.

Brittany (03:35)

Thank

Kiera (03:37)

But like, what are some of the additional things that like you and I talk about in the business that I think a lot of practices might also be considering in their practices too?

Brittany (03:44)

Yeah, I think that the steady things are the easier things, right, to anticipate. It’s when you’re wanting to go and do some fun stuff like, hey,

Kiera (03:52)

Yeah.

Brittany (03:52)

let’s go buy this thing or let’s, you know, implement lasers across hygiene and we’re going to need to go and buy lasers for everybody or things like that where there’s going to be a bigger cost, bigger expense, bigger investment or like, hey, we want to build out.

three ops, right? What does that mean? Does that also mean we’re adding in more providers if we’re building out those operatories? So some of those things that are one, bigger costs, two, there’s opportunity involved. So like there should be some revenue involved with that, of course, if we’re investing in those types of things, but being able to plan out both sides of them. So one, what’s our investment? One is that investment hitting us? What’s that going to look like? And two, right, then like

Part of the fun is like the, are we banking on being the result of that thing? So

Kiera (04:43)

Yeah.

Brittany (04:44)

if it’s provider related in a dental practice, right? What does that mean for even our revenue, our production, if we’re gonna be adding on a hygienist or adding on, you know, another doctor to the practice that we didn’t have there before. If it’s just

Kiera (04:58)

Yeah.

Brittany (04:58)

an expense, right? Then planning for that expense and how you’re gonna go about paying for it, whether it’s gonna be.

one lump sum that’s going hit us or if we’re going to finance something and then that bill is going to be coming to us every month and we’re going to be paying it out.

Kiera (05:13)

Yeah. And Brett, I think when you talk about that, like it is tricky. And I do think we have a bit more variable expenses. Like for us, it’s like dental offices, you know, you got your dental assistant, hygienist. For us, we’re like, shoot, when do we need to hire a consultant? Like, don’t be too early,

Brittany (05:27)

you

Kiera (05:27)

don’t be too late. What’s their capacity that they can handle? so I do think our company does have a few more variables, but I also think, like you said, it’s a okay, what is it going to cost? And then what is our projected income for next year or our revenue?

And I’m really excited because in our mastermind with our doctors coming person, this is mine and Britt’s like little power project that we’ve been working on of like

Brittany (05:47)

Thanks

Kiera (05:48)

helping doctors see, like build in all the expenses that you want. Then let’s see what we’re gonna produce in how many days and what’s your dollar per hour. And then it’s like figuring out which levers we can push. And Britt, I think about you often of like, okay, do we need to produce more or do we need to cut more? Like which one are we going to be leveraging? And so when offices are looking at this, and even for us, like I love to have that wish list. Like I love to put it in of

I want to hire this and I want to do this. And like I think, and then when we get to the bottom of it and we’re looking at our projected income, it’s like, shoot. Now we get to go back through with like full blown

Brittany (06:16)

So she’s not very happy.

Kiera (06:18)

razor and just cut and slice and dice. And hey, Britt, I’m just curious, how do you feel about company retreats on that budget line? Just curious how you feel. I know you just talked to an office about this the other day. It feels relevant, but how do you feel about company retreats?

Brittany (06:32)

I think one, build those things in for what you want

Kiera (06:35)

Ha ha ha.

Brittany (06:35)

to do, what you want to plan to do. then plan wisely. Company retreats can get wild. I think we’ve all heard some stories. We have great teams, but sometimes we put up in an environment and in a condition and things happen and we have to deal with things we don’t want to deal with when we’re trying to have fun. yeah,

Kiera (06:51)

Yeah.

Brittany (06:53)

that’s what I’ll say on that topic.

I think that owners, this is a good practice of planning things out to be able to see, if I want to do all these things, right? I love my docs that like want to go and take all the courses and buy all the things and have all the newest stuff, which is great. But what does that mean if we go get all the new stuff and go to all those courses and what do we need to do to be able to actually pay for those things? I also think it’s really important for our managers out there.

I think it helps to bring some kind of reality to the situation. think a lot of the times if we don’t know facts, we sit there and like, well, why can’t we do this? Well, why can’t we do that? Well, I really want to give this first than that. And I really want to do this, which we would love to do all of the things. But when it comes down to it, can we actually do it? Can we afford it? Because that’s often when they’re not involved in that side of it of seeing what the spend is and the reason why we need to set goals where they are. They’ll be like, well, why is our goal so high? And I was like, OK.

There’s a reason why our goal is so high and no, it’s not just because we want our owners to make money. There’s a lot of factors involved in that. And yes, we also want our owners to make money.

Kiera (08:00)

Mm-hmm. And Britt, I think that you just highlight something really important is I actually hadn’t thought about it till right now when you said it. I do love that you and I work through this because I think there’s an accountability side on both of ours. Like we both

Brittany (08:11)

No.

Kiera (08:12)

went and put the budget together. We both said what we thought we needed for the business. We both said,

Brittany (08:15)

I

Kiera (08:16)

hey, we think that this needs to be there. So then when we come back around and we’re like, well, nuts. We gotta like figure out this amount. We gotta figure this out. Like I remember, I don’t remember what it was this year. There was something you came to me and I was like,

I don’t know, Britt. This is the budget. This is what we gotta do. Like, go figure it out. Like, we don’t have the extra cash, even though we want to. But I think also I’ve done it. I remember last year, it wasn’t this year, it was last year. I was like, Britt, I want to hire all these people. And you’re like, girl, we made the budget. Like, this is what we said we could afford. And I’m like, I know, but I want all these people. And Britt was pretty much like me. And like, hey, well, what are you gonna go? Like, where can you cut, or where can you like this is how much we have agreed to allocate for it? Go go figure those things out. And so

I think it’s really important to have doctors and OMs together where both of you guys are aligned. You can both keep each other in check and be looking and projecting forward. I think something that’s hard, Britt, and I’m not sure if you’ve got ideas for offices, hiring people I think is one of the hardest things for me to like budget in because it’s what like someone’s salary, they might only get hired midway through the year. And I think something we did this year is I hired like three to four months before a lot of these people were projected in.

Well, that absolutely impacted our spend because we were hiring them. We met people, like, we know we want this position, but adding them in three months before they were really necessary or needed, I do think was a big like hit on us. And so I’m just curious, like,

Brittany (09:39)

Thanks.

Kiera (09:39)

how do people plan for when to hire, how to budget that in? Any thoughts you’ve got? Because I do think personnel is usually one of the biggest changes that a doctor office is going to do.

Brittany (09:49)

Yeah, and I think that it’s only those one, those offices that are in a stage or like those like multiple practices that are in a stage where you’re going to into some sort of like expansion, right? If not, I’d say on the year is a good time to evaluate if we want to like add a brand new role to a practice without changing any other factors like revenue that they’re going to bring in.

And so I think that you’ve got to plan ahead and look at it in a little bit more detail by like, great, here’s what the first six months are going to look like. Here’s what the next six months are going to look like and what our expenses will be as you look and you forecast out. I’ll say usually with dental practices, if you’re looking at adding providers, it’s a little easier because usually as long as they’re hitting their production they need to hit, it’s going to keep my other

my other numbers in line, right? If I hire a hygienist and I can keep them busy and I’m paying him the appropriate percent of their, you know, production, what they’re gonna make for me, then like, I’m not really worried about that throwing my profitability way off because it’s still gonna keep me in line. Associate is gonna be similar-ish. There’s a lot more factors of like, how’s it gonna impact owner-doctor production if I’m adding an associate. So we’ve got a…

Think about that a little bit more, but let’s oversimplify it and say, hey, we’ve got all the patients. We know we can keep that associate busy. Then I know I can hire an appropriate level team to go with them, assistants to help support them, right? They’re going to be producers if saying we have the patient base for them, then I’m not as stressed about adding them in. Still should like run it, see what it’s going to look like.

Kiera (11:31)

Yeah.

Brittany (11:32)

But if they’re a provider and we have the patients in order to keep them busy to where they’re going to be producers.

then you can move a little bit more confidently than I’m adding a role that has no production side to it because that means my revenue is gonna stay the same and I’m adding costs.

Kiera (11:49)

Totally. And the only other one that I’d throw in, because of course this is like my role that I pitch to hire, is like a treatment coordinator because they can put quite a bit of dollars on your books for you, close more cases for you. You don’t even have to have more patients for you. But I agree with you, those ones are easier versus it being like, We need an office manager or we need this person or I might need to give raises out for everybody. And there have been years where as much as I want to do raises,

We’re in a heavy growth year and it is just a like Britt and I lock in and we say, like, all right, this is the budget. This is how much we can have. I do also think it’s important to re-look at that budget because if we aren’t producing as much as we thought we were, well, we might need to make some of these changes for the second half of the year that we haven’t considered. So we’ll dig into our like real life. So this year when Britt and I are looking, we’re saying, Okay, what are we really budgeting out for next year? We know we’re doing these masterminds and Britt can we just like

Brittany (12:38)

Yeah.

Kiera (12:39)

your budget that you had.

isn’t gonna work for next year. That was literally the slack I think I got last week of like so we need to up that budget for next year.

Brittany (12:45)

Something to that

effect. We have a lot more people that are coming to those and we keep having more people each time we do them. So we know it’s gonna get bigger.

Kiera (12:56)

Which is awesome. And I think it was fun because Britt and I like it forced us to innovate. And kudos to Britt. She went and found a really awesome venue for us. It’s going to be able to facilitate the growth that we’re wanting. We want these masterminds to be awesome. Our doctors love it. Hey, if you’re not a part of it, join us. Like, hey, you want to be a part of it? It’s very fun. It’s a very fun community. Connect in with us. but I think it’s a space of like, okay, we know that that’s going to be a budget increase for next year. We know travel will be a budget increase for next year because going up to clients. We also like Britt and I are looking and we’re looking at how much our consultants have capacity for.

We are looking to bring on another consultant for next year. So hey, if any of you know a great consultant or anybody who wants to be a consultant, shameless, not shameless plug. Send over any consulting friends you’ve got. They want to work for Dental A Team. Cause Britt and I, Britt, how fun is it to hire consultants?

Brittany (13:44)

You know, it’s a unique set of skills, we’ll put it that way. And so they are a level of a needle in a haystack. So we love good ones. So you read with Kiera, you’ve got the background, you’ve got the experience, come over to us if you know the business side of dental and want to be a consultant. But yeah, it takes us a while. It’s not a quick hire. And I know I’m preaching to the choir to a degree on, for some of you, what it’s like to hire even for dental practice right now.

Kiera (14:09)

Agreed. Yeah. So it’s one of those spaces of like hiring an associate or hiring a hygienist or hiring other positions. They’re tricky. that was literally not a shameless plug. If any of you do want to be a consultant, reach out. Britt and I are actively interviewing. So reach out. [email protected]. Don’t worry, doctors, we’re not taking any of your office managers. Any office managers who know people in the industry, send them our way. We’d love to work with them. but we’re hiring that. We also know we’re hiring like we got bigger this year. We added a lot of admin to our team. I mean,

For Britt, her role split into three roles. Like that was a big change and a big shift that we had to make. So when you look at it, and I think for all dentists right now, as you’re building out, look to see what do we do this year. Look to see, like Britt said, what are the things that are going to stay the same? And then what are the pieces that you’re actually going to need to increase or change out? And then look to see at that bottom dollar amount. Britt, this is always where it like depresses me. And we just get that big number. It’s like all the wants and wishes. And then I go back up and it’s like, all right, what things do we really have to have? What thing I mean.

Last year it was over analytics. Like we get scrappy and

Brittany (15:09)

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,

Kiera (15:10)

we’re like, all right, could we get a better deal? Is there a different software? Is there AI that could replace this? Is there this? Like, I do actually, Britt, to me, you might not like that part as much. As much as I hate that like bottom line number versus what our production is. How do we like innovate to get those numbers to be in a line to where your profit margins are still where they need to be? What are the trade-offs you’re going to make? And sometimes your trade-off is that you’ll have less profit because it’s a growth year. Other times the

Brittany (15:33)

Mm-hmm.

Kiera (15:34)

trade-off is

We’re gonna scrap and we’re gonna grind and we’re gonna just figure it out. And that’s the trade-off for this year. But do you have any suggestions for offices of like, okay, what happens when I’m too high over budget and I need to like figure out my production or cut? Like, how do you get those offices to be in alignment so that way they feel like they like next year we can actually afford all the things we need and we’re also gonna be able to produce what we need to produce?

Brittany (15:57)

Yeah, this is where Karen and get into some good back and forth on some of these topics.

Kiera (16:02)

That’s great. That’s why I brought you on today.

Brittany (16:06)

And I think in getting it into alignment, I think there’s the necessary things that we need to do. Like those are ones that no matter what, it’s necessary and we need it, then we’ve got to find a way to produce enough and collect enough in order to get those things. That’s the way we’ve got to tackle it. I think on some of the other ones,

I think you can build it in, in a dental practice to be like, all right, well, here’s our necessities. But if we hit X number, right, then great, we can do this thing. Or if we hit X number, we can go and we can add this thing to our monthly cost and moving forward. it can be a little bit of a, here’s our study that we know we can hit. And great, we’ve gotten our expenses where this is our like,

comfortable space, but we know we’re always going to push ourselves a little bit more. And when we push ourselves, here’s our reward. We hit it. We can get X, Y, Z and add those things in because we did better than we thought we did.

Kiera (17:08)

Yeah. No, and Br I agree. It is a good healthy back and forth. And I do think that that comes down to like, okay, we budget this much for team gifts or events or for a retreat. This is where Britt and I are like, All right, we will put it together at this point in time. Like, what are the innovative ways that we could do it? Or hey, if we hit this, like offices all the time say they want to go on these retreats. I know I’m like, We we make a joke because our team is virtual. So then you force people to travel who aren’t travelers. It got a little wild for us for a few years. So Britt and I were like,

Screw that. We’re not losing any more team members. We’re not running any more retreats. Like, we’re done. And it’s a PL save. But that doesn’t mean that like our team loves to get together. So can we do things when we get in person for the masterminds? Like that’s where we got creative of like, when do people get together? What could we do that could be fun? I did love the idea. Like, again, no ideas are off limits. Someone’s like, well, can’t you guys like just do your retreat on Sunday after your masterminds? And I was like, hard no. I’m exhausted. The team’s exhausted. We want to.

never see each other for six more months like just pure exhaustion because we put so much energy out for everybody. But I think it’s really where you can just go back and forth and it’s like, okay, well, if we want to do this type of a retreat, like, is there a way we could get the same outcome on a different budget? Or are there different ways

Brittany (18:20)

Mm-hmm.

Kiera (18:21)

too? And I really do love that Britt and I will come in and it’s this back and forth. It’s both of us creatively thinking, Britt pushes hard on like, is this really a must or is this like a want? And I appreciate that. But even looking at consulting, like

I think that there’s a space, and I think Britt and I are a good example of this, which is why I wanted you guys to hear our genuine true back and forth. Me sometimes I’m going to push, like, no, Britt, we do need to hire this consultant or we do need to have this. This year, I had three great ideas. Of my three great ideas, one was good, two were not so good. Like Britt, I’ll hand it to you. The last hire we made that you told me not to do, that I thought was a brilliant idea, didn’t pan the way we thought it was going to. And I called it, I’ve admitted it, it was not a good move.

But I think that there’s like my job is to push and innovate and try things that maybe Britt would say, like, I’m not so sure. And Britt’s job is to say, like, you might want to think about this before you say it. But there are some times when I’m going to see that, like, no, bringing this person in or bringing this piece in or changing this up, it might not be right. But I will say, like, between the two dynamics of a doctor and an OM, make sure that both of you are pushing your agendas while coming together of what’s in the best interest of the business. Those are my thoughts, Britt, but I’m sure you have your perspective of it too.

Brittany (19:31)

Yeah, and we’re always going to try things and they’re not always going to not everything’s going to pan out, especially like technology and all the things going on and all the advancements. Like there’s going to be things we try that we’re like, hey, this might be a great idea. Think it will work. Let’s do it. We do it. We’re like, man, maybe that isn’t as helpful as we thought it would be. We’ll fix that one and we’re going to move on. I think those things, if they’re not happening, we’re probably not trying enough.

If they’re happening all the time, then maybe we could vet a little bit better before we jump into some of those things.

Kiera (20:03)

fair. And I think they like I think in dentistry it’s a little bit easier. Britt and I are in the wild while the bus over here. Neither of us have ever built a dental consulting company. So you better believe some of my like late night grandiose great ideas, some of them have been kick A. Some of them have been awesome. Others, hmm, that one didn’t pan. And I think having the humility on both sides of like that didn’t work and always coming back to the table of this is in the best interest of the business.

what’s really going to get us to where we need to go. So I think Britt, thank you for coming on and humoring me today. I really want people to hear

Brittany (20:33)

Thank

Kiera (20:34)

like what you and I do back and forth. Hopefully for doctors and OMs, I would say it’s time. Like let’s go run our numbers for this year. Let’s project out through end of year what we think it’ll be. And then let’s build 2027’s budget. Let’s look to see what it’s going to cost us. Let’s look to see what we want to add in, what team members, what softwares, what consulting. Like this is where a lot of times people have also I will say on the consulting end of year, if I know we want to add this in for next year.

And I’m looking at my tax liability this year. Britt

Brittany (20:59)

Mm-hmm.

Kiera (20:59)

knows I am in a heavy hunt of what are the capital expenses? What are the things that I can put in now that are going to benefit us for next year? That’s also going to keep our cash flow high. So if you you’ve got a higher tax bill this year, that’s why I like to plan in September. Cause then I’ve got October, November, December. We have prepaid for event venues. We have prepaid for consulting. We know we’re gonna have lots of our clients will pay at the end of the year for consulting. So if you’ve been considering that, then it’s not a cost next year that I have to do. We’re getting the benefits of it next year.

But I’m able to get the discount rates. And sometimes also Britt and I will negotiate with people, hey, if we pay in full at the end of year, can we get a discount? Like people are willing to do things because they know business owners need to get these off their books. So I’d really recommend dialing

Brittany (21:38)

Mm-hmm.

Kiera (21:39)

it in, looking to see. I can’t pre-pay and hire somebody today. Like I can’t do that. But software, consulting, technology, different things that I want to bring into the business. Things like if we know we’re going on a trip, like we will pre-book a lot of our flights at the end of the year.

anything that we can do, depending upon the tax liability that we have, it’s things that we’re gonna do. And everyone’s like, you might kick your can down the road. True. And next year might not be as profitable. We knew we were headed into a growth year this year. So we stockpiled last year. We knew this year would be a bit more of a stretch year. That’s how I think business owners should look. And it gives you, I’d rather you be doing this today in September or October before the end of the year. So you have time to make those decisions. So those are my final thoughts for any for you.

Brittany (22:19)

And I’ll come in with my

like conservative two senses as long as it’s something that you know you’re going to spend money on anyways. It’s kind of like I’ve got I’ve got a friend’s family that I’m like, it’s like the people who are like, well, it’s on sale. So I bought it. I’m like, OK, but a good deal on something you don’t need is still spending money you don’t need. So

Kiera (22:38)

Yeah.

Brittany (22:39)

as long as it’s something that you actually need or you are actually going to spend money on anyways, 100 percent agreed. But don’t go like.

spend money on stuff you don’t actually need to spend money on.

Kiera (22:51)

I do agree. And this is again where you got good, like it’s a good balance here.

Brittany (22:54)

Yeah.

Kiera (22:54)

agreed. I’m glad you put that caveat in because all those pieces like software, technology, consulting, we knew we were going to do it anyway. Let’s just get it for a better deal because we can. Like we will bundle end

Brittany (23:01)

Mm-hmm. Correct.

Kiera (23:05)

of year. We’re is looking at all of our softwares and we were hunting to see, like, hey, if we buy it now, if we do a whole year, things we know we’re already going to do, can we get that a reduced price? That’s also going to keep our cash flow higher next year, too, for us, which is always a benefit. So

That’s our that’s our end of year. We’re, you know, having a good time with masterminds. They’re growing. They’re a good time. They’re so fun. We’re looking for consultants. but I also think, Britt, like, I think Dental A Team is it’s a growing company and it’s always going to be growing and it’s always going to be evolving. And I think both of us have accepted that. Some dental practices aren’t. And it’s also okay if like your numbers are pretty consistent year over year.

Brittany (23:40)

Mm-hmm.

Kiera (23:41)

That’s also okay. But look, you might be looking in like,

What are the raises? Or what are the CE courses we could take our team? Because just because you flatline, if you will, you’re not adding more head count, you’re not adding more tech, you’re not adding more ops. What things can I do to innovate and push my team forward? Or how can I get more increased dollar per patient in the practice?

Brittany (23:57)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kiera (24:01)

Those are the areas to be looking at. So every practice should be like, this is the push, this is the innovation, this is the creation, and then lock in. And Britt, like we got to lock on that budget. Britt does a good job of being like, no, we locked on this, we stay on it.

reconcile it monthly and then reset usually halfway through the year to see how you’re doing. Obviously look at it quarterly, but really I don’t really try to make big budget changes until about mid year to let it ride for a little bit longer.

Brittany (24:25)

Mm hmm.

Yep, I agree with you. And yeah, offices, your spend may not change a whole lot each year. You should be growing to a degree each year. And yeah, costs are going to go up to a degree each year, but it won’t. Some don’t swing as far as some others. Now, my my practices out there, my my owners, my true entrepreneurs out there, they’re like, yeah, I’m adding a practice next year. I’m doing

Kiera (24:50)

Mm.

Brittany (24:50)

this or I’m doing that. Like, yeah, there’s going to be a few more variables in the mix.

Kiera (24:54)

Absolutely. So go guys, go start plupping pranning. If you need help with this, we’re literally working on it with our doctors and our offices. It’s a great time. reach out [email protected]. Britt, thanks for being here. Thanks for being my like No BS Britt. You always love give it to me straight. You always talk to me. And I respect that so much because I think every good entrepreneur needs a great No BS Britt next to them who will make sure that both are are synced and can really do the best in the business. So thank you for being on the podcast with me today.

Brittany (25:23)

Thanks for having me.

Kiera (25:24)

Of course. And for all of you listening, go get your end of year in place. Go get your numbers dialed in. Reach out if we can help you in any way. And as always, thanks for listening. We’ll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.