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048 The REAL Reason Your Payroll Keeps Climbing · My Dental Playbook

0:00
SPEAKER_00: When people come to ask me for raises, agreeing with them, which we're great for you, is saying, man, I agree.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: I want you to add more value to this business because that's what they're saying.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: And it aligns with what you already believe.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: Like you believe that if you want to make more money, then you need to add more value.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: But they have to understand how those two things are connected.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: Being stoked about what are the three things you think you're going to be able to bring to the organization that we don't currently have that'll allow us to pay you that.
0:26
SPEAKER_02: Welcome back to another episode of My Dental Playbook.
0:28
SPEAKER_02: I'm your co-host, Gary Bird.
0:29
SPEAKER_02: Along with my friend Dr.
0:30
SPEAKER_02: Blake Hamble, we're diving deep into his office on his journey to become a$10 million practice.
0:36
SPEAKER_02: But today is a special episode because we're filming in Frisco, Texas, where Dr.
0:40
SPEAKER_02: Blake received the Golden Rhino Award from the Dental Success Summit.
0:45
SPEAKER_02: A great honor.
0:46
SPEAKER_02: He totally deserves it.
0:48
SPEAKER_02: He's grown like crazy.
0:49
SPEAKER_02: He's 10X his new patients just over the last two years, and he's gone from 20 to 200, and he got all the recognition that he deserves.
0:58
SPEAKER_02: And he asked his friend, Dr.
1:00
SPEAKER_02: Christian Mullen, to come join us, who's the owner of Shore Smiles.
1:04
SPEAKER_02: He's going to share when and how you should be giving raises.
1:07
SPEAKER_02: And right down below, we have a special giveaway for you on how to effectively run a one-on-one so you know when and how to give raises to your team.
1:16
SPEAKER_02: This was a really good episode.
1:17
SPEAKER_02: Dr.
1:17
SPEAKER_02: Christian did a great job, and you'll learn a lot from Dr.
1:20
SPEAKER_02: Blake as well.
1:21
SPEAKER_02: Stay tuned for this one.
1:22
SPEAKER_02: All right, we're back, and we're still at the Dental Success Summit.
1:25
SPEAKER_02: It's been an amazing event.
1:27
SPEAKER_02: Dr.
1:27
SPEAKER_02: Blake won the Golden Go Award.
1:30
SPEAKER_02: It's like the best, greatest of all time practice.
1:33
SPEAKER_02: And uh he's doing a great job.
1:35
SPEAKER_02: And today we have Christian with us.
1:37
SPEAKER_02: He practices out on the East Coast Virginia Beach.
1:39
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
1:39
SPEAKER_02: Is that right?
1:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:40
SPEAKER_02: And um, your very successful practice before I we're gonna talk about today raises everybody, every doctor's favorite subject, right?
1:48
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, you hear all the horror stories like I don't want to meet with my team or talk to my team because they might ask me for more money.
1:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and so there's a specific way to do that, and you're working through that right now.
1:57
SPEAKER_02: But before you jump into that, just tell us a little bit about your practice.
1:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, size, how many doctors, sure, production, those kind of things.
2:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, size.
2:03
SPEAKER_01: Uh so we're eight ops right now.
2:05
SPEAKER_01: Um, we're going to 10 ops.
2:07
SPEAKER_01: We're currently renovating.
2:09
SPEAKER_01: Um, and um we are, gosh, when I bought the practice, we were doing I think 1.1 million.
2:16
SPEAKER_01: Um and uh year today, or uh this year we'll probably slate it for like two, six, seven, two, six, or two, six, or two seven.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: Serious growth, yeah, 100%.
2:26
SPEAKER_01: Um and uh we've pretty much doubled our team size.
2:30
SPEAKER_01: So we've gone from nine people to uh I think we just hired, I think we're gonna be at 17.
2:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:37
SPEAKER_01: Um and um yeah, I mean that's how many hygienists?
2:43
SPEAKER_01: Hygienists we have uh four, well, three and a half hygienists, so three full-time, one part-time, but we're kind of in the midst of you're and you're kinda out of network, but in network with a couple insurances.
2:55
SPEAKER_01: No we're in network with um Carrington, uh Aetna, and uh Delta Premier.
3:00
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
3:00
SPEAKER_01: And uh we're we're about 80% PPO, 20% fee for service right now.
3:04
SPEAKER_02: Okay, good.
3:05
SPEAKER_02: And so um any questions on that before we jump into this?
3:07
SPEAKER_02: No, that's great.
3:08
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
3:09
SPEAKER_02: So um let's talk about raises.
3:11
SPEAKER_02: So tell me what you're dealing with on the raises side.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: I'm really curious.
3:14
SPEAKER_01: So we just heard uh uh Mark talk about the hygiene situation, and um uh you know I I'm a big believer in servant leadership and in it and trying to uh one of my tenure goals is actually to get the uh to be the highest paid team in Virginia Beach.
3:29
SPEAKER_01: Wow, as part of my vision.
3:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so number one, I don't like conflict, I love pleasing people, right?
3:37
SPEAKER_01: As most dentists I feel like you.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um you know, I want people to be fulfilled, come into work, and um I have a hard time saying no.
3:48
SPEAKER_01: That's really what I think.
3:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I really appreciate you being honest.
3:51
SPEAKER_02: As an entrepreneur, I struggle with a lot of those things too.
3:54
SPEAKER_02: I wanna I wanna make everybody happy.
3:55
SPEAKER_02: Why can't we all win?
3:58
SPEAKER_02: It's hard in business to do that.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: So I guess I struggle with you know, when people aren't necessarily holding their weight.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: Um how do you determine, hey, how do you hold them accountable?
4:14
SPEAKER_01: And I and I follow traction, I follow EOS.
4:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
4:16
SPEAKER_01: Um I'm uh I I used to kind of DIY it, but I actually hired an implementer and he's helped me kind of set up those processes, which has been nice.
4:23
SPEAKER_01: So we technically have a process for this.
4:26
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
4:26
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
4:27
SPEAKER_01: But I guess following through on that process, I'm I'm 97% visionary.
4:32
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
4:33
SPEAKER_01: And my office manager is 93% vision uh uh integrator.
4:37
SPEAKER_01: That's great.
4:38
SPEAKER_01: So long story short, if someone comes up to me and says, Hey, I really want to raise, I'll be like, that's I agree.
4:45
SPEAKER_01: That's you're doing good.
4:47
SPEAKER_01: So let's go ahead and do that.
4:49
SPEAKER_01: How much do you want?
4:50
SPEAKER_01: What do you want again?
4:50
SPEAKER_01: I don't even know.
4:51
SPEAKER_01: Can we afford that?
4:52
SPEAKER_01: Here, just to take whatever's in my wallet.
4:54
SPEAKER_01: So uh a problem though is I I believe in I'm okay with overpaying for people because I believe in human capital because that's ultimately what allows for practices to succeed, right?
5:06
SPEAKER_01: You can't do it alone.
5:08
SPEAKER_01: And um the downside with that though is that you know we're at we're at we're at around 29, 30 percent payroll already.
5:14
SPEAKER_01: Right.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: And that's before raises.
5:17
SPEAKER_01: And then also we have to up rate our our current hygienists to market rate, which has I mean, when I first came on board, I mean, the average, and this is gonna upset a lot of probably West Coast people in like California or New York City, but our average was like 40 to 42 in 22.
5:36
SPEAKER_01: 26, uh 2026, it's now like people ain't saying yes from less than 50.
5:41
SPEAKER_01: 50, 55, yeah.
5:43
SPEAKER_01: So 50 or 50.
5:44
SPEAKER_01: The West Coast people are at 100.
5:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: So I guess navigating sort of the that conversation.
5:51
SPEAKER_01: Um and uh you know, normally what we do is we say, hey, if if you've changed seats, number one, or if you've added value, right?
6:00
SPEAKER_01: Number two, Maritaka.
6:01
SPEAKER_01: How does how does your how does your how does your scorecard look?
6:04
SPEAKER_01: Right.
6:04
SPEAKER_01: How do you fit the culture?
6:06
SPEAKER_01: So those all come into play when we have our annual conversations, but it's just one of those things that I struggle with, and I'm just wondering how you guys deal with that.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I think the hygiene conversations uh a unique one for sure because there is there is leverage.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: I mean, like with what Mark shared this morning, when we're net loss 4,500 hygienists per year, until either there's other other ways to provide the service or we get more hygienists, they have levels.
6:37
SPEAKER_01: But if you actually just pass that, yeah, dental assistance.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: And I and that's okay, we just have to understand that, and I think you have to approach it with tact.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: But when people come to ask me for raises, I I and I all of this is not my own idea.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've I've learned this from other people more wise than I.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: Um, but agreeing with them, which were were were great for you, is saying, Man, I agree.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: I want you to add more value to this business because that's what they're they're saying, and it aligns with what you already believe.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: Like you believe that the value that if you want to make more money, then you need to add more value.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and but they have to understand how those two things are connected, and so being stoked about, man, I want you to make$55 an hour or two.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: What are the three things you think you're gonna be able to bring to the organization that we don't currently have that'll allow us to pay you that?
7:30
SPEAKER_00: And letting them know, like our team thinks that there's this bucket of money that doesn't run out.
7:35
SPEAKER_02: They just hear that you're making three million, four million nuclear.
7:38
SPEAKER_02: They think you're timing up.
7:39
SPEAKER_02: I just want to be clear about that.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: And but I think letting them let them know that every dollar in the business is accounted for.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: So you're gonna have to see where you might have to pull back on your IT spin so that we can give them a raise.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: So even if like so that they know that that dollar is connected to something, and it's not just like the the bucket at the end of the rainbow that doesn't stop.
8:04
SPEAKER_02: That's really good.
8:05
SPEAKER_02: I I I for me, I used to be the guy, just like you same thing as like I want to raise, it's like, okay, and I gave too many people raises.
8:12
SPEAKER_02: Right.
8:12
SPEAKER_02: And then it hurts the business.
8:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it hurts the business.
8:14
SPEAKER_02: So the first thing you have to do is you have to get the business under control, meaning, what can you give to people?
8:19
SPEAKER_02: Right.
8:20
SPEAKER_02: What's your flexibility?
8:21
SPEAKER_02: What is the raise?
8:21
SPEAKER_02: That's number one.
8:22
SPEAKER_02: Number two, creating um vertical movement based on where you want people to go.
8:27
SPEAKER_02: So meaning like a pay ban?
8:29
SPEAKER_02: Uh it's a pay ban, but it also comes with a responsibility ban.
8:32
SPEAKER_02: And this is for any position.
8:34
SPEAKER_02: So if you have three or four tiers of every position, then there's more opportunity.
8:38
SPEAKER_02: So you can have three different kinds of hygienists.
8:41
SPEAKER_02: It's the entry-level junior hygienist.
8:43
SPEAKER_02: You can have the mid-level.
8:45
SPEAKER_01: Which might not be a new hygienist, right?
8:47
SPEAKER_01: No, no, depending on what the skills they've thrived.
8:50
SPEAKER_01: But can they do anesthesia?
8:51
SPEAKER_01: It may be not.
8:52
SPEAKER_02: Just make it whatever the roles you want.
8:53
SPEAKER_02: Right.
8:53
SPEAKER_02: And then you have the mid-level, and then you have the third, and then you have the leader of the department, and you can go, you can have any of these.
9:00
SPEAKER_02: Here's how the economics and all of these work, and then here's the skills that you need to be able to do that.
9:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you can do this for any position.
9:06
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
9:06
SPEAKER_02: And you share, you can also be an office manager, you can also lead the front desk, you can also set up the dental assistance, you can move around and have these other opportunities, but they come with more responsibility.
9:17
SPEAKER_02: And so that's the second thing I I would add.
9:19
SPEAKER_02: And then the third thing is um one-on-ones.
9:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
9:23
SPEAKER_02: So most offices don't have one-on-ones because it either fear or time.
9:28
SPEAKER_02: And and if I just really believe if you start having regular one-on-ones and you have clear scorecards and clear, like here's how to move up, yeah, then it they don't ask for raises anymore.
9:38
SPEAKER_01: We have we have uh we have bi-weekly department meetings, everyone has a number.
9:44
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so that's helpful for these types of conversations.
9:48
SPEAKER_01: But we're also kind of, you know, I think a lot of times when you first start to scorecard, you think of you think of metrics that you think are gonna make sense.
9:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:56
SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, you're you're you're looking at it at the uh, you know, that past quarter, the past year, you're like, wait a minute, that's actually a lagging measure.
10:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: And that doesn't meet like that, doesn't it doesn't they have no control over that, right?
10:09
SPEAKER_01: We're we're measuring backwards.
10:10
SPEAKER_02: So that means you still on the business side, because remember the first thing is figure out the business side.
10:15
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
10:15
SPEAKER_02: So the business side hasn't gotten the number yet.
10:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
10:18
SPEAKER_02: Which is everybody I've I have departments like that as well.
10:21
SPEAKER_02: So you have to get to that number before you can build the next number, so to speak.
10:26
SPEAKER_01: J an example of that, just to give some context.
10:29
SPEAKER_01: So for like hygiene, instead of SRP uh quads treated, we do number of periocharts missed.
10:40
SPEAKER_01: So my my whole idea is um number one, patients should be pariocharted every year.
10:46
SPEAKER_01: Right.
10:46
SPEAKER_01: No misses.
10:47
SPEAKER_01: Right.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: And if there are misses, it's usually because either there's no time or something like that.
10:53
SPEAKER_01: But from my understanding, if if the high if the hygienists are periocharting when they're supposed to be periocharting and they see these numbers, where the misdiagnosis comes from is really undiagnosed.
11:06
SPEAKER_01: It's just they're not doing it.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: And so it's it's it's one of the metrics that I think could be useful for hygiene departments to be able to not miss.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: Well, and what I love about that is what we as dentists can do is take what's important in my practice and what's important in Gary's practice and say, well, now it's important in mine.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: And that's just not true.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: Like for you, you think you believe in your heart that if we just do more pario charting, we'll do more SRPs.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: And that that is a great metric to have.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: One thing I've I've been learning over the past couple months is along these lines, is we've done such a good job of trying to explain to our teams how they can make a gazillion dollars a year, yeah, but they also don't understand that connection I was talking about about how the money is attached to the value creation within the business.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a market place.
11:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: And I don't decide how much you pay, and you don't decide how much you make.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly if the market decides that, and then the value that you provide is connected to that.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: We've done a really good job of telling them how much more they can make.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: But what we haven't done is said you can get up to$30 an hour, but if you stop doing these things, you go back down to$25.
12:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: And it's like it takes a different level level of leadership, yeah.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: To be able to have that conversation.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: But I think it's critical.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: And when you have the team that understands it, they get it and they become even more.
12:31
SPEAKER_01: But you have high accountability people and low accountability people.
12:34
SPEAKER_01: The low accountability people, a lot of times we uh my leadership coach that I talk to regularly, um he talks a little bit about um sometimes we cater to the low accountability people because we're afraid to have that conversation.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: And the reality is you should be catering your business to the high accountability people who actually are your A players.
12:56
SPEAKER_01: Some raise that raises the bar.
12:58
SPEAKER_01: Other than pulling everybody.
12:59
SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, that's what it's about.
13:01
SPEAKER_01: You kind of touched on this on standards.
13:03
SPEAKER_01: Um and it's hard conversations.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: It's it doesn't I don't love I hate those conversations, but you know, it's part of the game, and you know, it's I think part of why a lot of the, you know, like people like people like you, Blake, and you know, all the a lot of the other black belts and just people in the organization do such an incredible job with culture because they do hold people to a higher standard.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, people want to be led.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like we we think that we think that we're being we're being harsh with them and we're not, and we could be.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: Like we have to be careful of how we approach it, but people want to have a vision, they want to know where we're going, they want they want to have yeah, they want to have a path forward.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: And if we would just stop stumbling on ourselves, it's we would see it's us.
13:47
SPEAKER_02: Well, and uh it's easy to us.
13:49
SPEAKER_02: It's really hard in a business in any organization.
13:52
SPEAKER_02: Um I'll use football as an example.
13:54
SPEAKER_02: Everybody knows that the quarterback's supposed to throw the ball to the wide receiver.
13:57
SPEAKER_02: But if the linemen don't understand how blocking helps that and they they they do run blocking instead of pass blocking, right?
14:04
SPEAKER_02: It messes, it makes everybody else's job impossible.
14:07
SPEAKER_02: Hygiene is super important for the dentist to be successful.
14:10
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
14:11
SPEAKER_02: And if they don't understand, like you said, they don't have that economic tie-in and they don't understand how it's connected, it just it makes everything so much harder.
14:19
SPEAKER_02: And it so the more time you can spend on the top of the business and tying that down to the bottom actions, activities, everybody has more ownerships, right?
14:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, everybody has more buy-in.
14:30
SPEAKER_02: And one thing that I've learned in business is when I have ideas, it's great.
14:35
SPEAKER_02: I love it, I can talk about ideas all day long.
14:38
SPEAKER_02: But when I when it becomes other people's ideas and they understand it, they'll go a million miles further and they'll execute way more on it.
14:45
SPEAKER_02: Perception of control.
14:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
14:47
SPEAKER_02: And so I'm always like, I'm always trying to, as leadership is always trying to figure out how do I help them make this their idea for their outcomes, for their success.
14:56
SPEAKER_02: And uh it's a lot of it is revolves around numbers.
14:59
SPEAKER_02: I just one of our amazing team members that we were just talking, and they were like, Man, you know, I don't know if things are working well.
15:05
SPEAKER_02: And I said, Go back and look at the last three years and come back and tell me what you see.
15:08
SPEAKER_02: And they went and looked at all the numbers, and they said, Oh, we've grown a lot.
15:12
SPEAKER_02: I said, That was you.
15:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:14
SPEAKER_02: Good job.
15:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:15
SPEAKER_02: And it's like, okay, I get what how I'm contributing now.
15:18
SPEAKER_02: Um, but that's hard to do in different positions.
15:20
SPEAKER_02: Like we struggle with like HR.
15:22
SPEAKER_02: How do we get H?
15:23
SPEAKER_02: I know dental offices don't usually have HR, but it's just like, how do you get HR or IT?
15:27
SPEAKER_02: How do how do you get IT to have a number that they own and things like that?
15:31
SPEAKER_02: That's where it gets tricky.
15:32
SPEAKER_01: I think you can kind of go down like I I try to apply Pareto principle whenever I whenever possible.
15:37
SPEAKER_01: So 80-20, what's the most important?
15:39
SPEAKER_01: 20 20%, that's gonna give you 80% of the outcome.
15:42
SPEAKER_01: Like I think if you go that sort of deep, it can almost you kind of touched on this a little bit earlier, you can get so lost in the in the numbers and just all the metrics.
15:51
SPEAKER_01: I think nailing it down to five to fifteen metrics that you look at consistency, where like EOS Gino talks about this.
15:59
SPEAKER_01: If you were to get, if you were on a deserted island and you and you were to be given a scorecard, what five to fifteen metrics would you be able to say, hey, either I need to go home or I can stay?
16:12
SPEAKER_01: Right.
16:13
SPEAKER_01: That's that's I think what you're after.
16:15
SPEAKER_02: And giving yourself permission and your team permission to change those numbers.
16:19
SPEAKER_02: Because I've I've changed those.
16:20
SPEAKER_02: I've done EOS, I've done all, I've done everything and mixed it together, and we've tried everything.
16:25
SPEAKER_02: Just over the years, it's like we're gonna try this bonus system.
16:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
16:28
SPEAKER_02: And we're gonna try for three months, or we're gonna try it for six months, or we're gonna look at these numbers, and then we end up changing them and adapting them, and you gotta keep adapting.
16:36
SPEAKER_02: And then what you'll find is it's usually one or two numbers that gets you the real no pun intended traction.
16:43
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
16:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, sure.
16:44
SPEAKER_02: That's what I've seen.
16:45
SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
16:45
SPEAKER_02: So, what's the numbers that you're like hyper focused on right now?
16:49
SPEAKER_02: So or you're trying to get your team to be hyper-focused on that.
16:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, um well, it depends so we have we have kind of a leadership team metrics, and then by department, they have different metrics that um that we focus on, and those usually range from like you know, two to two to five.
17:05
SPEAKER_01: We tried to kind of simplify it in hygiene, but what we found was to gain more kind of what we talked about accountability, is we have it by hygienist and we measure like we measure four things.
17:16
SPEAKER_01: Uh let's see, three things.
17:18
SPEAKER_01: We measure number of lasers performed on a we on a weekly basis.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: We measure number of period charts missed.
17:28
SPEAKER_01: Overjet calculates that for you.
17:30
SPEAKER_01: That's um and so a lot of this is used by AI, so we just pull the numbers and then we just utilize it from there.
17:37
SPEAKER_01: Um and then last one is uh number of x-rays missed.
17:40
SPEAKER_01: Overjet also calculates that.
17:43
SPEAKER_01: What the target you're aiming for.
17:44
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
17:44
SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, ideally you're less than one per one period chart missed for the week.
17:48
SPEAKER_01: Right.
17:49
SPEAKER_01: Oh, and then that's per person?
17:50
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
17:51
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
17:51
SPEAKER_01: Per person.
17:52
SPEAKER_01: And then um we base we base lasers based on where they're historically averaged.
17:57
SPEAKER_01: So I'd try to do like maybe five percent more or ten percent more than what they're currently doing, rather than like sort of some unrealistic number where they're never gonna hit and then they're always gonna feel deflated.
18:07
SPEAKER_01: You don't want that.
18:08
SPEAKER_01: Um so we try to use historical averages so that people can be motivated and still hit things and be reasonable with that.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: Um and then obviously period percentage as a uh as a as a group.
18:20
SPEAKER_01: Right.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: Um and you know, we're still trying to work this out.
18:23
SPEAKER_01: You know, I think that I don't have all the perfect numbers from from that standpoint.
18:27
SPEAKER_01: So those are your numbers right now.
18:28
SPEAKER_02: Right now, yeah.
18:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
18:29
SPEAKER_02: What are you what are your numbers for hygiene right now that you're looking at?
18:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh lasers as well.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we track lasers, hygiene reappointment rate is really big.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: We we've never had an issue with that, so I don't we don't track it just because it's not it's always green.
18:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: And I I've I've just found with hygiene when they when they understand the outcome even more so.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: So what I might even encourage with with you is like we also do microscope in our office.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: We just we're starting to implement that.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm connecting microscopes to the outcome of lasers, which also increases their take-home income.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: And so like um, what is it, Goodhardt's Law?
19:09
SPEAKER_00: It's like the it the story about an Indio when they were like they had a cobra problem and then they were incentivizing people to kill all the cobras.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: Well, a few entrepreneurial spirits just decided to breed the cobras and kill them and take them to the so then they created an even bigger problem.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: And so like when the measure, when the goal becomes the measure, yeah, no longer it ceases to be a goal, right?
19:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I know that like what they want, because what most people want is more freedom or more money, right?
19:37
SPEAKER_00: And so if I want them to do more microscopes, then I'm I'm tracking the outcome of the microscope, which I believe is a leading indicator.
19:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a leading indicator rather than the lag.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: So you're not so are you are tracking microscopes or you're tracking lasers?
19:51
SPEAKER_00: I I'm tracking laser.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: And I know I know that if my laser goes down, then we're not doing the microscope.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: And I I've just found that when that happens and I ask the question, well, you know, it's been a busy room.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: Well, the microscopes, yeah.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: Exactly, exactly.
20:05
SPEAKER_01: But it gets more SRP.
20:07
SPEAKER_01: So I tried that I think at the end of the day, uh SRP on average is more you you get obviously it's more production per per appointment.
20:16
SPEAKER_01: But um, yeah, that's that's good.
20:17
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's always good to connect that behavior to the outcome.
20:24
SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
20:24
SPEAKER_01: I agree with that.
20:25
SPEAKER_01: Right.
20:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
20:26
SPEAKER_02: Well, this has been really good.
20:27
SPEAKER_02: I think there's a lot of learning lessons.
20:28
SPEAKER_02: I know people are scared to death right now of raises and the competition.
20:32
SPEAKER_02: Um, and we're actually I put it on one of our episodes to talk about how to recruit hygienists.
20:37
SPEAKER_02: I think that's like crucial right now because it's so hard and it's just gonna get harder and harder.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: Well we gotta get Christian back on too, because he's like a uh AI Jedi.
20:48
unknown: Yeah.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: Uh so he can help us out with some pretty cool stuff.
20:50
SPEAKER_01: That's what I teach in DSI.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: No way.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
20:53
SPEAKER_01: Oh, awesome.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: One of my like one of my things is I've just basically buying back time, reducing administrative burden and cre uh providing more clarity, getting AI to help you, and kind of I think a lot of people use, and uh you've kind of heard this said, um a lot of people use AI just like it as it is.
21:11
SPEAKER_01: Google search, yeah.
21:12
SPEAKER_01: Right.
21:12
SPEAKER_01: It's not it's so much more powerful than to just to create more time to do stuff that you love.
21:16
SPEAKER_02: So here interesting note, and uh, we will have to bring you back on because I know that topic will kill.
21:21
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
21:21
SPEAKER_02: But the thing I we're starting to see is that AI is actually creating a boatload more work.
21:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
21:26
SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's amazing, it's freedom, and it's like I can execute on my ideas and it makes me way smarter in multiple different categories that I wasn't really great at before.
21:35
SPEAKER_02: But now it's like it's so much more work for everybody.
21:39
SPEAKER_02: Right.
21:39
SPEAKER_02: It's a philosophical conversation.
21:41
SPEAKER_01: I think that's that's kind of fun to go through though.
21:43
SPEAKER_01: It is, yeah.
21:43
SPEAKER_01: So we'll we'll definitely bring you back fun.
21:45
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
21:45
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for coming on.
21:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no worries.
21:46
SPEAKER_01: Love it.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.