Latest / My Dental Playbook / 035 The #1 Thing Limiting Your Dental Practice Growth (Most Owners Miss This)

Transcript

035 The #1 Thing Limiting Your Dental Practice Growth (Most Owners Miss This) · My Dental Playbook

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: You became the limiting factor.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: When I got started, I did everything and I was the reason that everything was growing, but then all of a sudden it shifted and I became the bottleneck in everything.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I didn't realize that at first.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Is that what you're talking about or is there other things?
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to another episode of My Dental Playbook.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your co-host, Gary Bird.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Along with my friend Dr.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Blake Hamblin, we are capturing how he's growing his practice.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: He's more than doubled his collections over the last 12 months, and we're sharing every detail along the way.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're going to bring on a special guest, Dr.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Shane.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: He is going to break down how he relentlessly focuses on one thing to help his practice grow.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: His practice is absolutely exploding.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: They did over$3 million last year, and they're just going to continue to grow in the positive direction with two doctors and an amazing team.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he was gracious enough to share his scorecards with us of what his team and leadership are using.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: So those are right down below.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is a really good episode.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Dr.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Blake gets deep into the weeds of the things he's focused on and the things he's focusing on for his next next step of the practice, as well as Dr.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Shane.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: So you're going to get a special treat today by two powerhouse dentists.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Stay tuned for this one.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to another episode today.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to be talking about something that I think applies to every single business owner, every single dentist that owns their own practice.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to be talking about the limiting factor and how you attack that.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Dr.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Blake loves this topic.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: We were texting back and forth about it about Elon Musk and what he does in his businesses is he goes into his any business.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: When he bought Twitter, he did it.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: When he bought Tesla, he did it.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: When he started SpaceX and he worked through that, he did, he did the same thing.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: He went in and he said, What is the number one thing that's slowing us down from getting to where we want to go?
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then he would spend all of his time on that one thing.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I think as entrepreneurs, I know for I can speak for myself, a lot of times we get in and we focus on all the things and we start pull all the levers, you know, like Willy Wonka at Chocolate Factory where they're pulling all the levers and everything's flying.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it feels good because you're getting, you know, it's activity.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: But whether you grow or you shrink, you don't actually know if you're fixing things because you you have second order of magnitude reactions to all the levers that you're pulling.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so you end up not growing or growing, and you're not really sure why.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you get into these really weird spots.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're focusing on one thing, just one thing, and you just go all in on that one thing that you think is the limiting factor, you know pretty quickly within like a week or two, oh, we've this is it.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: We need to keep doing it.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then you create, Dr.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Blake loves this one too, new problems.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Let's Gary, just create a new problem for me.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Break my hygiene schedule.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: He tells me that all the time.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Just break my hygiene hygiene schedule and then we'll we'll solve it from there.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll start with you, Dr.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Shane.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: I it's thank you so much for coming on, first of all.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I had a great time with you on the last podcast that we did, and your practice is absolutely crushing it.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: And as we work through it, I was like, dude, I gotta get you on with Dr.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Blake and get get some synergy going here.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I would love to start with you on how how do you think through this, this limiting factor, and how has that in impacted your practice?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think first of all, is just recognizing that the biggest limiting factor that you have in your practice is most likely the dentist or the owner.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like we're the ones kind of creating, you know, talking about creating problems.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: We're used to the one creating problem or or getting in the way of something.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, for me, I didn't realize that starting out.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I probably practiced for close to a year before I just had all these struggles, and it was just like this is here, this is here.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: I want to do this, I want to do that, you know, and all these fancy things clinically.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: And then I want this team.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: And what I realized is that the limiting factor was myself.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, there's different roads you can go down when you talk about limiting factors in your practice.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's it could be leadership, it could be clinical, all of those things.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: So for me, that's that's kind of once I realized like I am the problem, like, hey, hi, it's me.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: So what do you mean?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: What do we mean by that that you became the limiting factor?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because I I know for me in business, when I got started, I did everything and I was the reason that everything was growing, but then all of a sudden it shifted and I became the bottleneck and everything.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: But I didn't realize that at first.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Is that what you're talking about?
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Or is there was there other things that you're no, you nailed it.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: That's pretty much it, is because I tried to do all the dentistry.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: I was helping every, I was doing all the procedures and also trying to grow my skill set and do the, you know, do these harder things.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so that was limiting us as far as like production-wise, right?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: But also to just like leadership-wise, too.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like I was trying to start so many things, like let's build a clear aligner program, let's build an implant program, let's market this, market that.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: And our schedule didn't have room for the you know, for people to even come in.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so that you're exactly right.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like we grew and and we were doing great, but for me to, like you said, to get to the level that I'm at now, like I was the fixer for everything and I did everything.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: So it required me kind of going all in and building people around me.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: Once I figured that out, how to do that, and that was we could have a whole podcast on how to do that, but that created more problems.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: It was like, well, how do you hold accountability?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: So then you evolve in your leadership, you know, even more.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: How do you have checkpoints and these, you know, things like that?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, dentists are really good about taking C, like I mentioned, and advancing their clinical skill set and coming back all jacked up.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: I want to do this, I want to do that, I want to get in sleep, you know, all these things.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: And you just never gain traction because again, you're like you're the problem.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: You get so excited and you just spit it out to everyone, and nothing ever takes off because they're all confused, right?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: And you're talking to patients about it, and it's like, you know, they're kind of confused.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: And and so that's for me, and that's good.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: I guess clarity is the biggest thing.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: There is understanding that I was the problem.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: I need to stop being if I wanted to get to the next level in my practice, I needed to stop being the fixer.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: That's you know, different components.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's either your other dentists around me, or I have to give up some think procedures that I'm doing so I can focus on the one thing.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: For me, that's like implant dentistry, that's my thing.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: I could I couldn't keep doing all the other stuff and taking care of everyone.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I had a I have a unique skill set that can service a certain population.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, if I say no to them, what am I doing for for other people?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: So this is really good stuff.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's really good.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: I also like the idea, and you kind of alluded to it as like so so you you have to say no to say yes a lot of times, right?
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because you can't say yes to everything, and that's super hard to figure out as an entrepreneur, as a dentist, or just running a business in general.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then I I really like the idea of, and you alluded to this is like there's certain things the owner doctor, you're the only one that can do them in your practice.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's certain things in my business.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like I get online and argue with a dentist on Facebook.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: No one else can do that in my company.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like then no one else is willing to go on there and have those tough conversations and go back and forth.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so I have to do it.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of risk involved with it, right?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because it could go way south.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: And and there's there's those kind of things.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I love that, those frameworks and the way that you broke that down.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Dr.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Blake, so what are your I could tell your wills returning on this.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well, for sure.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: And and I will say Shane has always been the most humble man in the room.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so my answer will will not be as humble as his.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I thought you laid that out really clearly.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: And and man, it's so true.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like I've been in the same position, and I often can find myself in that position even even to this day.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's a it's a refining process for sure.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I think when I when I think about this, the the quote I heard not too long ago was intensity as a strategy, and and that is the strategy, right?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so what really what it took for me to go from stuck in in my head, I would I was growing on paper and and to everyone else.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was I was achieving all the things that people would want to achieve, but I knew there was so much left in the tank.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew the limiting factor for me was marketing.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: I had to find somebody that could get that could drive patience into the practice.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I was doing everything, I was doing everything with intensity.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't focused on one thing with intensity, right?
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Which is not possible, right?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's like that's like working out at 100% all day is not possible.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: You can't you can't be intense with everything.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so like Shane and I actually we did the 3D mastermind with Timo and Sully, and like he can probably reflect back to that and see my my confusion and where I wanted to be.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like I would say things, but it wouldn't make sense because I was trying to do everything.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then it took me walking through that process, trying to do all of that stuff to find okay, I've got a laser focus on marketing, find someone that can help me do it, and then double down on it.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I found with the people that that we're working with in your in our mastermind and that DM me or or whatever, the people that are willing to just burn the boats, it works.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's it's wild.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like we we've kind of re re been like double clicking on Google reviews again.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I literally in Huddle the other day, I was like, how many people asked for a Google review?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody raised their hand.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: That day we got eight, and it's like what you focus on improves, right?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: And but it has to be radical focus.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, one one thing on that note too is like when when you get hyper focused like that, every it aligns everybody.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times as leaders, I was again, I'll speak for myself, is like, I'm like, I already told them four times the Google reviews are super important.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but you also said the phones are super important and building super important and checkouts are super important.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: You said everything's super important at some point.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: So they're only gonna focus on the thing that you just said was super important because you can only, again, you can only be intense about one thing at a time.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I find myself doing is just like, okay, how can I create clarity for my team through just hyper focusing on this one thing over just like and then sometimes you have to click back.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: So we have to go back and say, hey, we need more Google reviews.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, we need, hey, remember how we used to review calls all the time?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: We got away from that.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're getting back to it.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Let's do it again.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And and we all know this your team changes, right?
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like new people came in and they don't they don't know that you're a psycho about Google reviews, you know, or they don't know that you're crazy about front desk scheduling or the way you want patients scheduled.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to go back and not just train, because training's one thing.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's the knowledge, but what about the passion or the heart or the vision behind it?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: That has to also be taught.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: And let's be frank, Dr.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Blake.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, no one in your team is gonna go in full force like you are.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Someone has to do that again.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I really like that.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Is there any Dr.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Shane?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: We'll go to you.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, as you started to work through this, was there specific things that you were like, oh, okay, when I got laser focused on this, this is what helped me.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Dr.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Blake said for him it was marketing.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: What about for you?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think for me, it was more clinical, honestly.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like I still had I have two associates here myself.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: I still had a lot of stuff on my schedule that I was afraid to say no to.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: And like we talked about, I had the skill set to do, you know, sedation and implants and wisdom teeth and all this stuff.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I I took I finally took the leap and you know, block put was more intentional with blocks on my schedule.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: On my skill set, and my production last year went up like, I don't know, 45 grand a month.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: And just just by just by you know utilizing what I could do, what I how I could service people and what I could offer, you know, to to our community, was just using my skill set.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I was it because I was just letting stuff you know get on there because I felt, you know, I I love our patients and I love helping people.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: And and it is hard to say no, but sometimes you got to.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: So so just so I understand this, I want to call this out.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you had you have all these patients coming in, you have three doctors, including yourself, and you have some maybe some easier treatment coming in that your other associates could totally do.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then you had other treatment that maybe only you could do on your team.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was kind of like this is this is your thing.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you had so many of the easier treatments coming through that you could had to say no to some of the bigger treatments, or it was causing just overload.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so you had to say no to the smaller treatment, set up your team, and then that allowed you to open up and everybody now everybody's winning, right?
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Your associates are happy, yeah, because they're yeah, is that right?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: They're they're they're more productive now because they're doing the stuff that that was in their skill set that I was taking from them, you know.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: So it was funny how it kind of balanced out.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: I was just so afraid to kind of give that up because I was like, well, what am I gonna do?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how what's gonna keep me busy?
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I think Blake and I had a conversation.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: I called him, I don't know, sometime last year, and and I felt stuck.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, I don't know which way I want to go because I feel like I am trying to do everything.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like, do I need to focus on new patients and marketing?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: Because we were working, you know, with you guys and having good success there.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm also trying to basically grow my implant practice as well too.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I was being pulled in several directions, and it was like, you know, Blake gave me some good advice.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: He was like, Yeah, you got to focus on something.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: So we did.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: We kind of took a breather from the implant stuff for a while to add capacity to our hygiene.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: We added more to that, got new patients.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: It was crazy how that just like with marketing filled up, and you know, so then there was more treatment for the associates to do, and then we got back into implant stuff, and that's kind of how it worked out.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: So it helps to just, you know, realize that like, hey, you can't do everything at one time.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: You got to focus on something, even if it's even it doesn't mean it's forever, right?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like you can focus, go hard at it for you know a quarter or whatever you need to get there and then transition to the next thing, create new problems.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: How did you?
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: I I think a lot of business I I know for me, I've always struggled with like saying no, because I don't like it's like you might not get business tomorrow, right?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like hard to tell people no.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the things that's worked well for me is like training my team to the answer is always yes, but right.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: So someone's like, well, we want they asked for a billion new patients.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, and you told them no?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, we can't get a billion.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, yeah, that was Dr.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Blake.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, we can get a billion new patients.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's just you're gonna need to give me a really good big marketing budget, and we're gonna have to open up the locations in India and China.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so, like, we can do it.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's just, do you have do you have hundreds of millions of dollars for infrastructure?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's like training my team to like think through how to say yes to things.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's it we call it the yes but framework.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: So we do it all as a yes, but and I have to constantly remind the team.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Was there anything that you had, Dr.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: Shane, with this that helped you get what you wanted without hurting the patient's feelings, without hurting the team's feelings and still get the outcome that you wanted?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, that's that was you know, it's not just saying no to the patients, it's kind of make I'm just saying no to the team too.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like, why why are you it doesn't make sense?
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: You're a dentist, why aren't you why aren't you doing this?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's not fair to the patients, right?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: And and again, it's the question I always ask them, even even in a lot of coaching moments I have, I'm saying if they want to do something, I'm like, okay, if you say yes to this, what are you saying no to?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: So for me, that's what I had to kind of coach them on that.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like, if I say yes to this, I'm having to say no to all these other things that I can do, and only I like I'm the only person here that can do that.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's not that I'm I'm beneath it, I'm not too proud, you know, but it's this is this is where we need to go.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: So I had to sit down with the team and kind of coach them on like this is how we approach these things now.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like, this is no longer a service, like Dr.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: Wingler chose these associates, handpicked them.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: He's trained with them for years.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: They're gonna take great care of you.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: This is what they do all day long.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that that type of thing.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: So it it it took some time, right, to get the team to wrap their head around that.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: But now it's like, you know, it's just pretty much normal for us at this point.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think from the other side too, a quote that's coming to mind is the person with the least amount of need always wins.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: And the beauty of this is like when you're when you're able to step away and say, I'm not doing fillings anymore, or I'm not doing single crowns anymore, you literally don't need that treatment.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like if the patient wants to go somewhere else, they can go somewhere else and you're okay with that.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that flows through on so many different levels because the patient feels it, but also your your team and your associate feels that, right?
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so now your associate believes, like they believe that when you go do that exam and they haven't been doing all the exams that that they want to do, they know, oh, well, Dr.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: Dr.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: Shane's gonna put that crown on my schedule, right?
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: And they're they're bought in, they're they're they're fired up about that because you removed the amount of need that you had to have control.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's really good.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: The opposite is true too, right?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like stink, I gotta have this treatment or else I'm not gonna be able to pay the phone bill.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it it people can feel that that desperation as well, and your team feels that as well.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: And some two two things I wrote down while we were talking, as you're right, when you're trying to figure out what do I go at, what do I focus my intention on, right?
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's I think it's number one, and Shane hit on it, is like being really clear on what you want to create.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of us, and we've talked about this, we we want to create whatever Facebook tells us, or we want to create whatever the guy the successful guy in the in the city next door has created.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we don't want to create our own version of success, right?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think Shane going through that, I went through that.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many other people that we know that have walked through those same steps of we want to be everything to everybody, and then we realize we can't, and that's okay.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then I think that's where the growth comes.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: But then you have to decide how how do I get there, right?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: For me, it was marketing.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: For my buddy in Florida, it's literally how many practices can he open, right?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, how quickly can I open up another practice because there's so much need, right?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: And and so it's just like figuring out what do I want to create?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: Do I want to be a clinical dentist?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: Do I want to be a dentist that leads and and builds and grows organizations and people?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: And you decide that and then you you run after it.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: And and this goes back to you, there's certain things only you, the owner doctor, can do, and direction is one of them.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so you can't be intense without a direction, right?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's like go go work out and do it the best of your ability, but I've never worked out before.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be like, okay, I'm just picking up weights and stuff.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: But it's like, no, I want to open up multiple practices, or I want this practice to be as big as possible, or I want to hit three or four million dollars a year in in collections.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like that direction dictates everything else that you do.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then from there, it's really easy to figure out your limiting factor at that point.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is that right, Dr.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Shane?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Do you agree?
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, I agree.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: I think one thing that I that Blake kind of that that just kind of came to my mind when he was talking about you don't need that crown or you don't need this.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of uh dentists that are gonna have an associate or grow, like if you want to grow an organization, you've got Blake and I live in an abundance mindset.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I think a lot of dentists live in a scarcity mindset, like they have to do that crown because that patient absolutely has to see me and and I need to take care of them.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: And and if they don't, they're gonna leave, like you mentioned, and we're gonna lose patients, and you start spiraling them in this rabbit hole, and it's just simply not true.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like I've had patients I've seen for three years that we have finally kind of transitioned on, and and they're totally fine because they know that at the end of the day, like you're still there, you're still it's still your practice, and you can still take care of them.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: And if they want to wait for whatever reason, you know, four months or whatever until you have availability, great, fine.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm I'm cool with that.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: But again, it's just the mindset like for a dentist to be successful in that situation, you've got to have that abundance mindset and not be afraid to just kind of take that leap.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: Some of my favorite days are when we're scheduled under goal, and I literally walk in and I'm like, watch us work, baby.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: So would you guys mind sharing what your like one focus is right now?
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'd be happy to.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: For for me, it's it's still just getting to capacity for me to be able to truly reach the goal that I have for what my life looks like as a clinical and mentor mentor type of dentist.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we just need more patients so I can hire more providers.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: And we're getting there.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: But that that's what I'm radically focused on.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: And and I I think you get the brunt end of that, right?
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I I call you more than my doctor's.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: There's no one month that doesn't go by the he Dr.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Blake's like, yeah, we need a hundred, we need this many.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, okay, okay, cool.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's we'll recalibrate, we'll get there.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: And next week he's like, actually, we need this many.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, wait, we didn't even we didn't even got to the last mini yet.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: But it's good, it's a good problem to have.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I prefer that over let's let's shrink.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that so do you have like a magic number that you that's like, hey, if I get to this, then that solves that problem and then now allows me to create other problems?
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: Or is it kind of like, let me just because I know you, I want to I want to present this other framework because this I think this is what might be where people get stuck.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, okay, well, if we get to 120 new patients, that's going to allow me to create more problems.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then along the way, stuff breaks.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're like, stink, so-and-so quit, or this happened, or this, you know, just all these things break, and that's real life, right?
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then we kind of go off and go to go fix those things, but you're really good at coming back and going, okay, now let's get back on the horse and let's keep going.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: How how do you work through that?
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: So we're working through that right now.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: We've got we've had some changes happen on our team that have let that's left us a little bit short staffed.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: And we're we're making it through.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: The beautiful thing is is that the people that are bought into the culture are in, right?
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so they They know that okay, this is just a season that we're wading through the waters and they know that it's gonna be beautiful on the other side.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: But as far as what is our goal, right?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like what are we what what's the problem we're trying to solve?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's not busyness.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like I don't want people to think we're we want 120, we want to we want 200 new patients so that we can be busy.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's a it's a capacity thing.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: Every day our plane takes off and we're half full and we're still burning all the jet full fuel and we're still doing all the things that it takes to fly a plane.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I just want the plane to be full when we take off, right?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's not gonna change how we do it, but we just have to we just clip we just uh quite literally have to have more people walking through the doors to be able to get to that point.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's not how many people can we see in one day.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's how many, how many people, how many active patients can we add over the next quarter and then the next quarter.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're solving two problems.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're solving like what's the max number of new people can we see this month?
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because that solves one problem, but then also you're really good at, oh, this is gonna be great in six months when all these people come back, right?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, a net new pay net new patients is really what I care about.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like I know like this month we've got 24 people are going inactive, and that's that's something that we work really hard on.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like we send two phone calls out, voicemail drops out every month to those people, and we usually recover about half of them.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so if we can not lose 24 people and instead only only lose, you know, 12, 14 people, well, that makes a huge difference over the long term, especially when you're adding 100, 150 new patients a month.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: So retention is huge.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: That that makes it so easy to get super clear.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: We go off on these side missions because we have to, right?
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: The game doesn't let you go forward without the side missions, but we complete the side missions, we come back, this is our focus.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: We're building this machine that's having new patients come in as well as patients coming back, and what that allows us to keep stacking and keep growing.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: How about how about you, Dr.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: Shane?
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: What is the the thing that you're just like hyper focused on right now?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh for me, it's been a change in leadership style.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's hard to like put a metric on it, a necessary like what does that look like in three months or six months or a year?
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: I think like I alluded to is that we've grown just like huge year after year after year.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: And now I felt like at the end of the year last year, we had our you know our best year yet, and it just felt like crazy.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: It just felt like a ton of chaos, right?
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I had to do some kind of inner reflection and kind of then realize that things had kind of gotten a little bit out of whack, a little bit of lackadaisical and some things.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like Frank mentioned you asked who who asked for a Google review today, and nobody raises their hand.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, guys, what the heck?
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's like what?
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: So for me, it's been it's been leadership.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: So for what that's looked like for me is we already do like team meetings once a month.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: I do department meetings once a month with each department as well.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: Too now I've taken it a step further to where I've developed leads basically in kind of each department in our practice.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and they each have like four to five things on a KPI scorecard that they report to me.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: We have a meeting for an hour and a half every Monday morning.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: First thing they go through, report all their KPIs, what was what was on track, what's off track.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: They also we usually lead with everyone having a to-do for the week, like a weekly goal or 14 days max that they need to check off.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: They report on that, like how's that going?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: Are you on track?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: Are you struggling?
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: And it's offloaded a ton from from my shoulders to kind of work with these people, coach them on it, what that looks like.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: And it's been hard.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: And it's I mean, it's been super uncomfortable for me too, because I'm used to everyone coming to me to fix everything and do everything.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_02: And and I just got to a point to where I just can't do that anymore if we want to continue to grow.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: So for me, that's been leadership.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: We also have a quarterly meeting once a quarter to like a half day that we plan.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: We try to do that off off-site with no distractions, lay out like a marketing plan, or you know, what are what are some social.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is it you and a couple of your leaders in your yeah?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's all it's all the leads.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_02: So I have like an admin lead, I have a treatment coordinator lead, I have a hygiene lead and an assistant lead.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_02: So they all go to that as well, too.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: My hygiene lead and my treatment coordinator also do a lot of all of our social media and stuff.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_02: So they kind of lay out some things on what we want to try to do, giveaways and stuff like that.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: Just kind of paint the picture instead of like I felt like last year we were just like chasing tails, like, holy crap, like it's you know, white teeth month or whatever these Hallmark months are holidays and stuff, right?
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, well, you know, we're scrambling trying to plan for this or whatever and stay up to date.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: So it's so now it's like more intentional than that, but also too, just like more on an operational level, like we're having to get back to the basics really and just and just hold people accountable.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_02: So now I'm I'm I'm have I'm having these conversations every Monday morning on like accountability and culture, like one of the KPIs where someone's like, What happened last week with culture, right?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: Is it good?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: Do I need to be involved?
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: You guys got it?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: So that's been that's been my focus.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: I've been all in on that, really doing daily check-ins as much as I can with each of the leads.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: How's it going with your scorecards?
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that type of stuff, but not fixing things.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's the biggest thing.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's like I have to let them either struggle through it or fail, and then come to me with it, and then we can kind of then I can step in and help.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: But it's basically like, you know, do you do EMPS or poll scores?
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh no, I don't.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh those are those are so I I went through this like the exact same thing.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: You like everything you just said, I literally went through all of that.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the beginning at the superhero syndrome, where you you answered everybody's questions and you actually get dopamine hits from that.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: Most business owners don't realize that.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like it makes you feel really good that you always have the answer, but it it begins to burn you out because it's like, dude, like you don't you don't know how to where to take out the trash.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know what I mean?
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like just like everything's coming to me.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so eventually you have to turn that off and say, no, I'm not gonna solve those problems.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's what's that's what you did, which is awesome.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: But it's but it's hard because you're not getting the dopamine hit anymore.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I really struggled with like, how do I measure culture?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because like culture is like this fuzzy thing, and it's kind of like you know, woo-woo a little bit.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't, I'm more analytical, like I don't care about those kind of things.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, how do I measure that?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: And there were two things that we started tracking.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: One was uh NPS's net promoter score, it's really good for employees, but then there's an E NPS and it's blind, meaning you don't know who says what, and they they can put their name into it if they want, but we don't require it.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: And we do it twice every year, and we go, hey, we go through every one of them.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: You can say it's kind of like an anonymous drop box, and you get a score, and it it's really good.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like now, if you don't have good people in the company, which you'll figure out really quickly, like some of there's we've had issues with like wrong people and wrong seats type stuff culturally.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like they said some brutal stuff, and it was like, okay, like I get it, but maybe it's you're not the right fit, you know what I mean?
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, but it really does it, it you get a score and you can work on it.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you're working on it by removing people, and sometimes you're working on it by giving other people control.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other thing we do, we do a weekly pulse check.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't we do this more because we're virtual, you guys aren't virtual, but like I want to know how everybody's doing.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: So every week they tell us on the end of the week on a scale of one to five, how are you doing personally and professionally?
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Just rate it.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: There's no anything attached to it.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: But if someone's mom dies, like I want to know that.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: And we send them cards and flowers and like, hey, we're praying for you, you know, thinking about you.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: If if someone's doing wonderful because they bought a new house, I want to celebrate with them.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, great job.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: So those are those are that that's easier to do when you're in person too.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I don't, I mean, I guess uh talk the hearing you talk about that, that's very interesting.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: I really like that idea.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna look into that for sure.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: I guess like, you know, how I know it's working or success or what that kind of looks like is just when they're core when their scorecards or KPIs each Monday morning keep getting better and better and better.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: And then we're kind of like for me, I guess it's almost like emotional in a way, or like like it's days are better, better, better, less escalations, more more coaching time for me and moments instead of just like putting out fires all the time.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's better for your team too, because they know if they're winning or losing before they come talk to you, right?
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's amazing to the people that you put you give them that responsibility, coach them on it.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: And like we we have a few that are just like catching fire.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: And like I'm super, I'm super impressed.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: So, and we've only been doing that, you know, for a couple months.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: So you find out real, real quick, you know, who's kind of ride or die and who's gonna step up.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm excited for it.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, giving giving them a goal is is huge.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like we've talked about this before, but they they have to understand what a win is.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of times there's we are so scatterbrained that our teams also become scatterbrained.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so they don't know what you know, what does Dr.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Shane want me to focus on?
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then when they have these KPIs, they they can know, and when problems hit their desk, they can know that's not that important.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: I know that seems like a problem to you, prioritizing, but it's yeah, but it's not a huge problem to the practice, and which reduces your drag, right?
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's less.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give you I'll give you a perfect example of this.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen it so many times where the doctor comes in and out loud says, I hate XYZ insurance in front of the whole team.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: I hate it.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so the front desk hears that and goes, Oh, okay.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: And they start screening those patients out on the phone.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Not no one told them to screen them out.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: The doctor just doesn't like the reimbursement on you know what one procedure from them.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so the team starts blocking patients out, and there's no incentive for the front desk, either on a conversion standpoint or the number of new patients.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: So for them, they're actually lowering their workload by screening those patients out as well.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: So in their head, they're like, I'm helping Doc and I'm lowering my workload.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yay! But you just screened out 15 new patients for the month.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: And the doctor doesn't even know what happened by the time they see it.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it just creates if if you can get the front desk to be like, no, no, no, no, your job's to schedule at this rate, and we have to see this many new patients, you're never gonna have that problem, even if you say you hate XYZ insurance.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: Dr.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: Shane, would you be willing to share those KPIs with us?
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think that'd be an awesome resource to be able to share.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I would love them.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: Share though.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think we could share, we could share them with the group.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: The scorecards too, right?
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: You're talking about the scorecards, yeah.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think what we're working towards is like everyone gets a number.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_02: So that's like even people that aren't leads, is we're trying to get everyone to a number because, like you said, that motivates people if they kind of know what they're they're working, working towards.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I definitely could share those.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: That'd be awesome.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you guys are absolute powerhouses, and a lot of that has to do with you guys just being like honest and open, like, hey, this is where I'm at.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: But you figured out how to tackle these one things, create a better world for yourself and a better world for your team, better world for your patients.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: And anybody who's listening to this, I know this is helping them hearing this from you guys.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I and I learned a ton from it as well.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much, guys, for diving into this today.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.