FULL BONUS EPISODE – Practice Vision

They have gone mad!! In a season of gratitude, Dr. Kuba and Bethany want to gift all listeners with a full bonus episode. So here it is!! Today’s episode is the very first bonus episode, which aired in November 2024. They discuss an incredibly important topic – vision. As 2025 comes to a close, it is critical to take a step back and truly evaluate the practice vision and the potential hurdles that are preventing that vision from coming to fruition. Use today’s episode as a tool for evaluating your vision, the roadblocks to your vision, and the steps you can take to unlock your vision. For additional resources on this subject, visit The Hub:

Yearly Reflection and Planning 

Team Feedback Bundle 

Practice Vision Bundle 

📣2026 Subscription Prices are INCREASING. If you want to lock in at the amazing monthly price of $49.99, you need to get on it TODAY! This month’s content includes: 

• A Bonus Episode designed to be SAFEGUARD your practice from sickening mistakes 
• S.W.O.T. Practice Analysis
• S.W.O.T. Take Aways
• Compliance Tips 
• Plus 6 Creative Team Building Ideas

All for $49.99??? Key Consulting Information for an INSANE price. Subscribe today to lock in at this amazing price before fees increase. Also, be sure to check out our annual subscription which gives you a 15% off discount! Get 2025 pricing TODAY!!  

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Transcript

Hey friends, before we get going on today's episode today, I just wanted to pause and say I am so thankful for each
0:08
and every one of you. I may not know your names, but I can see that I have
0:14
people from all over the world that tune in on a weekly basis, and that is just so humbling to me. And I'm so thankful
0:20
for the following that has kind of developed over these last few years. And I just have a lot of gratitude as we
0:27
start today's episode. Now, out of that gratitude, I am letting you guys into
0:34
this little world of the subscription. I'm actually going to play for you today
0:39
our very first bonus episode. As a reminder, this bonus episode is tied to
0:46
our subscription. So, our very first subscribers heard this episode, but I
0:51
wanted to play it today because first and foremost, I think it's very applicable to today, this period of time
0:58
that we're in and the importance of focusing on your practice vision. But
1:04
also, I wanted to let you into the world of the subscription because January 1st
1:12
of 2026, we are increasing our subscription prices. We um are we knew we started it
1:21
out incredibly low and we are locking everybody in. So, all of our current
1:27
subscribers, you're safe with your subscription. We're your price is not going up. But I also wanted to get
1:33
everybody an inside peak at at least the first bonus episode where you get a lot
1:38
of the vision behind the the subscription. Um, but also because I wanted you to have this as a gift. you
1:45
are getting a bonus episode as just a regular everyday listener, but to also
1:50
remind you that if you have been on the fence about whether to subscribe or not,
1:55
please do so before the year ends so that you can lock in at the 2025 rates
2:01
before we go up in January of 2026. So, I'm going to drop you into this very
2:07
first bonus episode which aired about a year ago today. Enjoy.
2:17
If you're listening to today's bonus episode, then that means that you have
2:22
made a choice to become a member of the managing dental drama community. So, let
2:28
me personally welcome you. I have no doubt that the people listening in are
2:33
the best of the best in the dental field and I feel honored to walk alongside you
2:39
in your professional journey. Now, today's episode is meant to be very
2:44
practical and give you some tangible next steps to take. Implementation is
2:50
key. So, I would encourage you to listen to this episode as many times as you need over the next 30 days. Now, it will
2:58
expire, so make sure to take notes on anything that you need to implement over these next 30 days. Again, welcome to
3:06
the community. I'm thrilled to have you. Lady, do you know what we're doing today? What?
3:11
Like we are. This is the first like out of the gates number one.
3:16
Yes. I'm so excited. I'm pumped. And anybody listening, you guys are the
3:23
creme de la creme. You're the smart ones. You're the smart ones. The first ones.
3:28
Yes. To get our very first bonus episode. Yep. Yes. I I I wish I could have the
3:34
names of every single person listening because you're the top of the top. Yeah. we'd give you a shout out. Um, and
3:40
maybe you could have a background of fireworks. We've arrived. Um, no. So, we're super
3:48
excited about doing this because uh our goal for these bonus episodes are to
3:53
dive a little bit deeper into the topic and make sure that we are giving uh helpful to-dos because I think that's
4:00
always been my bone to pick after any continuing education class or any webinar where I'm like, "Okay, but I'm
4:07
still left floundering." Like, that was all good in theory, but what am I doing? How am I executing this? And so the goal
4:13
of these bonus episodes and items in our newsletter um are meant to give you
4:21
something to do to make it applicable right away. Yes. Yes. So, I'm going to start this
4:27
with because we've had a theme here um of your vision and your kind of culture
4:34
and all of that because it's really kind of the foundation of how decisions are made in the practice and how you um move
4:42
forward. And so, here, you know, we're uh near the end of October now, and I
4:47
know you're going to hit us all with goal setting in January. I'm already dreading it, but uh that that's kind of
4:53
the key. So, how can we really set our goals more effectively if we have our
4:59
vision and our culture kind of in line? So, it all kind of ties together, but
5:04
it's to make it more systematic and practical and useful. Um, I think this
5:09
is absolutely the place to start. So, actually, I'm going to put you on the spot here. you don't know I'm going to ask you this, but I'm putting you on the
5:16
spot uh because I think it's a great parallel um to what your what your advice is and
5:23
asking us to do and then you you know it's a good analogy parallel whatever you want and uh kind of ties how
5:29
universal the the conversation can be should be. So it's not just us in our
5:34
dental offices. This is applicable to whatever you know you're doing in life. So I'm
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putting you on the spot. Um, what was your vision for this podcast?
5:46
So, my vision was for it to be a wide reaching
5:52
podcast platform. Wide reaching meaning I wanted information to get to people
5:57
that I would never be able to work with. And I wanted it to be something that
6:02
caused people to laugh and to realize that what they're going
6:09
through is not an isolated incident, that there's other people that are
6:14
actually experiencing the same thing. So, I wanted that to be comforting to people to be able to laugh, but also to
6:20
realize, okay, this is happening elsewhere. But I think the third component of that is I really did want
6:26
there to be practical takeaways that people could listen and feel comforted
6:32
and laugh but could also go, "Ooh, these are one or two things that I'm going to take away from that episode."
6:38
So from that vision, how has that informed the rest of your moves? Cuz we're we're on season 4 now. And so how
6:45
is it is it what you wanted and how has it helped you make certain decisions? And here we are with our bonus episode.
6:54
So, I'm going to assume the answer is yes. Uh, but can you fill in? Yeah. So, it's interesting because it's
7:00
it I would say up until the subscription, it's informed what not to
7:06
do. So, this is going to sound a little bit interesting, but there's a lot of different ways to make a podcast more
7:13
visible. And one of those ways is to allow these advertisements to pop in. So
7:20
there's a whole behind the scenes world that we won't get on get into, but basically
7:25
people would pay essentially to be able to plop a little advertisement into our
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podcast. And that came thankfully pretty early on because we had some good
7:36
volume. And so the platform we use is called Buzzrout. Buzz Sprout recognized that and was like, "Oh, let's pipe
7:44
through some people that would be willing to pay to be on your podcast." And I rejected that early on because
7:50
what I didn't want of the podcast is for it to feel like a typical podcast where
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there's sponsors, where there's these random advertisements that pop in
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because to me, you and I are having a conversation on each episode. We're
8:07
conversing. And so it's not natural to, you know, pop in and, you know, the tree
8:14
trimming service, have you thought about trimming your trees lately? And here we go, blah, blah, blah. That interrupts
8:19
the conversation and can take a listener out of the depth of a conversation that
8:25
we're in and cause them to focus on something that's not even related to the
8:30
content. And so, while that has continued to be pushed in my face, I've rejected that every time. Also, there's
8:37
been people that want to be on the podcast. We get pursued on a somewhat
8:44
regular basis like, "Hey, I'd love to be a guest on your show." But either they're non- dental or if they are
8:51
dental, I can tell it would be a marketing ploy. And that's not the point of the podcast. The point of podcast is
8:57
not to market to people. It's meant to be helpful. So, I would say it's protected the podcast from a lot of
9:03
decisions that I could have made along the way that I didn't. But it's also led to the subscription cuz I think you and
9:10
I both have had so many commentary with conver with uh people afterwards that
9:16
were like, "Oh, they want more. There is more that we could do." Or you and I will have this moment of dissatisfaction
9:22
where we're like, "Oh, I wish we would have also said this or I wish we could have encouraged him to do this. I wish
9:28
we could provide that resource. And so it's pushed us into the subscription
9:33
model to be able to be more help to people. It's like, yes, the podcast is
9:39
still there, but for those that want to take it to a next level, next level, we're willing, you and I are willing to put in a lot of extra time and effort to
9:46
build some really good resources. And so I would say yes, it has fulfilled the vision and going forward with the
9:53
subscription will definitely be more fulfilling. Well, and I love hearing that. And that's what I was hoping you would say
9:59
because to me it all started with what your vision was was to help other
10:05
dentists and practice owners. And so that being very clear with what
10:10
your vision was there, what your goal was, um has Yeah, you could you could have
10:16
made money on this podcast 3 years ago, two years ago, but that's not you you weren't just
10:22
grabbing at anything in your way. And I think that's things that you know for say a new practice owner it is tempting
10:29
to go oh well every other office is doing Invisalign maybe I should do Invisalign maybe I should do this maybe
10:37
I should do that and it's easy to get caught up in the noise but if you go back and go why did I start this
10:43
practice and if that was your goal was to offer you know everything under the sun under one roof then yeah then that
10:50
matches your goal and carry forward but for a lot of people it says, "I'm tired of having to be a jack of all trades and
10:57
a master of none when I was an associate here, when I was that there, and I want to make sure my practice doesn't feel
11:03
like I'm pushing all these services on my patients." So, it I think that to me was a really um important parallel
11:10
because I've seen how you've kind of had to navigate through some of these decisions and choices and I felt like
11:15
that's exactly what we have to do in our world. Um, for sure. And then the the next question
11:21
I have for you and then we can get back to dental offices cuz I know you've got a lot to say um here with this episode. Um but the other thing that I wanted to
11:28
hit on was how have you had to pivot? Mhm. Uh because the listeners don't know but
11:35
you had random gallbladder surgery this year like where you were out cuz your gallbladder needed to be addressed. Like
11:41
people didn't know that but that that led to a certain amount of pivoting. people didn't know like you've
11:47
talked briefly about having to you know not having to how you've built your home but I don't think people know that that
11:52
wasn't it's not like you were sitting there going oh I've always wanted to build a home and this plot of land just
11:57
no there were family circumstances that led you to that path
12:02
and has then you know you've had to you've had some distractions from the podcast where maybe you would have done
12:08
the subscription model a year ago had things not so can you talk a little bit about how you've had to pivot
12:14
it's a great Yeah, I think that's a good parallel as well. So, I would say the pivoting with the it I think this is so
12:24
practical for practice owners. Life gets in the way so many times, but life is a
12:31
part of the path. And so, I think there's so many things that I had dreamed for this podcast that really did
12:38
get pushed off for a variety of reasons. Part of it was life for me that just
12:44
some curve balls that got thrown at us from my health standpoint, but then also
12:51
a an aging parent or in-law that was going to require some care. So, we were
12:57
having to look at moving and building and creating special circumstances for her. So, we kind of went down this whole
13:03
path that was extremely difficult to make that life transition. And so there
13:09
were distractions for sure that came up in the process. And that didn't mean
13:14
that the vision of the podcast wasn't getting done. It just meant some of the dreams and hopes that I had for it got
13:21
prolonged a little bit. I could sit here today and say the same vision that I had
13:27
a year four years ago when we started this is the same vision I have for the podcast. It's what I've always dreamed
13:32
about. This subscription model has been something that's been on my mind for a couple years because I knew we could
13:37
take it to the next level in supporting our sub listeners quite a bit more. But
13:43
not only did life get in the way, I didn't have the right people in place. And so that's a component that a lot of
13:49
people don't know about as well. I have wonderful assistants behind the scene, but my assistants are part-time.
13:57
two of them are one of them's in nursing school, one of them's in college. They they can only offer part-time. And so I
14:06
knew that in order to properly roll out this subscription model, I really needed a full-time assistant that could ma it
14:13
is a grueling process to come up with this subscription model, to manage it,
14:18
to manage the platform. There's I knew that I did not have the capacity to do all of it on my own. And so my support
14:26
person that I had in mind honestly for a year or two had finally decided to make
14:32
a career switch out of being a teacher and I my husband and I had had my eye on
14:38
her for a while and then finally she had made the decision that we felt like she would eventually make. So once she came
14:45
on board which was in about May of this year then the work started. It's like I
14:51
had all the thoughts in my head and I finally had a full-time person that could help me get to the actual
14:58
subscription. So, here we are, you know, 6 months later, finally arriving there and it's been 6 months of grueling work
15:04
to actually get here. And so, it's not just that life stalled the process, but
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it's also I had to find the right people to help me execute the vision, which is
15:17
so much of the battle in the dental office as well. And so I think that's a key component as well. I think that is is the battle, right?
15:24
Like I think that's where a lot of us, you know, when you start your practice or you buy a practice or whatever and
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you get in there and you're like, how hard could this be? Like it, you know, it's like you look in the corner and
15:36
there's in Dallas there's three practices on every corner. Clearly, it's not that hard is the mindset, right? And
15:43
then you get in there and you go in with your vision of I'm gonna, you know, do
15:48
everything right and I'm gonna treat people right and I'm going to be a better boss than that person so my staff
15:53
will never leave me and I will, you know, like you've got all these grand plans and schemes and then things get in
15:59
the way. Um, insurance suddenly stops paying for two troies a year. Insurance
16:07
you whatever. Oh, by the way, here's comes a pandemic. By the way, you know what I mean? there's all this stuff that
16:13
happens and so I think you know your vision it's easy to get off course um
16:19
it's also easy to get off course if you were never clear about your vision to begin with and so I think um thank you
16:25
for letting me put you on the spot there but to me as I was thinking about this and going you know you've actually yes
16:33
you're not a dentist even though you could be besides not knowing the drilling like you know everything else about a dental practice um but you
16:40
you're you're it's it's the same things that you're going through. So, I have a colleague that started her
16:47
practice two to three years ago. She's one of our listeners as well. And we were talking the other day and I said,
16:52
"Hey, do you mind like can I pick your brain here about when you started your practice? What did you have a vision?
17:00
Like what was your thoughts?" And she had been, you know, in dentistry for 10,
17:06
12 years before that and she'd been an associate and whatever. And she said, "Oh, I very clearly had a vision." I
17:11
said, "Okay, well, tell me your vision. Like, what what was it?" And she said, "Well, I knew that um I had been in
17:20
offices where I was treated really well, and I'd been in offices where I wasn't, and I was not going to let people feel
17:27
the way I was made to feel." So, she's like, "So, I'm setting a certain standard starting off with, you
17:34
know, I want my employees to feel seen and recognized. I want. And so some of
17:39
that though, as I'm sure she's experienced, has been like, yeah, that's the goal that you want, but when you
17:46
first start off, you're barely paying the bills, right? So, it might take you a couple of years
17:51
to get that staff that you've always wanted. Um anyway, and to be able to treat them the way
17:58
that you had envisioned from there's going to be in that that's such a perfect example because what you want
18:04
you can't financially do in the beginning to really show your gratitude and appreciation and all of that to your
18:11
to your team. Now you can speak to them a certain way. There's little things,
18:16
tangible things that don't cost anything that you can do to still execute a vision, but what you dream about may not
18:22
necessarily happen for several years because there's just a barrier there that you can't financially afford what
18:29
you have in your mind. Well, and I think this is kind of back to your vision where there's so many people starting a practice that they
18:35
they they know it's not just that we know they need your help, but or a consultant or some guidance. They know
18:42
and they know about you. I mean, it's funny enough, now that I think about it, that's how when I met you.
18:48
I was just about to start my own practice and I went to a um the county
18:53
dental society's meeting and you spoke there and I remember going, "Man, I
18:58
really liked her, but there's no way I can afford her. I'm just starting off." Yeah. And so you fast forward like five,
19:05
six years later when a friend of mine mentioned that she's a client of yours and I'm like, you know, I know exactly
19:11
who you're talking about because I heard her at a study club and I remember thinking, man, wouldn't
19:17
she be great to have to help before I set my own practice and muddle and
19:23
fuddle and do a bunch of things wrong and then have to like wouldn't it be nice to avoid those pitfalls and have somebody helping me go, "By the way,
19:30
think about this. by the way, think about that. But a lot of people can't afford that. Um, and so yeah, it took me
19:36
what, six years, seven years before I was a client, you know, it took time and not that I knew that I wanted, like I
19:42
kind of forgot that there was help out there, but like right in my moment of going, "God, this practice sucks." Like
19:48
what am I doing? And then like you came in and and here we go. We've hit the
19:53
ground running. I I guess the point of all of that um and then I'll let you get into more meat
19:59
here is your vision's key. Yeah. Remembering you've got to pivot. Remembering you know like a lot of times
20:06
we're not good at we got to be patient. Yeah. Yeah. And I would say taking it to
20:11
a question that you asked me recently which was you said the phrase are you on autopilot?
20:18
And so it's almost like two components here. It's build the vision and know
20:25
that there's going to be life circumstances, there's going to be financial barriers, there's going to be all these barriers to completing your
20:31
vision. So, it's like don't lose the vision, but also be patient with the process. And then I think the other
20:37
component to that is, are you even thinking about the vision anymore? Are you just so much in that autopilot
20:46
world, rut? Are you in a rut that you're just not thinking about it? It's interesting. I was when we were
20:51
drive when I was driving to this spot today, the fog was super dense and so I
20:57
had my car on cruise control and at one point I realized I'm not even paying
21:04
attention. Like I'm driving and I've got a car that will actually steer and all of that for me, but I was steering. I
21:11
was driving, but I had the speed control set and the fog was super thick and I
21:17
really wasn't paying attent I was thinking about us recording today. I wasn't really thinking about anything. Next thing I know, I felt my car slow
21:23
down and I looked down. I was like, why is my car slowing down? And it says uh
21:29
you know in due to driving conditions, autopilot is is automatically slowing
21:35
down. And I thought about the question that you had asked. Are you on autopilot?
21:40
Are you are you not even paying attention? I could have if I wouldn't have been paying attention, that car could have slowed down to god knows what
21:46
on the interstate slowing me down due to this fog. And if id have just sat there just steering, just looking forward and
21:54
not paying attention, I would have not been making progress towards my goal, my
21:59
destination. And so I think that's really important to not only are you at the beginning and are you building a
22:05
vision that you can't quite attain yet due to what other whatever circumstances are preventing you or the opposite did
22:13
you set a vision? Are you do you think you're on the path but you're not really paying attention? It's just you're
22:19
mosying along and hoping that you're moving towards the vision. And I think both of those are key takeaways from
22:26
this month. So, we've come up, you and I have kind of talked about a couple of things that we both feel like would be
22:32
really helpful towards people in either of those situations, whether you're still building a vision or whether you
22:39
know you're not achieving your vision or if you're on autopilot. I think both of these would get you out of any one of
22:46
those situations. So, what do you want to talk about first? the um one that I
22:52
think is kind of easier um and and so practical and so almost kind of obvious
22:59
and yet it's one that I think gets overlooked very easily. Um, and my my uh
23:06
question for our listeners, the challenge or whatever for you is even down to the um environment,
23:15
does your environment exude what you want out of your vision? And so what do I mean by that? Like in a
23:21
pedo practice, like almost every office has some sort of theme because we're trying to make a kid friendly. It's
23:27
almost easier for a pediatric practice to kind of at least fake the environment, if you will. And so I have to kind of go back and think like mine
23:33
is a travel theme. Why did I pick that? Well, because in my vision, I didn't really have one. You know, it's not like
23:40
I was a huge um soccer fan and sports or the jungle or the
23:47
um what do a lot of people do? The the beach. Like I like the beach, but it just felt so done to me. And so I was
23:54
like, well, what what resonates with me? Well, I don't know. I read a lot. Do I do books? Like what? You know what I
24:00
like I just didn't know. And at that point in my life, I did like to travel. Yeah. And I was like, that's what I'm going to
24:06
do is is a travel theme. And and then that kind of sparked like maybe we could do like when the patient comes in, you
24:12
get a passport and you which we've never done all of that. It never quite came to fruition cuz it didn't really make sense
24:17
with the flow. But um but so that was important to me was like making sure
24:22
that it was the environment was um fitting that theme.
24:28
Yes. But then as a patient walks in the door, like what does it smell like? What
24:34
does it look like? What does it like? All of those things go back to how if
24:39
you yourself are walking into your practice, like literally walking into your practice and going, I can't figure
24:45
out what the vibe is around here. Well, then how are your patients going to figure out what the vibe is?
24:50
Yes. So, I think a lot of people are clear, like the ones that are like, oh, I want a spa-like environment. Okay. So then
24:57
they tie a lot of things to the spa like we're going to give you a warm washcloth, we're going to offer you a,
25:04
you know, weighted blanket. Like whatever it is, but have you revisited that to make sure that that still lines
25:11
up? Or did your weighted blanket break? Half the beads have fallen out, your staff threw it away, and there is no
25:17
weighted blanket anymore. And that was part of your vision. Yeah. So I think to me that would be one thing that whether you're starting off
25:23
or you're a seasoned person, what do you feel like when you enter your practice
25:29
and is that what you want to be conveying to then therefore the customer service experience? So if your goal was to be
25:36
like this high-end cosmetic practice and you've got like just volume of people
25:42
coming in, that's not relaxing. So, have you gotten off path because you had
25:48
bills to pay? Even though the vision initially had been like it's going to be like an organic spa and comforting vibe,
25:54
but you walk in and the girl at the front is not greeting you kindly, the coffee pods are never refilled and your
26:02
weighted blanket's broken. Like, have you kept up with what your vision was? So it's a very basic like forget getting
26:09
into the visions of your type of dentistry, the flow of your day, etc.
26:15
Does even just the physical space match your vision?
26:20
Yes, it's so important. And I think taking an active step to look at your
26:26
practice in a different way. So a lot of times when we're just living our daily
26:32
life in our home, in our practice, wherever it may be, we just start stop
26:37
seeing things. We start stop seeing things, you know. So I it's interesting when we were building our house, we
26:43
lived in this little little tiny house. And so I keep kind of going back there
26:48
to get a few things and and when I walk in,
26:53
I am like, I can't believe I lived in this. It's, "Oh, I never noticed this
26:59
big stain on the wall. How did I know? It's such a tiny house. How did I miss this?" And so then I'm getting out of cloth and I'm cleaning the stain. Or I
27:06
walked in over the weekend. I was like, "It smells in here." Like, "What is this smell? Did we live in the smell?" And
27:12
I'm just now realizing this. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I got to I'm cleaning toilets and making sure that there's no
27:18
I'm It's so interesting when you pull yourself out of a situation and you put
27:23
a different perspective on and you go back in, you can see things that you never saw before. So, one of my favorite
27:30
things to do is a practice walk through. Sometimes when I'm first engaging with a
27:35
client, I'm taking very close notes on what I see, even just little things that
27:42
they may have overlooked. There's this huge scuff mark on the wall that everybody walks past every day, but I'm
27:48
seeing it as a consultant for the first time, and I'm like, "Oo, have y'all noticed this big dent in the wall right
27:53
here?" And so, trying your best to walk out to your parking lot. Okay, I am a
28:00
patient. Maybe even bring somebody with you. Bring your friend, bring your wife,
28:06
bring whoever, bring your child. Man, children will tell you exactly like it
28:11
is. And go, okay, let's pretend like this is the first time that we're walking into our office. Let's pull into
28:16
the parking lot. What do we see about the parking lot? Let's walk through the front doors and just take in every
28:22
moment. You need to have a notepad and a pen with you when you do that because you will note down several things that
28:27
you feel like you need to change. Sometimes those are small changes. Sometimes your office is a physical representation of what you want it to
28:33
be, but there's just a few things that you picked up on. You didn't realize there was a cobweb up in that corner. How did you never notice that? It's cuz
28:40
you weren't exposing yourself mentally to that type of walkthrough. So, I think definitely doing something like that is
28:48
important. And if you can't pull out of the space enough, get somebody else to do it with you. Well, I was going to
28:54
say, yeah, bring in a mystery shopper, you know, and like maybe it's your friend at church or your friend's
28:59
husband. Hey, man, do you mind if you're got an hour at lunch? Lunch may not work
29:05
depending on cuz you you want I to me it would be Yeah, you you could do it when the office is empty, but I think it's
29:10
also equally valuable to do it when people are there because there that's when things really get missed. So, you
29:16
coming in to a new client or in our office, you're there once a month and you pick up on things that the rest of
29:22
us don't. um and you know the vision and what we're hoping that the patient feels
29:27
when they come and they go and you can easily point out and say, "Hey guys, y'all are wanting you know this
29:33
experience with the patient, but y'all I could hear two assistants squabbbling over there. I could see the front kind
29:39
of getting you know, it took you, you know, 55 seconds to recognize that that
29:45
patient walked in because the two of you had your head together. That's not the vision for this practice." Yes. Um, so I would say a mystery
29:52
shopper is a a if you if you can figure out like somebody who can come in and
29:58
pretend to be a patient. I don't know. I think that's a fantastic suggestion and
30:03
it can be anybody. Now, I would encourage you to think about picking
30:09
somebody that is your target patient. I'd rather you do if you if that's too hard for you and you're like, I don't
30:15
know who my target patient is. You know, you need to think about that. But if you're like, "No, I can't get my target
30:20
patient in or I don't know somebody that's my target patient." That's fine. I'd rather you get somebody in there to
30:25
take a look. But in an ideal scenario, you would go through and think, who am I
30:30
trying to attract to my practice? So maybe I am going for this organic spa
30:36
feel and I love, you know, cosmetic dentistry and this beautiful space.
30:42
Okay, go find a patient, some a potential patient or a friend that you know is geared like that and get them in
30:50
your space cuz they're going to view it differently than anybody else and be able to tell you if you're hitting the mark or not.
30:56
Yeah. Yeah. Do they feel comfortable in that particular space? So that's one of
31:01
our first steps is really think about your physical space. I do think if you
31:07
can the precursor to that would be think about your target patient, think about
31:12
your target day. What type of dentistry do you love doing? Because that will then better inform the walkthrough. I
31:19
call that a practice walkthrough, by the way. That'll better inform the practice walkthrough. But if nothing else, if
31:25
that's too much, at least do the practice walkthrough. Well, and I think that's such an important step to start with, too, because the other area if you're
31:32
thinking about how do you want your data flow? what kind of procedures do you want to be doing? Who am I trying to
31:37
target? That's going to help you make a lot of your marketing decisions right there, too. So, if we've not done our
31:43
homework or or if we if we have had that vision, this is where going back and
31:48
saying, "Okay, but I'm advertising in these like magazines and that's the
31:54
wrong, you know, I'm looking for older women that want to fix their smiles, but
32:00
I keep putting my ads in Dallas Child magazine." like, you know, does it match up? Does it make sense?
32:06
Um, so I think that's going to that's going to really help inform a lot of decisions you make.
32:12
Yeah. And uh so again, if you if you have not really clarified your vision or if
32:18
you're in a rut where you're like, man, you know, I'm 3 4 years into my practice and this is not what I had wanted. I
32:24
just don't feel good. Why? Yes. So where have we gotten off path? Or if you're a seasoned person, there's
32:31
a good likelihood you're on autopilot. Yes. And so before you get to the point where
32:37
you're like, "God, I hate my practice this month. I haven't had much joy in a while." And and starting and kind of
32:43
revisiting, yes, take a moment to pull out of that fog and really think about, am I on course? Am I where I want to be? Is this
32:50
practice going in the direction that I ultimately want it to go in? So, if some
32:56
of you guys are listening going, "Okay, I I hear you, but I still need more uh direction or points of how do I do
33:04
this?" Fear not. For in our newsletter, we will give you more like written
33:10
versions of start here, do this, do ask yourself this, do you know it'll be
33:15
step by step in that in that document. So, yes, and that'll be for level two subscribers. So, level two and three of
33:22
course, but level two. So that document will be there and we'll walk you through how to do that. Um even providing a
33:29
practice walkthrough as well. The other component that I think is critical to vision like we talked about with the
33:36
podcast and this whole subscription model. One of my big hurdles was I didn't have the right staff member to be
33:43
able to help me fulfill this vision. I think a critical takeaway from this
33:49
month's podcast would be you need to evaluate your team. You need to make
33:54
sure that you've got we talked about the rotten apple in the earlier this uh in
34:00
October and the rotten apple can prevent your vision from taking place. You could
34:05
have the best plan in the world, you've done the practice walkthrough, you know your target patient, like check, check,
34:11
check. But if you've got a team that's working against you or you've got a team member that's working against you, that
34:18
vision will not happen or it will happen in a very delayed uh response and it
34:23
won't be very fun in in the process. So I think a key takeaway is to evaluate team members.
34:29
So I've got a comment and a question. So my comment is like yes, that's exactly what happened with some of the rotten
34:35
apples that I got rid of not too long ago. And so the case in point, I I think I talked about it quite a bit in that
34:41
one episode, but the person didn't understand, didn't want to take the time
34:46
to understand the discount. And what did that lead to for us? We got rid of the discount. Well, when you go
34:51
back to the vision though, the vision is how do we help our patients get the work they need and how can we help them? Um,
35:01
and so by not by dropping insurance, I have kind of countered my own vision in
35:08
a way because now I'm able to help less people and if the vision was to help more kids. So, you know, we've had to
35:14
have all those conversations and kind of go where's my vision tweaked a little bit here. But at the end of the day,
35:20
like we weren't able to fully help our patients because I had one apple pulling
35:25
against the rest because she refused to understand the concept. And therefore,
35:30
our reaction was never mind. Let's not do this discount anymore. But that was
35:36
not the right thing to do for the practice. And it was like, oh, it's not the discount that's the problem. It's
35:42
you that's the problem. Bye-bye. You're gone. And now the discount's there. and were able to continue and and help our
35:48
patients and help our practice. And um so that's a tangible how the rotten
35:54
apple like really interfered with the vision in that example. The question I
35:59
have for you is back to the the age-old yes, how do I get better staff? What
36:05
like do I don't have a choice. Nobody else applied. So I don't want this to tangent off. I know we've done several
36:10
episodes on this topic previously, but just to kind of sum it up here, what
36:16
advice would you give if somebody's like, "This is what I've got." So, I
36:21
would say you can always start looking to see cuz I think sometimes we assume that there's
36:28
nobody else out there until we take a look. Either we take a look because we have to take a look or we take a look
36:34
because we're curious. But you can always put a job post up and see or you
36:42
can put feelers out through your social network and see and that can't a lot of people are like oh but you know Sally
36:49
will know not there's creative ways to make it anonymous where she wouldn't necessarily know that it's you. So I
36:56
think don't assume that you can't start looking. Sometimes I think people assume that nobody's out there and they're not
37:03
looking. Well, how do you know if there's I know word on the street maybe there's nobody out there, but maybe your
37:10
job post goes up and it just happens to resonate with the right person or in addition to that, why don't you
37:17
put that job post up and be willing to look at people that you may not have looked at before. Maybe before you had
37:23
this idea in your mind that you only wanted the best of the best, the cream of the crop from dental professionals,
37:28
so they had to have 5 years of experience and you eliminated everybody else below that. Maybe you miss somebody
37:35
that because of that predisposed idea that you needed a experienced dental professional, you actually missed
37:41
somebody that was on their way to becoming that dental professional and
37:46
you miss them. So I think re first of all put the word out there and
37:52
start actually looking and then second of all re-evaluate the parameters you've put in place to
38:00
ensure that you're not eliminating really great people. Sometimes I find that there's such a fresh perspective to
38:07
those that don't have all of that dental experience and so give yourself the chance to at least meet those people. It
38:14
doesn't hurt to at least meet them. I would I would say um
38:20
so I'm kind of countering yes whatever but I'm I would say
38:26
it's still better to have the rotten apples gone like we have seen that now and I know I
38:33
talked about it in the other episode but like the people that don't are not aligned with your vision
38:39
are are are helpful to a degree but then where are they detrimental cuz they will be detrimental at some point and case in
38:46
point like again knocking on my head right now the other shoe could drop but
38:51
we have been it has been such a nice environment the last two months now and
38:58
busy days have not felt like busy days like you you were in the practice just earlier this week and you met with
39:04
everybody individually and you're like the the vibe is such a positive vibe right now people feel like they can be
39:11
productive they're they're being more productive but they don't feel the stress and They're not tired.
39:17
Yeah. Um and it's because the rotten apple's gone. So that's going to be my cuz that's something for me where I'm always
39:22
like, uh, I need backup people. What if somebody doesn't show up? What if somebody quits? What if somebody we need
39:28
all these extra people and I'm finding at least right now that it's
39:34
actually easier than it's been all year and we're two people down at the front
39:39
in theory. And it it's easier now because it's the right two people, not
39:44
the wrong two people. So yeah. Um, so as far as figuring out, do you
39:50
have a rotten apple? Can you give us some advice and tell me what what we're doing for that? I think that's a great point. So first
39:55
of all, yes, I think the other thing is consider a life without that employee and know that you could probably get by
40:02
without them, which is I think a very valid point that you're saying. But a lot of people don't know that that
40:09
person is a rotten apple. And so one key takeaway that I want to encourage everybody to do is I want you to solicit
40:17
feedback from your team regarding each person. I prefer a written format.
40:23
You're going to get the most honest feedback. It's not going to feel drama or catty to be talking about people
40:29
behind the scenes. It's just a formal document that each employee feel feel
40:37
fills out about each employee. So Sally would fill it out about Susie and Tammy
40:43
and Tammy would fill it out about Sally and Susie. And you are receiving this information and they need to have the
40:50
opportunity to answer questions about those employees. They need to talk about the main strengths of the employee, the
40:57
weaknesses of that employee, anything that could be potentially
41:03
irritating about that person. And again, you may not even know that you have a
41:08
because you're living in your world. You're doing your life. You're chairside. You're not thinking about anything else but the dentistry. And all
41:15
the while, you've had a rotten apple that's brewing on the team unbeknownst to you. And because you have a nice,
41:20
sweet, professional team that doesn't tell you anything, you don't even know that it's there. So, I think it's a
41:27
really good security and safety step to do an employee engagement scale. And you
41:33
don't necessarily have if you don't have a team where you feel like you can share that feedback and make improvements, that's fine. At least use it for your
41:40
information to make sure that you do not have a fungus growing on your team. And
41:46
so you were just in our office this week and we had we had happened to have everybody's engagement skills that we had just recently done. You were able to
41:53
sit and talk with each person. Can you tell us a little bit about Yeah. what how those meetings
42:00
so helpful every time. And so what's interesting about the engagement scales is when you like in your team when we've
42:07
removed the rotten apples the engagement scales change because those rotten apple
42:14
feedback forms are removed. They're not there anymore. And so previously when I
42:20
was sitting down when we still had rotten apples on the team it was there
42:25
would be this theme to the engagement scale. Those six or seven people would say similar things. They would rate
42:32
similarly. There's differences, but there would be feedback that was repetitive in nature.
42:37
So, what you're saying is like six people rating Sally. Rating Sally. And they were more or less in sync. Even
42:44
though six different people on the team are filling it out. Yes. Back staff is rating Sally who's front
42:50
staff. So, other front staff are also rating Sally. So, we see Sally from different angles. different angles and
42:56
still similar like there she's being rated very similarly. Maybe a few changes feedback. So there's a feedback
43:04
section in the middle where they can write the greatest strength of this employee, the greatest opportunity for growth for this employee is and the the
43:11
team members are filling this out for Sally. And so that would change a little bit. There'd be different comments said,
43:17
but even then I could kind of pick up on a theme from those things. And so, uh,
43:22
but there when the rotten apples were still on the team, there were these outlier ones. So, I'd have six to seven
43:29
that were similar and then I might have one, and this wasn't all the time, but I'd
43:34
have one that was like rated real low. So, Sally was rated, you know, high scores for the most part. You know,
43:40
Sally can work on how she communicates with parents when she's frustrated. It's
43:45
evident when she's frustrated. So there's, you know, that was kind of a key theme that ca came up for Sally. And
43:51
then you might run across one feedback form that's like dismal. Like Sally looks like the worst employee on the
43:57
planet. Not really, I'm exaggerating, but much lower scores, harsher, you
44:02
know, criticism, and you're like, whoa. If you just look at that one feedback
44:07
form, Sally doesn't look great. But if you blend it in with the rest, you
44:12
realize, okay, Sally's doing a pretty good job, but she needs to work on these couple things. I say that for two reasons. Number one, the feedback is
44:20
very helpful when delivering it to the employees. All the employees are very, your employees really appreciate that
44:26
feedback from their team members and they take it and they're like, I am going to work on that, you know, that thing that kept coming up. But what was
44:33
interesting to me this time without the rotten apples is there wasn't an outlier. all the feedback for those six to seven
44:40
that were all kind of the the same same commentary, same scores, all of that. It
44:46
was all within this median range and there was no outliers. So, I can gain
44:52
something from that in that first of all, the assumption is cuz I don't know who
44:58
fill out fills out these forms. The assumption is the outlier forms that I would come across were the rotten
45:03
apples. So, that is critical when you're looking at those forms. Yes, you're wanting to
45:08
see how Sally's doing, but you're also wanting to realize, does this handwriting keep
45:14
saying real negative things about people? Oh, I may that may be my rotten
45:20
apple, right? Not always, but it's one thing to to take into consideration with
45:25
those employee engagement forms. So that's interesting because I would have thought the rotten apple would have come up with like everybody rating this
45:31
person like you know she's friendly to the patient but then she doesn't do this this this this like things that I
45:37
wouldn't see necessarily but they're seeing but you're saying it's even as the raer the raer could be the rotten
45:45
apple. Yes. Okay. Interesting. Yes. So to me you get twofold evaluation. you are getting these
45:52
engagement scales back on each employee so that you can kind of see what is the general theme about each employee. But
45:59
also if you're doing this like we're encouraging to do you to do all at once. Like if you haven't been doing this,
46:05
now's the time evaluate and make sure that your practice is on the vision path
46:10
that you want it to be on and that you're you've got the right team to help you get there. So if you're collecting these all at once, you're going to see a
46:17
pattern there that I think is really important. a pattern for Sally, but then also is that same handwriting
46:24
super duper critical for each employee. And then you're like, huh, okay,
46:31
there's a pot stir in here. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um, and I think the other thing that that's kind of the obvious
46:37
thing here, but one thing that has been a a relief for me to see is an employee
46:43
that initially was like, eh, eh, like everybody's kind of rating her like, eh,
46:48
you know, and now that the rotten apples are gone, everybody's like, you've stepped up, you're amazing, you So, it's
46:56
like we we She wasn't showing us her potential cuz the rotten apples were
47:01
wearing her out. And so the question was, are you also a rotten apple? Yeah. And maybe she was and she's turned it
47:08
around or maybe who knows? But it's just funny to see if if I had looked at her
47:14
engagement scale from February versus her engagement scale from last week, it's like she's a different employee.
47:20
Yep. So yeah. Um and now we're we're on track and I'm
47:25
going to savor it for as long as I can. Exactly. Yeah. I think those if nothing
47:31
else because there's there was so much content in October that I feel like was just like it's so practical and yet so
47:38
hard to do and so I think content from our podcast content from our podcast there's there's
47:44
so much that is yeah it's like we can all agree vision is so important yes but
47:51
what do I do with that information and oh my gosh yes rotten employee rotten apples man that's so hard but what do I
47:58
do so to me if like if we can solve those two things and and make sure that we're we've got a clear vision, we've
48:04
looked at our practice, is it actually looking like it's our vision. Um, and
48:10
then I would say the second component is figuring out if you've got the team to get you there. Protect your team from a
48:16
potential rotten apple. And if you've been in in the fog on autopilot, not thinking about your team, please, our
48:23
encouragement would be to hit the pause button. Evaluate your team. Make sure that you don't have a fungus growing
48:30
there that you need to take care of. All right, bonus episode done.
48:35
Awesome. As we conclude today's episode, I'm sure
48:41
you have lots of ideas running through your mind. Be sure to jot those down and just begin to take action on something.
48:49
Of course, if you have any questions or topic suggestions, be sure to message us
48:54
through the subscription platform Patreon and we'll be sure to respond to you. Thanks for being part of the
49:01
managing dental drama community. [Music]
49:14