Dental A Team Podcast

It's book club time! Kiera talks about The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins and how the method can propel leaders into the best versions of themselves. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today is book club time. It's been a hot minute since we've done a book club and there's a book club that I feel like is just a really good one. It's a popular book right now. If you've read it, great. If you haven't, well, welcome. I'm excited to share with you and it's from Mel Robbins and it's the Let Them Theory. I was very fascinated by this. I'm still fascinated by it and I think it's something of like when Mel Robbins said that you do not need to control everything. and that peace might come from letting go, not holding tighter. I thought, hmm, I might know a couple of dentists, CEOs, business owners, AKA myself, which means that there's probably several of you that might be struggling with some of these pieces. So whether you wanna read the book or not, just giving some highlights of how you can truly reduce your stress, lead with more confidence and stop micromanaging team and patient behavior, like that might be something worthwhile today. So I wanted to just. Bring that on today, share with you some quick tips and tricks on how you can even apply this principle in your practice that I've been seeing. As always, Dental A Team is here to grow leaders that are not just successful, but truly like having sanity and happiness in life. ⁓ Today, our podcast is going to be giving you tactical practical tips. Our mission is to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. And we do that through expert consulting for dentists and teams. I am not. Shy to admit that I think Dental A Team is probably one of the top-notch consulting companies out there where we don't just understand you But we are you that we don't just sit here and tell you doctors what to do But we actually actively work with your team to help them We have grown practices 10 20 30 percent within their first 90 days of working with us. We've added multiple millions We've added hundreds of thousands to offices and we've done it with ease simplicity fun teams actually love to work with us they enjoy working with us and that's something I'm really really proud of as a company of We don't just come in and like dictate to your team and force them to become robots. We literally help them, ⁓ give them some tools and then elevate them to be their best selves. And doctors, we teach you how to be successful owners for your path, for what makes you happy. And we do it in such an easy way. People are always shocked at the gains and the growth that we're able to do in such an easy, non-confrontational, non-stressful way. So that's what we're about. And I'm super, super excited about the let them theory. ⁓ Because the let them theory I think works so well for leaders. So anybody listening today this is really is leaders and I remember in the book she talks about how like She just has to let them like let people be who they are and it's actually helped me with my family So today I don't think it's necessary just solely for your practice But also pieces for you within your personal life and that's something Dental A Team were really big on is growing you as a person not just as a practice I just got a a voice memo from a doctor I worked with a couple of years ago. And this doctor said to me, they said, Kiera, ⁓ the year working with you was actually one of the most impactful years in all of my dentistry career. ⁓ This doctor is doing incredible things. And the doctor told me like just the mindset shifts that we were able to help them have ⁓ of helping them become more efficient of, they said, you pushed me to do certain things like hire an assistant and to Be accountable to you. And this doctor was really, really, really, really brilliant doctor. And to hear that compliment that ⁓ their time working with us was something that was the most impactful in their growth of their business. I just took as such a huge compliment to what we do because we're not just shaping you as a business owner, we're shaping you as a human. My background is marriage and family therapy. My passion is dentistry and my love of all things is life. Dentistry just happens to be the platform that I get to talk about it on. And so for this within the let them theory, it's let people be who they are. Truly we can't control other people's actions, but we can control how we are responding. And I know that sounds so simple, but ⁓ in there, like if we let team members show up late, it tells you who they're going to be. We let a patient cancel last minute. It's information for better boundaries in the future. Letting an OCA ignore feedback, it reveals growth readiness. And so like for that, I'm not here for you just to like... allow

Is running a dental practice the most stressful part of your life? Does hiring and retaining the right people seem impossible? Do you question whether dentistry was the right choice for you? Kiera reflects on DAT's recent CEO Dentist Webinar, including what dental leadership ideally looks like — from an individual and team perspective. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I am so giddy to be recording this podcast. If you missed it, you missed out. We did our CEO dentist webinar workshop and it was so rad. We did it in August and just kudos to all the doctors that were there. If you missed it, you're in luck. I'm going to give you the highlight reel. But I really hope that you plan to join us. It was a three day, ⁓ full playful out workshop that I just thoroughly loved. had doctors. joining us every single night and really just having that mindset shift of how do I go from being this day in day out operator to a CEO owner of my business? Like what are the things that I really should be doing as a CEO versus what should I be doing as a founder? Like how do we shift that mindset? And we did it based on our proven model, the yes model. You guys have heard me chat about that. The focusing on you and your vision, earnings and profitability, and then systems and team development. So it was just really, really fun. This really was something to help. Honestly, like afterwards, had so many calls with so many people that were there. And it was just joyful because they said, Kiera, I really want to learn how to be the CEO. Like as you talked about it, I finally understood like what my role should look like and how I should be evolving. And so just really fun. So just want to say thanks for our entire team. Thanks to everybody who joined. And for all of you, if you didn't ⁓ get to be there, you missed out. It was like full blown. And I did a little surprise. I wasn't expecting it, but I actually ended up ⁓ like doing an after party and it was really fun to just have real conversations. So ⁓ really, truly just a highlight. And today I'm going to kind of like break this down into what we did. I'll give a couple of highlights from each day of just for you to kind of get the highlight reel of it. And then, Hey, if you ever want to chat about how to become the CEO dentist of your practice, this is what we're doing for a lot of offices. I've kind of been shifting our model to help dentists and teams really elevate to have practices that run with team. leadership to have dentists to truly run in their realm of being that healthcare provider that you love and or exiting and going out of the chair. No, there's no set path. It's your path and really helping dentists ⁓ just elevate to that level of like, do I own this business and not have it own me? So just super jazz. That's what we're working on. Just really, really, really fun and exciting things and getting your team bought into this as well. So with that, I'm just excited. Welcome. If you're new to the podcast, I'm Kiera. It's super nice to meet you. ⁓ I love all things dentistry, including my last name is Dent. ⁓ I came from self-made, ⁓ being able to help practices grow to the level, the growth, the fulfillment, the joy that they want, helping doctors and teams align. And this is coming from real life, all of my experiences, all of our collective experience of our consulting team, bringing you tactical practical tips to make your life and your business work for you and not against you. So with that, ⁓ was just a jazz. Like it was so fun. So the first day we really talked about, ⁓ just some topics of like who can relate. So if you can relate to this great, this podcast is for you. number one is running a dental practice is the most stressful part of your life. hiring and retaining the right people seems almost impossible. Some months so great. Others feel like you're drowning. Your patients are canceling last minute, leaving your team and you helpless. know how to be a dentist, but you have no clue how to run a business. You're alone with your problems. You question if dentistry was the right choice for you. You feel like everyone has it together, but you don't. ⁓ and I hope if you answered yes to any of those questions, you realize that truly, truly, truly, you're not alone. And every single dentist feels this at some point and some survive and others thrive. And so the whole goal of the CEO Dennis workshop was to help you thrive. And so on the first day we really went through like, what exactly is a CEO? I remember there was this aha moment in my career where I'm like, what does a CEO actually do? I'm not joking, I Googled this and I was like, what is a CEO? Like, what do they do? And it was a good, I would say a good, ⁓ probably identity shift for me. To realize like a CEO is your chief executive officer. So like,

Tiff and Dana take a close look at a practice that wanted to get a handle on its growth. They discuss knowing numbers inside and out, forming a growth plan, keeping your team involved in any expansion. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello Dental A Team listeners. I am just so excited. It is Friday today. I don't know what day you're listening to this or what day it will drop, but you know, these are prerecorded. are not live. So that is not a shock to you. This Friday is almost ending. I think we've got a couple hours left under our belts for both of us, but I get to end it with Ms. Dana and I have missed you, Dana. I was on vacation last week and I feel like I barely saw you the week prior. And then this week has been crazy for both of us and I love our time together. think I scheduled this extra time just to chat next week because I miss you so much. So, Dana, you're rocking this outfit today. I told you that this morning on our morning huddle. Yes, we do morning huddles. And this cut you've got on your hair, I've told you already, but I freaking love it. You look stellar today. So welcome to Friday, Dana. How are you? Dana (00:51) Doing good. I'm excited to end, well, almost end my day with you two. I'm excited. I know we probably don't want to get into it on this podcast, but I can't wait to hear about your trip. And, you know, I'll take as much tip time as I can get. So I'm super excited to be here and to be able to chat with you and to maybe help some people too while we're at it. The Dental A Team (01:13) ⁓ thank you. Thank you. know I did. I scheduled our time next week and I was like, that's our catch up time. But I can say I did figure out I know you recently went on a cruise. ⁓ I am not a cruiser. It's not my jam. So I figured that out. But it was a great sampler platter and I fell in love with Italy. So we'll say that and I've got a lot of stories. I literally yesterday I was like, I need to like, type these out or write them in a journal or something because you know, in 10 years, I'm gonna forget half of them and there are just so many stories out of the nine days that I was gone. So I'm excited to chat with you. And we can share our cruise stories, I guess, right? They're wild. Cruises are wild. Cruise people are a little wild. If you're out there listening, like you're a little wild. I don't know about these 11 PM, like bingo nights and stuff. I'm like, guys, it's wild. But here we are. Dana (01:59) Yeah. I left mine feeling like you. not necessarily, I don't think that like I put it at the top of my list. Would I do another one maybe? But I don't think that it's at the top of my preferred methods for traveling. The Dental A Team (02:15) Same, same, same. But you know, Vegas isn't on my top list either. And it kind of felt like Vegas on water. So maybe it's me. I said 10, 15 years ago, you know, in my young years, I would have been all about it, you know, and I would have stayed up all night and gone to Rome the next morning. But at the age that I'm at now, not so much, not so much. I'm tired. My kid puts me to bed every night at like 8.15. He's like, all right, mom, we're part and ways. I'm like, you're right. I'm falling asleep on the couch. Let's go. So. Dana (02:43) you The Dental A Team (02:44) Anyways, anyways today, ⁓ Dana, I'm here to pick your brain. You've had, you've had monster success. think all of our consultants have had a lot of success, but you've had some pretty monster success with a few practices that you've got a load of practices under your belt, ⁓ over the years and currently working with quite a few rock stars and some that have come back around because they miss Dana so much. So, you know, if you're out there and you're missing Dana, you guys, she's still here. We love her and we're keeping her. She's not going anywhere. But you have actually worked with, ⁓ a few of us have worked with clients out of the country too. And you specifically, you've worked with a handful. I think you've probably worked with more than any of us have out of the country. So today's conversation is kind of fun because it is chatting a little bit about somebody who's out of the country, like their successes that they've had. not in the United States, but. for one, kind of notifying everybody out there, especially our Canadian listeners here. We do work with clients in Canada all the time. And Dana is actually a super stellar. She's trained a lot of us on a lot of things she's learned. And we've all been able to really kind of figure out how to manipulate some of our US standards and our ideas and our protocols and really translate them towards Canadian. And I think the biggest pieces in the Canadian world there are the billing. and the way the claims go out and the things that you're able to build and collections processes, things like that. But we've kind of got that down. Dana d

Re-releasing a DAT listener favorite! Kiera is all about key performance indicators in this episode, and why they're important. When framing KPIs as the vitals of your practice, it makes a lot more sense! Some of Kiera's favorite KPIs are … Production (net, not gross) Collection (at least 98%) How many new patients you're getting Average diagnosis Acceptance rate Overhead There are a lot more indicators she talks about in this episode, so whether you're a beginner with KPIs or elite status, there's something you can learn. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:05) Hey everyone, welcome to the Dental A Team podcast. I'm your host, Kiera Dent, and I had this crazy idea that maybe I could combine a doctor and a team member's perspective, because let's face it, dentistry can be a challenging profession with those two perspectives. I've been a dental assistant, treatment coordinator, scheduler, pillar, office manager, regional manager, practice owner, and I have a team of traveling consultants where we have traveled to over 165 different offices coaching teams. Yep, we don't just understand you, we are you. Our mission is to positively impact the world of dental. And I believe that this podcast is the greatest way I can help elevate teams, grow VIP experiences, reduce stress, and create A-Teams. Welcome to the Dental A Team Podcast. Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And you guys, how's your day today? You guys loving it? Are you crushing it? I hope you are, wherever you are. I am actually sitting in my bedroom. I ⁓ rarely ever podcast here, because usually my husband's home. But tonight, I have some friends over there in the front room, and I definitely needed to get some podcasts done. Sissy was asking me, I just love having team members that are great at what they do. And I hope you guys take time to acknowledge the team members that make you great. The team members that are just awesome at what they do. guys, Sissy keeps me so on the ball and I love her for it. Shelby does, Tiffany does, Brittany, Dana, Kylie, they are just an incredible bunch of people. And guys, if you ever get the opportunity to meet any of them, you are one lucky person. So I hope you're having a great day. I hope you're loving it. So podcasting today from the bedroom. I hope the audio is great. I hope you're loving it. Sun's just going down and today I just wanted to dive into a topic that I think is really awesome and it's KPIs. So what the heck is a KPI? A KPI is Key Performance Indicator. I'll be completely honest. You guys, know I'm like authentic Kiera Dent. People when they call me and they chat with us, like interested in working with us, the number one thing I get told is, Kiera, you sound just like you do on the podcast. And I'm like, this is really great because it is me. I don't shake it up, I don't change it. The only thing I do differently is I talk in a microphone so my voice sounds a little bit like smoother, if you will, on the podcast than in real life. But beyond that, same cadence, same tones. This is Kiera real life. So you guys know I am always, I try really hard to just be authentic Kiera. So if you ever come meet me in person, you peel back the Wizard of Oz current, I would be the exact same person as I am on the podcast as I am in real life. So when I first started as an office manager, I did not know what a KPI was. I did not know why they were important. I didn't know that I should be tracking these things. I literally had no idea. So guys, if you're in my boat, hey, welcome, welcome to the CureDent No KPI Boat. If you know what they are, welcome, welcome to the Elite Boat. And if you are using them, welcome to the Rockstar Amazing Boat. Let's make you even better. So KPIs, I call them, the way I describe a KPI is they are the vitals of your practice. So just like when you go to the doctor and they take your blood pressure, your temperature, they listen to your heart rate, all those things, those are the vitals. They take your weight. ⁓ I just went to the doctor the other day and it's super cool, like, right? You sit on the chair and they say they'll take your weight. And it was funny, the gal asked me, she said, do you wanna know your weight today? I was like, wow, thank you. Like, thank you for not making me have a bad day if I don't want to or thank you for giving me the opportunity. It just made me giggle. But bottom line is the vitals, we go to the doctor and they take those vitals first because if any of those are out of alignment, that's the first sign that we have trouble. So that's what I think of with KPIs in a practice. These are the core pieces that are going to show you, is your practice healthy or is it not healthy? So yes, it's tracking and there's lots of different KPIs you can track. That's why it's called a key performance indicator. I am a firm believer that you should be able to change

Tiff and Kristy break down the concept of work-life balance, and why so many people can't seem to acquire it. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello Dental A Team listeners. I am back today and you know, this is me Spiffy Tiffy I never say my name and I just assume everyone knows me. I actually this is a funny story. I actually had ⁓ Someone the other day it was a child was like, ⁓ you record podcasts you you're on a podcast Are you famous and I said well maybe in the dental world like for ⁓ small, tiny percentage, people might know who I am. So, it's Spiffy Tiffy, Tiffanie, I'm here, I've been here for a while, and I'm just super excited to bring so much fun and joy, and one of our core values is fun, and it has been Kiera and I's core value since the day we met, and that is one that I have refused to get rid of, even though every year we update our core values and they shift and change a little bit, fun has stayed there. The definition of fun has evolved and been tailored down to what we want it to be, but it has remained and I think we have some fun. So I hope you guys have fun on this podcast. I hope you enjoy it. I have Kristy here with me today and she is ready to rock out some fun, you guys. And I, you know, we've already recorded one this morning and Kristy, you said it perfectly. I was going deep and I don't know. It's a feeling today. We got a lot of leadership stuff we're chatting about and I feel like goodness gracious, Kristy, you're my gal. You keep me centered. You keep me calm. DAT Kristy (01:07) Thank The Dental A Team (01:21) and you allow me the space to go deep. So thank you for being here. Thank you for recording so many podcasts with me and just for being you, Kristy. How are you? DAT Kristy (01:30) Good, thank you. I'm excited to be here. It's always a good time when we can get together and help with anything ⁓ with our doctors, hopefully up and coming doctors, new to dental aging doctors. Yeah. The Dental A Team (01:42) Yeah. Yes. Right? Yes. I agree. I totally agree. And I love that you said that because there are so many listeners here. I think sometimes I forget, we get a lot of clients that have listened to our podcast in the past and that's how they found us. And it's just such an incredible resource to be able to get information to people and a tool to be able to reach so many new dentists. And then Kristy, I think I forget when they come, from the podcast, right? Or they've listened to the podcast in the past and came from, I don't know, Zenist advisors. They maybe said, hey, talk to these ladies, they're great. Whomever, wherever, however they found us, I forget that they still listen. And then I'll have a client that's like, I get texts sometimes that's like, Tiff, I'm listening to this one, and you just said this, or Kristy said this, Trish, and I get these texts from clients that I've had for years. And I'm like, my gosh, that's funny. I didn't even consider the fact that you You were still here. So repeat offenders. Thank you so much for being here. We love you guys. So like Kristy said, clients who are here. Hello. Um, those of you who are listeners and maybe you're just like, no, Tiff, I am a listener. I'm a diehard listener and I will be here for that. Hello. And if you're a listener who's like, gosh, I just keep thinking about it. I keep considering and this information is great. And these ladies sound amazing, but today's not about it's and, and, and. DAT Kristy (02:43) you The Dental A Team (03:10) I'm gonna call them because whether you say yes to success and you're our newest client or you say this is incredible information, I'm gonna implement some of these tools that you just gave me and we'll talk again soon. We're here for it. I want you guys to understand that we are not the company that you call and it's like, if you don't say yes, we never talk to you again. No, you say yes and, right? Yes, this was great information. and I'm ready to start. Yes, this is great information and I'm gonna go implement it I'll talk to you soon. Okay, pressure's off. So just call us. That was great, Kristy. I think that was a wonderful reminder to everyone. There's literally no pressure. Gosh, Kristy, I love you for so many things and today I am just loving on you for leadership communication, conversations and just like effective balance, right? We have a fun topic here, and I told you I have some tangents on it, and I think you do too, and I think we align pretty well on this topic. We really wanted to chat, and there's a newsletter. If you're subscribed to our newsletters, you should be getting a newsletter as well that will have similar, probably very different conversations in it, but make sure you're signed up for our newsletters that you're getting that as well. So today's topic, this moment's topic, is work-life balance. And I... get asked this by a multitude o

Dr. Len Tau, aka the Reviews Doctor, is on the podcast. With Kiera, he goes into the most critical nuts and bolts of making sure your practice stands out (or at least keeps pace with) online reviews amid AI. He explains jargon terms like ranking power and factors and velocity of reviews, whether or not you should actually be responding to reviews of your practice, and a ton more. Visit SuperchargeYourDentalPractice.com and enter the code RAVING to save $100 on registration for Dr. Tau's annual conference. About Dr. Tau Dr. Len Tau thrives on helping practices maximize their online reputation, marketing, and social media strategies. As a speaker, Len is known for his lively and engaging presentations packed with ready-to-use strategies. He regularly travels the country sharing his marketing brilliance and passion for practice growth with audiences. As a consultant, he offers practice leaders with real-world solutions tailored to fit their specific challenges and opportunities. Len loves to help doctors and their teams understand and implement successful online systems to build their practice. He currently serves as general manager of the Dental for Birdeye Reputation Marketing Software. Selected as one of Philadelphia's Top Dentists by Philadelphia Magazine, he continues to experience growth year after year in his fee-for-service practice focusing on general, cosmetic, reconstructive and implant dentistry. Following his father into the dental profession, Len graduated from Tufts University School of Dental Medicine and continues to pursue ongoing continuing education opportunities. He has had the privilege of serving patients for two decades. He is an active member of numerous professional organizations including the American Dental Association, the Pennsylvania Dental Association, the Academy of General Dentistry, the Eastern Dental Society, the Northeast Philadelphia Dental Implant Study Club, and the American Academy of Clear Aligners. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental Team listeners. This is Kiera and today I am so excited. This is one of my dear friends. We've known each other for several years in the industry. I'm super freaking pumped. I'm going actually be at his event next year in September. Little teaser. Stay tuned. He's got an amazing event he does every year in September. I have Dr. Len Tau. He is one of my faves. He is better known ⁓ as an authority in the dental consulting world, reputation marketing, and a practice growth. He's recognized by dentistry today as a top dental consultant for eight straight years. He is the author of Raving Patients and 100 plus tips to 105 star reviews in a hundred days. Like this man knows how to do it. He's one of my faves. We really do collaborate on so many fun things. After 20 plus years in clinical practice, he now helps dentists nationwide, increase revenue, case acceptance and visibility. He leads the dental vision at BirdEye, hosts the Raving Patients podcast and runs the Supercharger Dental Practice Conference, which is the one I was alluding to that we're gonna be at next year in September, empowering practices to thrive in today's competitive landscape. He's truly one of my faves. And today we're gonna dig into like, how do you get online reviews? But Len, welcome. I'm so happy to have you on the podcast. How are you today? Dr. Len Tau (01:06) I'm good, thanks for having me, I'm excited to be here. Kiera Dent (01:08) Of course. And this just came about because Len like, let's just do a little teaser. You're prepping full like steam ahead right now for your event that's coming up in September in Florida. ⁓ I love like the last time you and I were on the podcast, we talked about you in clinical dentistry. And then we reconnected after some time and you've left the chair, you're living your best life and you full blown gone into the event space. So just like, I know we're gonna get into like online reviews and how AI is changing that it's going to be just a really, really fun episode today. But tell us a little bit like How is it going from like full blown dentist in the chair to now full blown events, like running these awesome events that we're super excited to be a part. Just kind of give me a little insight to that. Dr. Len Tau (01:46) Well, it's been, it's been a lot of, a lot of fun. It's been very different, obviously, you know, for 23 years, I practiced dentistry, um, for about 12 of those, 13 of those who was full time. And then I went part time in 2017 until I sold and retired in 2022. Um, but one of the things I've grew up on in dentistry was going to dental events and, the big, the ones, the small ones, you know, all over the country and as a dentist first, and then as a vendor. Kiera Dent (02:08) Mm-hmm. Dr. Len Tau (02:15) Um, since 2013 or 14, so a long time in the space. know, one of the things that really hit me was that the events a

Kiera shares some motivation everyone could use a bit of right now, especially if you're facing significant challenges. Her episode reading recommendation: Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera. And today I just want to give you a quick tactical, amazing, miracle morning recap. I have a friend in my life right now who is just struggling and I struggled last year and like I realized, my gosh, like maybe it's time for me to give you guys a quick boost on how we can create a little bit more momentum, a little bit more magnetism in our lives with a lot of ease. So if that's what you're here for, I'm here. Today's more about a life rather than a tactical tip. but I believe that this tactical tip is going to set your DNA up to be the successful practice, the successful office manager, the successful hygienist, successful team member, giving you the DNA and the blueprint for it. So my name is Kiera. We love helping dental offices, their teams and their doctors and their patients truly live life at a higher level to be happier, to be more fulfilled, to be more profitable, to say yes to more things in your life. We call the yes model. You as a person being fulfilled, happy, vibrant. E stands for earnings and profitability and S stands for systems and team development. Like let's put the systems in place. Let's teach you the tacticals, but let's make sure we get the DNA right. ⁓ Miracle Morning was a book that came into my life by Hal Elrod at such a vibrant time. I was at my lowest of my lows and I just needed almost like ⁓ a roadmap out. And I feel like this book was so magical and so powerful for me. And I just really, really, really appreciate it. So ⁓ I'm going to give you guys like kind of a rift on it. But like helping you just get this into your life. Because like I said, my friend is just struggling, high anxiety, burnout, feeling like, can't I be, like, why can't I do this? A new mom, feeling just truly burdened and down. And I remember I was talking to them and they said, Kiera, I just don't understand. Like, I feel like I should be able to do this and I feel like I can't and I don't understand why. And I thought, gosh, how many people feel this day in and day out? Like all of us. And that's the lie is we all think that everyone else can figure this out and I'm just the schmuck and I just don't know how to do it when it's all just a stupid lie. And I'm so irritated about it because the life experiences that we're having right now are truly gifts to us to help us evolve into the person we ultimately want to become. if you could realize that the challenges we're facing right now are truly the gift of your soul to propel you into the version of yourself that you need to be. is something so hard to comprehend when you're going through it, but so easy when you're on the other side, like, wow, that was the greatest gift life ever gave me. And remember life is always happening for you and not to you. So how Elrod, like it just helped me have like a routine, like a routine of pieces. So like I said, I'm just going to break it down for you. He goes through what he calls are the lifesavers. And the lifesavers on there are S stands for silence, A stands for affirmations, V stands for visualization, E stands for exercise, R stands for reading. and S stands for scribing. So on the silence, the way he describes it, it's like, be quiet in your mind and block out the chatter through meditation, prayer, or focused breathing. Okay, so I do it, I do meditation in the morning. I love Joe Dispenza, that's the one who's come in for me for a long time, I didn't. I've done calm, I've done lots of different things, prayer, whatever it is, but the goal is to quiet our mind. And I believe that our mind is like a muscle and we need to strengthen it. And so this is a great way to almost do like bodybuilding for the mind is to every day. just have a moment and like a time of silence. And I usually do this before I start my day. So it's kind of like setting myself up, building that foundation, creating this affirmations, tell yourself encouraging words to achieve goals, overcome fears and feel happy. And what they've proven is like one thing that I love about Joe dispense is he talks about like the future causes anxiety and the past causes depression. And how can we be in this future moment in this present moment? And then how can we create our future and actually break the pattern and the habit of things that are known and create an unknown? of what we actually want to become. So when we do these affirmations of like X, Y, Z, and then we go followed up with the visualization, a visualization, imagine yourself doing things you need to for the day in your future life and imagine what it feels like to succeed. So for me, it's like, what is that? Like, don't have to s

Kiera and Kristy talk listeners through the patience of the hiring process, with specific attention to understanding training capacity, establishing onboarding expectations, utilizing available resources — and what to do when you do all this already, and it still doesn't seem to work. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team Listeners. This is Kiera and today's an awesome day. I'm so excited. We have the one and only Trouble Hunting Kristy on the podcast today. I call her the truffle hunter because she finds all the money in the practices. Like Kristy, I don't know if you've looked at the stats, but you are rivaling me on the amount of production you're bringing into practices, which I think is a huge shout out to you. Kristy's one of our incredible consultants. So Kristy, with that intro, how are you today? Kristy (00:27) doing wonderful. Thank you. Kiera Dent (00:29) Good. Yeah, of course. I feel like I need to get like a good nickname for you. So I've been like, clicking Kristy, but it's like, that's not what I'm going for. I'm going for like hunting Kristy, but I need like something. So if anybody out there can think of it, like in my mind, Kristy sits there. I don't know. It's a really funny image I have of you, Kristy. I see you like with your little shovel. You're like digging for the gold and the practices. You're like, I'm going to find it. It's like sleuth status Kristy. So if anybody has a great nickname, send it on over. [email protected]. I'm always here for good nicknames. So, Kristy will find one for you. You know, here we go. But Kristy, we've been working on some practices together and ⁓ just like in general consulting, I think there's some fun things. And right now I think it's like, what do you do when you can't hire team members? I think hiring like hygienists for an office, the hiring climate is really tricky. And I think we've been coming up with some good ideas. Kristy (01:01) Yeah. Kiera Dent (01:23) that might be really fun to dig into if you're down with that today. Kristy (01:26) Love it, absolutely. Kiera Dent (01:29) Awesome. All right, Kristy. So with practices, I were pretend I'm your office and I'm like, hey, Kristy, I need to hire, but I can't hire. Like what's step one, two, three? Where do we even start to find these people? Because I think this happens in almost every single practice. I've said it before in our company. Like how do we break beyond that to help offices really find some people? Because you had an office that like could not find anybody. And now they're onboarding three people in one moment. Like it's pretty incredible how we went like the swing and the shift. So how do we get to that other than just having patience through the process? Kristy (02:03) Yeah, well, I think there's multi steps to it. But first, I think we have to take a look at ourselves and figure out, are we the type of person that likes to train people or not? Right? Because if I truly am not a person that likes even training people, our avenue may look a little bit different than ⁓ if I really enjoy developing and coaching them up, if you will. So first there's that step, if you will. And then I think the next step Kiera is, I get my doctors and teams brainstorming. What attributes are you trying to find within this person? What do they need to possess as a person, personality wise? And what skills are you looking for them to possess? Kiera Dent (02:31) Okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah, because I love that you actually brought up do I want to train and develop somebody and then who are we looking for because I think Sometimes people like know thyself and be free I think is the best way to phrase that I am someone who we used to try and hire consultants and train them up and honestly we did a dang good job, but I got to a level as the company grew where I'm like We just need people who are already expert consultants that can come in at the level that we need. And so even though I might love to develop people, I think also looking at the size of your practice to see, is this a position that we have the space to grow them? Like if I'm a brand new practice owner, trying to grow and develop an office manager, probably not a great idea. Like that's hard. And that person also, you have to look at too, the ROI of this position that, well, I might not feel like I can afford it. they're actually going to bring money like a very experienced office manager who knows how to bill and knows how to close cases. Even though they're very expensive with air quotes around it because you're brand new will pay undue dividends. Just like when I hire, I remember hiring my first treatment coordinator. I looked at her in the interview and I was like, listen, her name was Kristen. I still remember this. And I'm like, Kristen, I begged our doctor to like stamp off and let me hire you, but you have three month

Dental A-Team's marketing mastermind Eve joins Tiff on the pod to discuss the top marketing strategies that can be easily implemented in your practice. They touch on social media, offline marketing, retention, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello Dental A Team listeners. I am in the studio air quotes there because you know, we're in two different places I say that all the time, but I am in the studio with someone very very special today and I'm so excited I just I adore this human being more than I think she will ever know I think she thinks she knows how much I adore her but she has no freaking idea And I'm so excited to bring her here with you guys today. And I always bring my consultants and they are by far and away the A team and they make the Dental A Team who we are. And I'm always just so happy to bring them to you. But today you guys, I have the most amazing human being. I have Eve with us. And some of you may know Eve's name. ⁓ All of you likely see her handiwork every single week in your inboxes, in your email. ⁓ invitations, if you're part of our doctors groups, you are seeing her sprinkles of fairy dust and everything that the Dental A Team puts out, our logos, everything that we do. Eve is our marketing genius behind the scenes and she hates that term, but she really is our marketing genius. I have. Eve, I'm just so happy to have you here. Like I could sit here and talk about you for the whole podcast and the amazing things that you've been able to do with us and for us. But first and foremost, massive welcome, massive thank you for taking this on. This is not, you love to be behind the scenes, but being in the face of everything is not your favorite space. And I somehow convinced you to do this. And Eve, thank you so much. And how are you today? How excited are you to be here with all of us? Eve (01:37) I am equally excited and nervous to be here. This is definitely one of the things that I had to challenge myself to do. you know what? It scares me and it's something new that I've never done before. So ⁓ let's do it. The Dental A Team (01:52) I'm so excited. for all of our listeners, if you've ever attended one of our monthly webinars, we do free webinars so everybody knows every single month. It's the third Thursday every month. Eve actually, that's her. She is responsible for those. She puts them on. You've probably heard her amazing voice on there and maybe even seen her face a time or two, but that is the handiwork of Eve. And I know most of the content and most of the stuff, the engagement that you're seeing is put on by the consultants, but I want you guys to know Eve is freaking brilliant. She is a mastermind and she has so many tools in her tool belt. And honestly, she, and I are constantly just in awe. Eve of the, we've told you this before, where we'll create content now, you guys. we, Kiera and I create the content. We're like, yep, let's rock and roll. And we send it over to Eve and I'm like, my God, I didn't even think of that. Like she's thinking of like dental things for us now too, because. You've just done so much of it with us and you pour your heart and your soul into everything that you do. And I think when it comes to a great marketer, that is a massive piece of what really makes you shine and makes the company that you're working with or for truly shine as well is that you pour your heart and soul in there and you become who you're working with and you become that piece of content and you just embody it and you literally, like, ⁓ it makes me think of like Jim Carrey. Jim Carrey does really, really well studying everything that he's going to his characters, right? So he does all the studying and he literally becomes them. And I've watched documentaries about him where he's like this different human. And that's what I imagine you doing Eve, when you go in and you do all of our content and all of our slideshows, our decks, all of that. You just become that content and you make everything just shine a little bit brighter. So massive kudos to you. Huge thank you and. Again, thank you for doing this podcast with me, you guys. This is gonna be huge. Obviously we're doing it about marketing. I get so many questions about marketing and if you know I love marketing, it just lights up my soul, I don't know why. I love changing something a little bit to get a different result and to see what happens and use different words, use different tools, and it really, really lights my soul on fire. I get asked a lot of marketing questions and something that even just what you talked about right now when we're prepping for this, I'm like, gosh, I actually get asked these questions constantly and I get asked for marketing companies. We have a ton we can recommend. We have time we work really closely with, but Eve, I really, really wanted you to come in today and really hel

Kiera talks about the concept "going into the storm," aka how to approach those difficult conversations with team members, and how this builds trust as a practice. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera. And today I think is gonna be a really, really, really beneficial conversation. This is something that I've worked with tons of offices on. It's something that I feel is such a good just reminder of the type of practice, the type of leader that we wanna be. So, and it's called going into the storm, how to have hard conversations with your team and actually making them easy. So with that, ⁓ this is like, it's just random. So Buffalo, ⁓ I I'm going straight into a story for you. Why not? Happy dental day. Happy everything for you. But when Buffalo, there's a storm coming. So they watch this, basically like Yellowstone area over like the Rocky Mountains. When a storm comes, they've watched Buffalo behavior. What Buffalo do is they actually, the storm's coming at them, like these big, we're talking like a big, snowy, scary, terrifying storm, blinding. They can't see. I've been in some of these storms. Buffalo actually turn. face the storm and walk through the storm. Like they literally go into the storm, whereas cows, what they do when the storm's coming, they see it and they actually pivot and they run away from the storm. And what's interesting is the buffalo, when they go and they hit it head on, they're actually able to get through the storm and be able to come out on the other side faster and with less like heartache and burn on them versus the cows that are actually in the storm so much longer because they avoided it. And then they actually, the storm just like goes with them for much, much longer rather than hitting it head on and taking it on. So when we talk about this in teams and kudos to an awesome doctor up in New York, he's the one who introduced me to this. We talk about it in all of his practices. His practices are thriving. We've taken this to other offices. We do it within our company, but it's where can we go into the storm in our practices? Where are we avoiding conversations where if we would just have them head on, we'd actually be able to move it so much faster and further ahead. And I think about this a lot of like those storms, if you realize, are actually the things that are the building blocks of gaining greater trust and vulnerability with each other. So we go to Patrick Lincione's five dysfunctions of a team. The bottom layer is trust and vulnerability. Then the next layer is healthy debate. Then the next layer is commitment. Then it's peer to peer accountability. And then it's results in winning. So if we look at all that, we break it down. People who go into the storm that's building trust and vulnerability and it's having a healthy debate. versus those who avoid it or are avoided. Like it actually just makes it last longer. And I my little sister said, she's like, here, it's like 10 seconds of courage to overcome these things. And when you look at other opportunities and other stories and other scenarios, when people go into the storm, they walk out on the other side and they're like, gosh, I'm so glad I had that conversation. Even though it was a hard conversation, it ends rather than being avoided on it. And so having those... All it does is it's going to build resentment when we are like the cattle and you're in it so much longer and it's more exhausting for you and it's more draining on you rather than turning it and going into the storm. So in your practice, I have some offices who have literally made like hats, t-shirts, swag, and they say go into the storm. And I think it's a really good reminder. And I'm even tempted to do it in our company. So like, Hey team listening, ⁓ I really think it's an awesome idea to just wear shirts, to make bracelets, to have it on a hat of go into the storm. So you're reminding yourself that you're always going into the storm. I want to have this ⁓ conversation because true leaders go into the storm. Those who are followers avoid. And I just want you to realize like, who am I and what am I doing and what's my behavior? And so this healthy debate or healthy conversation actually allows for more direct conversation and builds trust and it builds a stronger practice. And it's wild because I had an office, we talked about this and we talked about their quarterly meeting. And then three months later, I asked them how they're doing in their life. We've been going into the storm so much more. And when I talked to this office manager, she's like, Kiera, it's crazy how many times I need to go into the storm and how many times I was avoiding it in the past. But now that it's on the forefront of my mind, I'm thinking about it more. I'm doing it more. And I'm actually making it to where it's just better experien

Tiff and Kristy discuss the ongoing challenges of hiring, including how incentives and mentalities have shifted over the past five years — and what you, as someone hiring, can do about it. Part of the discussion includes the pros and cons of how to pay team members. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:02) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are back today. I have Ms. Kristy again with me and we are just having a good old time over here recording ⁓ Love and Life and getting our time in together. I think you guys have heard us say it before. This is like, and I know Dana says the same thing, this is some of the only one-on-one time that we get in our lives. I don't know if you guys know this or not, but we are a completely virtual company, meaning we are all at our homes. We don't have like a workspace that we come to and then if you're a client of ours, you know, we're on calls or in offices quite a bit as consultants or our consulting team. We really just don't get a ton of time together. So these couple of hours that we bust out some podcasts are near and dear to our hearts and I just adore you Kristy and I appreciate you blocking out the time when your schedule always for it and for always just putting so much value into everything that you do. with your clients, with your podcasting, everything that you do. So Kristy, thank you so much. Thank you for being a part of the Dental A Team. Thank you for being here today. How are you? How are things going over there? DAT Kristy (01:09) Good, thank you for having me. It's wonderful. I love what I do serving people and it just brings great joy. So happy to be here with you. The Dental A Team (01:18) Amazing. Good. Thank you. And I have a question that I haven't asked you yet. How are, how's your family adjusting to the heat to being here and your puppy who's not necessarily a puppy anymore, but he'll always be a puppy. All your dogs, I guess, both your dogs, but how's everybody, how's everybody doing kind of getting settled into Arizona? DAT Kristy (01:40) Yeah, everybody's loving it. Thank goodness there's pools around so we can get cooled off. the dogs, they're definitely staying indoors right now. It's especially the little Frenchie, you know, that you have to be careful because they will overheat really easy. He's I can tell he's missing his walks right now, but they'll swim. The Dental A Team (01:46) Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, good, good. I had a black lab that hated water, like couldn't be anywhere near water, which is so not allowed. And summers were rough. He would get hot, but he wanted to be out there, but he was an Arizona born dog, so he was fine. But I was just thinking about earpups this morning, like, gosh, they're not used to not being able to just go outside and chill in the backyard for a couple hours. Well, I'm glad that they swim. I'm glad that they're enjoying that. DAT Kristy (02:25) So true. The Dental A Team (02:31) ⁓ and yeah, we're just, we're excited to bring you some information this, this day. We've got, gosh, what four podcasts for recording. So I'm super excited for them all to release and you guys, we always want you to know that these podcasts are for you. So if there's ever anything that you have hopes, wishes, desires, things you want us to talk about things that you want us to dive in deeper on, please just always reach out. [email protected]. We are always taking suggestions and we're always here to help. And also if there's anything that we say on these podcasts that we're like, we'll get you that. We really do mean that as well. have clients that write in all the time and say, Tiff said, and I'm like, sometimes my marketing team is like, what were you talking about? I don't know, but we figure it out. Whatever it is that we say that you can have, we want you to have it. We are here to deliver massive amounts of information to the dental community in the best ways possible and that. comes with a ton of free resources. That's our podcast, that's our sheets, our documents, our website. We have all kinds of stuff everywhere, our ⁓ social media, we're on Instagram and Facebook, like wherever you can find us, you're gonna find a slew of information. So we're here for you and when you're ready for one-on-one consulting and not just getting all the information on your own via the web, please reach out, [email protected]. We are so excited to serve all of you guys in whatever way fits you the best today. Kristy. I wanted to chat this podcast today. I've had, well, number one, I've had a lot of hiring in all of my practices. So I actually chatted with a doctor yesterday, a very successful doctor in Colorado, and he was like, Tiff, what the heck? Like, we lost another one. We just filled our hygiene spots and now we're in front office. And like, what is it? What's going on? He's like, just as soon as I feel like I'm making

Kiera and Kristy break down a few reasons why your practice might not seem (or might not be, period) to have any money. They touch on how to find your profit point, knowing your debt, staying on top of collections and AR, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera. And today I have Kristy with me and I'm super excited because today is one of my favorite things to do as consultants and I call it office autopsy. ⁓ Don't worry offices, this is a mix of a few offices because believe it or not, offices think that they're on individual islands and believe it or not, you're not. ⁓ Multi-practices actually struggle, they actually do the same things that you struggle with. And so we just wanna make sure that we bring, we're not going to ever disclose who this office is. We will mix a few offices together, but I think for people to see what the office's pain point was and then what as consultants were able to do. Kristy, we have some really fun ones. so Kristy and I decided we wanted to podcast today about some office autopsies of what, hopes to help more offices. So Kristy, welcome to the show today. How are you? DAT Kristy (00:48) Good, thank you. Pleasure to be here. The Dental A Team (00:50) Of course. Well, I'm super happy because I think the one that we run into a lot ⁓ is we call it cash flow row or cash flow woes, like whatever you want to talk about. But it's really when an office comes to us and they seem to not be able to figure out what's going on. ⁓ They feel like they're producing. Sometimes they're producing, sometimes they're not. So we'll kind of discuss like how to know if you're producing enough or not. But then they feel like they just like have no cash. And so giving some background. Like I said, I'm going to blend a couple of practices together, but we have kind of going to do like two simultaneous ones. One practice was producing really, really well, but literally the owner felt like they had no money. We're talking like flat broke, felt like they were completely going to go under, had no money, but yet their production numbers were really good and their P &L looked really good. And we're just like, it showed on the P &L. I think, Kristy, you'll find this too, offices get so frustrated. I got so frustrated and angry with my CPA when they said, well, Kiera, like according to the numbers, you have money. And I'm like, great, high five, jerk. I have no money in my bank account. Like it's the most infuriating feeling in the world of my CPA tells me I should have money, but there's no money. Flip that too on the other side when a practice isn't quite producing what they need to be producing to pay for their expenses. And they feel like they have no money and they are flat broke, which in reality that practice is flat broke because they need to produce more or they need to cut. So we're gonna kind of dig on both sides of these with office autopsies of what we see, what we've been able to do. And let's start, Kristy, on the side of what do we do? Like, okay, first step, how do we find like the profit point? Like, how do we figure out what should an office be producing? Because I think that's also infuriating when doctors are like, but I'm just producing. I feel like I'm trying to out-produce my problems. Like, I don't know how to produce more. ⁓ how do you, Kristy, as a consultant, come in and help offices just gain that clarity? Because I think sometimes when we know the North Star and we know what we should be targeting, it actually becomes a lot easier to then build block schedules and then figure out what our overhead should be. But how do you help offices even dig into that? As point one to figure out, let's autopsy both of these practices, I think this is step one to really getting clarity. DAT Kristy (03:00) Absolutely. I agree with you, Kiera. ⁓ The first step is to understand how much we're paying for things. What is the cost to keep the doors open? You know, we talk about overhead, right? But what is overhead? It's everything that we have to pay within a month. Rent, utilities, staffing, right? The other thing that I want to point out is many doctors don't include themselves in that. And I definitely want to pay them The Dental A Team (03:16) you DAT Kristy (03:30) Just like if they were an associate in the practice and so we want to include that in that overhead cost if you will and find that What I like to call profit point so we know where we're what's our? BAM right The Dental A Team (03:48) bam, that bare ace minimum, like what do we have to do? It's kind of like in real life. I mean, I think all of us have a bam in real life. You know what your mortgage or your rent is. You know how much it costs you to like do your groceries. You know how much daycare is, you know how much it costs you for like your Amazon spending. And some of t

Kiera walks listeners through the science of giving raises without breaking the bank or falling into the feel-good trap. She gives three steps to implement around the topic of raises: Know your numbers Raises are earned; they're not automatic Communicate with clarity and boundaries Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I am excited to talk about something of, can you give out a raise and can you actually afford it? Like, how do even know there's got to be like some better model than just like a hope, a wish, a prayer? Like how often do I do this? And I thought it just be an awesome podcast to connect with you, to share some valuable tips and to really just empower you to make these decisions confidently, competently, and with ease. So welcome to the Dental A Team Podcast. I'm Kiera. I love dentistry. I love helping you have a better life. a better quality of life, more happiness in your life, more ease, more joy, more flow, truly doing life and business on purpose. We're here about the yes model. So you can say more yes to more things in your life. So that's about you as a human being, making sure that you are fulfilled, that you are flourishing. stands for earnings and profitability and S is for systems and team development. Truly, truly, truly growing you, evolving you, making sure that you have all these pieces in place so that when you're able to live life on purpose, have your business on purpose and truly just magnify all of this. So today, raises aren't just something that are feel good move. Like this isn't something of like, ⁓ hey, like I feel good. Let's just give you a raise or I do it out of desperation. They're honestly a financial decision that truly can impact your bottom line. It can impact your practice. can, and like with hygienists coming through and dental assistants and the economy, it's like, how do we do this? And so I wanted you guys to just see kind of like three steps to know, can I give these raises out? How do I do this confidently? And what's kind of the flow? without risking cash flow. So this is something that we're about. love doing this. Races don't, when they're done right, they increase retention, they boost morale and they elevate their culture. Like that's really what it's about. They're super helpful and they have to be timed and strategic as well. So it's not something of like, let's just willy nilly this, which I used to do. used to say, I don't have a set plan. Like it's just whenever now I'm like, wow, let's actually have a plan for this. Let's go through this. And I want to break this down into three simple steps for you. So first steps before we ever give out the raises are we need to know our numbers. So payroll should be 30% of your collection. So if you're collecting $100,000 payroll, and that includes all fringe benefits, our 401k, everything, should be 30% or less of your total collections. Now that's across the board, it does not matter geographically. Some specialties are a little bit higher, a little bit lower, but the goal is we want it around 30%, or in some offices, they're around 27%. So again, I'm here for like great cases, great... We want to take care of our team members, but we want to know how that's going to be there. So that's what we're looking for. And we want to make sure that we're profitable. So our goal is to have a 50% overhead of that 30% is payroll. So team members, are you hearing? The bulk of our monthly costs should be paying you. That's what it is. After that, our 50 % overhead, 30% doctor pay, 20% profit. That's what we're aiming for. That's what we strive for. That's what we try to get our offices to. So this way, we're not just giving raises haphazardly because There's practices out there that like, let me just give them a raise, but their collections are not there. They don't have the money to do it. They backslide, their profitability is not there. And the reality is we've got to know where we're at right now on payroll. So the only ways to have that is we either decrease costs. So like maybe we can cut labor expenses that we don't need, or we need to increase our production or our collections. So it's really our levers that we have to deal with in this scenario. So when you look at it, before we go in like, oh, we need to get everybody raises, you've got to run the numbers to see where are we at now and where would we be? So I love to have, when I'm running numbers with offices, I love to have a conservative. It's like, hey, this is my bare bones. This is what I can have running my practice. Then I have my like middle tier, like this is where we basically are at right now. And then I love to have on the higher end, what do I have if I'm giving raises out and hiring new people? What does that look on the high end? because then I can look at my total costs and I can see how

Kiera is joined by Zaneta Hamlin, owner and founder of Cusp Dental Boutique. Zaneta, who built her practice from the ground up, shares with Kiera her journey, reflecting on what got her to this point and what she would've changed and focused more on if she were to start over again. Plus, Zaneta talks about how she's turned even the smallest items and exchanges into branding opportunities for her practice. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today I am so giddy. I have one of my favorite humans in the entire world. Like that is not an exaggeration. She's got a million dollar smile. She's one of the funniest people I've ever met. She makes me laugh all the time. She really does. Like Zaneta when you smile, is the world just makes like it's just a happier place. Zaneta Hamlin, one of my favorite doctors. This woman can brand like nobody's business. Surprise fact, I even have her all of her branding sitting here. I have her stickers. I love the business card. That was my favorite thing that you added in for me was a business card for me. But Zaneta Hamlin, one of our clients, one of my faves, welcome to the podcast today. How's your day today? Zaneta Hamlin (00:39) Great, how are you? I'm happy to be here in the chat. Kiera Dent (00:43) I'm so happy to have you. My day has been amazing. It's been podcast day and by far my favorite podcast is you today. So I'm really, really excited because I have wanted this podcast to come out for so long. So Zaneta I don't want to like do you a disservice. I just said a few things as to why I wanted you to come on the podcast. Like I said, being a part of our community, I just watch you and something I've noticed about you since literally the day one is you dress incredibly well and you're always branded. Like you're a walking machine of branding every event I've seen you at you have Cusp Dental I know where you are I know your colors you have everything branded you think so intentionally but you're just an amazing human so Zaneta kind of tell us and honestly I want to go with you and do ⁓ dentistry in other countries that's something that you and I are gonna do outside of that so to fill our listeners in a little bit Zaneta kind of walk them through who is Zaneta Hamlin how did you get to be into Cusp Dental just kind of give us a little background on who you are the dentistry you do Zaneta Hamlin (01:29) Absolutely. Kiera Dent (01:40) Whatever you feel like sharing, this is Zaneta's time. And I want everybody to get to know you because you're just an amazing human. So walk us through, how did you get from where you were to where you are today? Zaneta Hamlin (01:46) Bye. So am a second generation dentist. ⁓ I started off as an associate. I went to my dad's alma mater, went to Howard University College of Dentistry around this area in the Virginia Beach Hampton Roads area. I would say Howard is the real HU, so that's going to probably offend some people great. Yes, yes. Kiera Dent (02:01) Amazing. That's okay. She's here for it. There's no shame. Zenita, this is your podcast. You get to say whatever you want today. No filtered. Zaneta Hamlin (02:19) yeah. So second gen dentist, ⁓ I started off as an associate. So I associated for about nine years, ⁓ until I, ⁓ birthed the idea for Cusp Dental Boutique. It was initially going to be an acquisition. That was the plan I was with, ⁓ coaching prior, but it was more, it was geared more towards, ⁓ acquisitions and That didn't work out for me. ⁓ just, everything just didn't work out. And the type of practice that I was looking to create ⁓ just didn't fit in the other practices. So ⁓ my husband actually found the space that we are in ⁓ and we just built it from scratch. It was a shell. ⁓ And then we have Cusp Dental Boutique. Now, ⁓ yeah, I do like to brand. So. Kiera Dent (03:12) That's amazing. Zaneta Hamlin (03:17) you Kiera Dent (03:17) Please do, I want you to, because I also hope people hear, like I said, I brought you on for a reason, Zaneta. This is where I want you to brag. I want you to share about who you are, because I think so often we don't, and so many times dentists feel they're doing it all alone. So trying to bring different dentists, different perspectives. So brag, Zaneta, I'm gonna brag about you too. So this is your show, brag as you should. Zaneta Hamlin (03:38) I do love my practice. I love how we do things differently. There's a lot of technology. mean, lately I've had a few temps in my office. And so just having the temps has shown me how much my office does that others don't. And so, the expectations are bit higher with what they should do. ⁓ But everyone comes in and like, my gosh, this doesn't feel like a dental office. doesn't smell like a dental office. ⁓ even the swag they get is different. Now, yeah, I'll give the Cusp Dental Boutique chapstick or things

2026 might still seem like a ways off, but now is the time to start chipping away at preparation. Tiff and Kristy walk practices through what to do to be ready for a fresh start come January 1. They talk about lag and lead measures, what to put on your calendar now, fee schedules, and a ton more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. I am back at you today, Miss Tiffanie, Spiffy Tiffy. No one's called me that in a while. I have not recorded with Kiera in a hot minute. That's how I know I have not recorded with Kiera, because I haven't been called Spiffy Tiffy in a minute. ⁓ We're here today. I have Miss Kristy with me today. She has just done a slew of recordings with me. We blocked out two hours today, and we said, you know what? We're just going to bust out a bunch, and we are doing it. Summertime gets a little wild. and it gets hard to schedule these suckers in there. So Kristy, thank you for being here with me today. Thank you for scheduling this in your schedule and making sure that we could get this done. How are you? DAT Kristy (00:39) It's always fun spending time with you. We don't get to do this all the time. The Dental A Team (00:44) I agree. We really don't. And I started doing ⁓ for you specifically because I'm like, gosh, we really don't. I still get like so much time with Trish, Monica is in, you know, we're doing so much onboarding. ⁓ And so I was like, no, we need, I need Kristy, like just touch base, check in one on one time. Like I need that outside of our monthly one on one. So I agree. And I'm excited to be here today. I think we both have animals at home and it's funny. We like go a certain amount of time and then they've hit their limits. And I don't know, I've got a cat that's running around just screaming right now. I don't think you guys can hear it, I hope. But I think what happens is she's just like, okay, I'm tired of hearing your voice. Even when I'm on coaching calls, like maybe my inflection is different or I don't know. There's something about podcasting that she hits her limit at about an hour in, hour and a half. She's like, I'm done. I'm either podcasting with you or you're being forced to turn it off. Yeah, anyways, animals are wild. ⁓ They are. my gosh, they are like kids. They're exhausting. Yeah, they are like, because I think they're worse than kids. You know, when I was little, they used to say, I don't know if people still say this or not, but they used to say, when you think you're ready for kids, get a dog. And I used to be like, that's easy, right? And I'm like, actually, I find that my animals are way more work than my son is. they just require so much of me at DAT Kristy (01:43) I like kids. The Dental A Team (02:10) their own discretion. Like it's just, it's when they want it. And I have, I have two cats and a dog and the dog is much chiller, but even puppies, I'm like, puppies are hard. Puppies are not like a newborn. I does not, in my opinion, the same apples to apples, but maybe that's why they say that because you get exhausted by the puppy and you're like, I can't, I can't do this right now. So who knows, but we're not here to talk about dogs or cats. We are here. We're here today because we are rounding out the year you guys. August is always like such a weird time ⁓ for me because it's like the beginning and the end. It's the beginning, like we're not even too fall yet for Arizona. It feels like fall. We don't really get a fall so we start in August. ⁓ But it feels like we're coming up on the end, but we just started. We get to August so quickly and so. With that, a lot of times we can kind of forget to prep for the upcoming year until it gets to the last minute because we're like, gosh, it's so early, Tiff. Like, Kristy, we've still got so much of our goal left. We're still working on these things. How am I supposed to think past that? But we really truly do have to prepare in a lot of different ways to ensure that we're ready when January hits. I don't know about you, Kristy, but I know in my practice, I think the before I was office manager, my office manager and my doctor probably sat down and like did some goals, right? They knew what they were doing. But we didn't know until the end of January when we had our team meeting what those new year's goals were. And that was really hard because I'm like, well, shoot, we're already behind because like, what are we doing here? We had no idea that we had increased our goals because we're still working off of old goals. And I think that that likely happens more often than not. Because we want a fresh start. We want our January kickoff and it's like if we're not doing January kickoff on January 2nd It's not a kickoff anymore. I guess now we're playing catch-up So a lot of practices really need to start doing this in December November even but December really talking about

Re-releasing a DAT listener favorite! The Dental A-Team is seeing a lot of burnout across practices we visit, so Kiera's here to offer tips about delegating. Just because you can do a bunch of tasks doesn't mean you should. Kiera provides DAT insight on the best/easiest way to delegate, how to fill the time you've delegated out, and what the delegator and delegatee should absolutely not do. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript Kiera Dent (00:05) Hey everyone, welcome to the Dental A Team podcast. I'm your host, Kiera Dent, and I had this crazy idea that maybe I could combine a doctor and a team member's perspective, because let's face it, dentistry can be a challenging profession with those two perspectives. I've been a dental assistant, treatment coordinator, scheduler, pillar, office manager, regional manager, practice owner, and I have a team of traveling consultants where we have traveled to over 165 different offices coaching teams. Yep, we don't just understand you, we are you. Our mission is to positively impact the world of dental. And I believe that this podcast is the greatest way I can help elevate teams, grow VIP experiences, reduce stress, and create A-Teams. Welcome to the Dental A Team Podcast. Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera and you guys I hope today is a great day for you. I am car casting today I am headed down to see my parents for a little bit today and Decided you guys know me when I drive between that Nevada, California state line I love to podcast if you have not heard about the time I was headed to my little sister's graduation and I was Car casting with a microphone. They have an agriculture check point and go take a listen to that one. If you don't know which one that is, email us [email protected] guys. just want to say a massive, massive, massive thank you to all of you who have been stepping up, taken on our review challenge and honestly leaving us reviews. I've seen you guys posting on our Google reviews to help deadly team. Get the word out. You've also been posting on Apple, Spotify, YouTube. I have been seeing those and I just want to say thank you. Shout out today. I saw Annie. had posted and gave us a massive five star review and Annie, thank you. There's so many of you that have been listening in. Brooke Birdie saw your review as well on iTunes. And I just want to say guys, number one, it feeds my ego. So thank you. I am a words of affirmation girl. So that definitely is the best way to give back to me and make me feel like a million bucks. That's number one. So if you really want to make my day, please leave us a review and just tell us how great we are. I would love that. And number two, Thank you guys for helping us help more practices. We have actually been seeing an upward trend on our podcast downloads. That is kudos to you guys. ⁓ Massive, massive, massive boosts on our downloads. And I just want to say thank you to all of you for doing that, because this is helping us help more practices. You know, when I started working at the dental college, the dean asked me why I wanted to take on this position. And I said, you know, I want to find a way to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. That's honestly why we I did my job at the college and then that's also why I decided to ⁓ take on and work with the consulting company. And then that's why we started the podcast. So you guys, the only way for us to reach every dentist in the world is by you guys helping spread this. I think that that's the way we'll be able to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. So guys, keep hitting those downloads, keep leaving us review, keep sharing these. When I see you guys on social media platforms where you're sharing our podcasts with people, it's been so helpful. So thank you guys for taking that on. So today's topic is how to delegate. I know I've chatted about this a few other times, but it's just been coming up more and more. And I know a lot of offices are struggling. I'm seeing more and more burnout amongst team members and owners. And so I thought that this would be a very applicable topic for you guys today. So basically number one, when it comes to delegating, We've got to look to see what is the reason for delegating? Are we trying to find more time for ourselves so that way we can be more balanced? Are we trying to grow team members into another position? Or are we just trying to ensure that all team members are being utilized throughout the day? Maybe you have another reason you want to delegate, but oftentimes I find that the number one reason we don't delegate is because we're concerned about losing our place in our job. and the value that we're bringing to the practice. When in actuality, I think it's let's get people into their zone of geniuses so we can work more effectively and consistently together. So for me, I t

Kristy and Tiff discuss the new treatments they're seeing practices adopt these days and how to successfully start the process (if you want to). They touch on the best ways to gauge interest, training and implementation tips to start off, how to track results, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are so happy to be back here with you. We are recording today from the comfort of our own homes with the ACs blasting. I am about to bust out my fan. is on the charger right now. I don't know if you know this or not, but Kristy and I come to you from the sweltering desert of Phoenix, Arizona. And I have to say, I'm crazy. My boyfriend is like, it is hot. We're getting out of here. We're moving to Prescott. And one day I'm sure we will, but. I love where I live and every time I go travel to an office and I'm gone for like a week, I'll see two, three offices at a time. I come back in and just coming into Tempe on that plane over in the mountains, you can see the Buttes, you can see South Mountain, you can see the city and just like the buzz of it all makes me so incredibly happy every single time. I love where I live. I cannot at this point in my life imagine living anywhere else. So when I say that out loud, People think I'm crazy. And I'm like, listen, it's beautiful here. My best friend, bless her heart, she's like, Tiff, it's brown. It's all desert. And I'm like, it's not. Do you see these colors, like the saguaros and the pink flowers that bloom and the yellows? And like, I don't know, Kristy, am I crazy? Or what are your thoughts? You came back to Arizona. So obviously, there's something to be told about that. DAT Kristy (01:25) It's too funny that you say that because it's so true. I'm you know when I moved to Idaho everybody's like Arizona it's a desert and I'm like but there's desert here. I have to agree the Arizona desert is much prettier. ⁓ Southwestern Idaho is very deserty and we're talking brown. There's where the brown is but Arizona desert is very beautiful. Even this time of year like come on Palo Verde's aren't brown they're green. The Dental A Team (01:35) Yeah. Yeah. Bye. Right? Literally in their name, right? Palo Verde. My boyfriend always says, yeah, Arizona is like so inventive, the green stick. And I'm like, well, it's green. It is green, okay? That's our state tree and it's green. Yeah, I agree. I agree. I just think it's beautiful. And there's nothing like a desert rain. I know that sounds so cliche. Everyone says it, everyone hears it, but I swear to you, the smell in the desert after a good rain or even a light sprinkling is magical. There is something about it that just changes the composition of your body and you become a much happier individual. just, can't be, you can't be angry in the desert rain. So. DAT Kristy (02:33) agree with you Tiff and if you and I can figure out a way to bottle that stuff I've always said we'd be millionaires. The Dental A Team (02:39) Yeah, well, you know, I just, my friend just told me this a couple months ago. There's actually a bush out there. I need to just take a picture of it and figure out what it is. We were hiking one day. There's a bush out there that you, when you pick the leaf and you like put it between your fingers, it smells like the desert rain. I'll find it. Yeah, I'll find it and take a picture. I don't know what the bush is, but I'll find it and take a picture and Google it so that we can, we could bottle it. My point there. Yeah. I actually had a friend in town. DAT Kristy (03:02) Yeah. The Dental A Team (03:06) Um, he lives in North Carolina and he was visiting and he was like, I'm taking some of this home so that other people can smell it. Cause it is incredible. And I'm like, yep, that's what Arizona desert rain smells like. So anyways, everybody who wants to come visit, we are here for it. We aren't taking any new visitors like to stay. I'm just kidding. You can move here. It's just, it's just getting crowded, you know, but visitors are welcome. Come. share in the heat. I know most people come in the month of February for the Waste Management Open and you just let us know when we're here and Kristy and I will pop over and say a little hello to you. So Kristy, getting on to business, I love talking about Arizona and I would do it forever, ⁓ but we're kind of rounding out the year right now. We're heading into quarter four. This is the time of year I'm like, well, we can still make massive movements, we can still make massive changes and hit those goals, but really we need to start thinking about what are we doing ⁓ after these goals are hit. So lot of people don't think about the next year, which is 2026 until December, but I'd like to start talking about it here in August. So one of those pieces, Kristy, I really wanted to chat today about offices that we've seen implement new treatm

Derick Van Ness of Big Life Financial returns to the podcast to discuss with Kiera the new realities of the recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill — and how dentists can capitalize on the impacts. They discuss bonus depreciation, research and development credits, and more. Further, there's an opportunity for DAT listeners at biglifefinancial.com/DAT, where you can learn if you're overpaying on your taxes and what new opportunities exist. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I'm excited to welcome back a popular guest. He and I have chatted multiple times. We've gone around and around on different topics of how to help dentists build more wealth. So Derick, ⁓ with Big Life Financial, we talked about our research and development credits. Today we're going to be talking about this big, beautiful tax bill, how it's going to impact dentists, how it's going to impact building wealth. I do think it also impacts team members. So Derick, welcome back to the show. How are you today? Derick Van Ness (00:29) I'm great, Kiera. I really appreciate you bringing me on the show again. It's always fun to talk. Kiera Dent (00:34) Of course, we all know that I love wealth strategies. love ⁓ it takes time like you and I were talking about pre show. ⁓ I think it's something to educate ourselves on and to be around really smart people and to constantly be looking at different things like I know hot in the real estate world right now and with buying businesses and buying practices, the big beautiful tax bill is actually great for the bonus depreciation coming in. So just like educating ourselves and that's what I wanted today to be. not getting high into politics. These are bills that are into place ⁓ and how to take advantage of them, how to maximize them. Derick, you work with a ton of dentists. So Derick, for those who don't know, you kind of give a little bit background on how you and I even got connected, how you got into dentistry, ⁓ how does Big Life Financial play into this. We have a lot of mutual clients together. So just kind of give people a background on who you are and how you got to the dental space. Derick Van Ness (01:26) Absolutely, you know, I started out back in like 2010 2009 2010 helping small business owners with taxes and financial strategy I was working for another firm at the time and I had been a house flipper and if for those of you who remember 2008 wasn't so good if you're a house flipper, right and When that whole thing fell apart kind of fell in my head I took a lot of the skills that I had and a friend of mine hired me to help Kiera Dent (01:46) It is not. Derick Van Ness (01:55) small business owners with taxes and financial and business strategy. ⁓ Working with them, I had a chance to work with about 1,500 business owners over seven years. And then eventually went out and started doing my own thing because there were some different things that I wanted to do that they didn't offer. ⁓ essentially, in that time, I worked with a lot of dentists and a lot of doctors. ⁓ And so I kind of stayed in that arena, which led me to ⁓ meeting you, Kiera. through Mark over at DSI and all the stuff that I'd done with him and then found you guys and just love what you guys do with helping people to build their teams. Cause I'm such a huge advocate of how important that is to have the right team to run your practice, right? Especially if you're going to have multiple practices, it just can't be about you. And so it was just kind of a natural fit. And like you said, you, you definitely love financial strategies. So. We got into it, we talked about a bunch of different things, had a chance to work together. Like you said, have shared a lot of clients along the way, but it just seems like dentists have a lot of the problems that we solve, which is they pay a of taxes, they make good money, and most of them didn't get an MBA in college to understand how business and finances work. They've had to learn along the way. And so we see ourselves as part of that process of helping dentists become. better business owners, better entrepreneurs, and honestly create freedom in their life instead of just having a business that runs them, because it's easy to have that happen in dentistry. So that's sort of how we got connected. I don't know, over the last, since whatever 2008, 2009 was, last 15 plus years, I've probably worked with somewhere between 2,000 and 2,500 business owners. I would say a good chunk of those have been dentists. So that's how we ended up together. Kiera Dent (03:48) Yeah. I love the journey. love hearing what you've done. I also agree on like building wealth. And I think going through dental school, working at the dental college, dentists are coming out with, you know, upwards of 500, 600, 700, $800,000 in debt somewhere up towards that upper million. M

High-performing practices don't happen by accident, and in this episode, Kiera shares the steps that the most successful practices put in place to get there. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and I hope today is just an incredible day for you. I hope you guys are ready to be on the podcast, whether you're driving, listening to us as a team meeting, going to work, going for a run, going on a hike, driving in the car, whatever it is. I hope today is just an incredible day and I hope you remember dentistry really is the greatest place for us to be. I'm so excited to podcast. I'm your host Kiera Dett and truly I'm excited to help you make dentistry more fun, to make your day more fun. because we have done over a thousand episodes. So if there's ever anything you're struggling with in your practice, be sure to head on over to TheDentalATeam.com click on our podcast tab and make sure that you download whatever podcast it is. Like you can type in case acceptance or overhead or PNL or staffing or hiring or hygiene. And every single episode we have ever done in the archive of the thousands, literally of episodes we have done, they're there for you. And I just want to say thanks. Thanks for hanging out with us. Thanks for being part of our Dental A Team podcast family. If this podcast is serving you, if it's helped you, if this made you laugh, if it made your practice better, be sure to leave us a review and share this in groups. Honestly, our mission is to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible and get this podcast into the hands of every single dental office out there. So share and hey, let's have a great day today because I wanted to go through three systems that every productive practice has in place. And honestly, a lot of practices don't have them. This is something where like these high-performing practices, they don't just happen by accident. They run on systems and most practices are missing these top three. Like truly I've walked into hundreds and thousands of offices and I'm shocked that they don't have these three simple easy ones in place for them. ⁓ These right systems are going to help drive consistency, reduce your stress, increase your profitability and they're very, very easy for practices to implement. Now, just because something's easy doesn't mean that practices... actually do it. So I want you to be part of the elite. You're part of Dental A Team. Why not tell you the best of the best of the best? I mean, why not? Like you're here, you're listening. Let's make your time effort energies worth it. I'm on board. Are you on board? Cause I think it'd be great. guys Dental A Team was truly created for you. We are obsessed with building smart, scalable practices and systems to help you have the life that you want to live. We want to make teams and practices happier. We want to make patient experience happier. And this is something where we don't want you working harder. One of our top core values in the Dental A Team is ease. We want everything to be easy. As team members ourselves, we don't want to put hard things into place for teams. We don't want doctors to be working late nights and not spending time with their families. We want you to be profitable, happy, successful with ease. So the first system that I found that we've talked about many times, and I'll just go to a high level today because there are deeper podcasts on it, but to kind of break this down into the three simple, sexy systems that are not so sexy, but they really truly will help you drive. profit, efficiency, happiness. And the number one, da-da-da-da, I hope you're ready for it, is block scheduling. Like yes, block scheduling, it's crazy. ⁓ Literate people reach out to us just to help them with block scheduling. And I am shocked because block scheduling is something where you literally can put it together in such high value ease. ⁓ I'm obsessed, we do have a block schedule template that we work with our practices. And it's one of those things where we keep making it like, more and more and more and more and more because we realize there's easier things to do on it. But just as a quick sample, I really, really, really love helping offices make this so fun. Like, let's make it easy for you. Let's make this exciting for you. So I'm actually going to do a share screen. So if you guys are watching, amazing, hey, welcome, I'm super happy. And if you're not, that's okay. What we're going to do is I'll walk you through it as well. So if you're listening, driving the car, but I will also try to share this with you. So on here, what I've done is we have actually created these boxes for you to fill in, okay? So we fill in all the green boxes and on the left-hand side, what I have is basically all of your procedures in the practice, what they are, how much time it's

Kiera shares a personal experience of reaching an incredible milestone but feeling depleted — and how she changed what being fulfilled meant. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera and I feel like today's podcast is going to be, I don't know, we're about to find out how it lands. So I hope it lands incredible. It's a space of a little bit of vulnerability for me. And ⁓ it's going to be something where I'm probably going to read it more than I just riffed podcasts. I was asked by our marketing team to write some of my stories, some of the founder's stories, some of the pieces of my life journey. And as I wrote it, the first one, ⁓ the bulk of our team members said, Kiera, you should actually make that into a podcast. And I have thought about it and I decided, you know, I think I'm going to do it, but I don't know that I can rift it. Every single podcast I've ever done has been a nice rift for you. It's all knowledge, it's experience. I want to make it engaging. So I'm super curious how me reading one is going to land versus me telling you. And I might add some few embellishments because let's be real, I didn't write all the pieces of the story. And so I hope that it inspires you. ⁓ It's called the empty millionaire. And I feel like it's hopefully very relevant for a lot of you and maybe just walking you through the journey because as I've talked to a lot of different people about the millionaire journey, so many of us want to hit a million dollars. And so that's why I titled this one the empty millionaire. And so we'll see. Like I said, I have no clue how this is going to land. It's my first one. feel like very really vulnerable. If you're even like watching this, my team's probably going to clip this part. Like my shoulders are hunched, like my arms are, my hands are in my pocket. Like my hands are a little sweaty. I hate when this happens. Like I don't really get sweaty hands thankfully, but like they're, they're a little more clammy than usual. ⁓ but I think it's because it's my story. It's my life. And, ⁓ I think on Dental A Team, one of the biggest things I've really always committed to is that no matter what I share on the podcast, you should always be able to peel back the curtain of Dental A Team and see exactly what we're doing, exactly who we are. never wanted to make up stories because I feel like then you're trying to chase a false reality. And so this is my story, the empty millionaire. So hopefully you love it. And if not, then I'll never read a story again. So give us some feedback and we'll hear if you loved it, send it an email. [email protected]. If you didn't also send it an email. Don't worry. Our team fills that so you can be honest. They feel that they tell me so you won't hurt my heart. You won't break my feelings. But at end of the day, this podcast is for you more than it is for me. But thank you for allowing me to have a space to share. So The Empty Millionaire by Cara Depp. So I had always envisioned what it would be like to hit $1 million. You live on the yacht or the beach house or the incredible mansion overlooking the ocean while drinking the fanciest drinks with your head back laughing and truly living life with zero stress. Happiness exploding on every level and feeling like you're on top of the world. This, in my opinion, was living. This, in my opinion, was the mountain that I was destined to climb and hit. This was my future. I literally imagined I could see myself like, ha ha ha, like sitting back there laughing like, what you see, driving these fancy cars, looking at these exotic views, that's the million dollar ⁓ mission that I was destined to climb. And then I hit a million dollars in my bank account. I remember the day, it was in September, and where was I at? I was sitting in my apartment on my futon alone, like literally alone. My husband and I were talking about this story last night, and he's like, Kiera, tell me more about it. And I was like, Jace, you were actually at your niece's wedding. There was a mariachi band, so when I tried to call and tell you, like, here, I can't hear you. There's this huge band playing in the background. Can I call you later? I had just finished an event with my team. My whole team had flown out. I was exhausted. I remember sitting on this futon. I saw our blinds swaying. And I was like, I hit it. I hit it. And I'm in an apartment, sitting on a futon alone, completely and utterly alone. My family wasn't there. I wasn't laughing. I felt empty. I felt spent. I felt overwhelmed. I felt the weight of what I had created crushing the air out of me. Like I was so exhausted. I literally remember sitting there on my futon. Like I said, like I was laying on my futon. The reason the futon was there is because we'd had people come visit and our house was like so small that we had to like move our

Tiff and Kristy take a look at patient privacy and the regulatory compliance associated with that privacy, including HIPAA and OSHA. They touch on their own experiences with compliance, how to better educate your practice, what not to do, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are so excited to be here with you today. I have Kristy on crew with me. We have a slew of podcasts we're recording and just some really, really exciting information. We're gonna make it as exciting as we can, at least, that we wanna get out to you. We are more than halfway through the year, which is pretty massive. And so we're gonna be talking about... a ton about how to end the year, things and pieces to look forward to, things you should be doing now to wrap up for the end of the year, and realistically things to look forward to for the upcoming year, which at this point of recording is 2026. So no matter what year you're listening to us, a lot of this should still be incredibly valuable. Kristy, I am so excited you're here with me today. Thank you so much for clearing your schedule, being here. being open to this and just always coming with some really invaluable information for our listeners. How are you today, Kristy? DAT Kristy (01:00) It's a good summer day and a good day to be with you as well. So happy to do it. The Dental A Team (01:04) Thank you, thank you. And for those of you who may not know, Kristy, Kristy lived in Arizona a long time ago. she originally, like her formative years were here, but then she left Arizona for quite a little while and she's recently relocated back to the desert. And she decided to come right at the beginning of summer, which I used to tell people like, don't move here in the summer, like come in different months. But then I started realizing, I'm like, well, if you move here in the summer, you get the worst of the worst. And then the rest of the year is like icing on top of the cake. So Kristy, I actually think you did it in the right direction. And I keep telling you, I think you brought some awesome weather with you this year because we have not broken record heat this year for like the first time ever. Honestly, we keep breaking records every year and I'm like, these are records we don't need to break. And this year, I think the record has been that it's been so nice. Like it truly, truly has been really light summer. So Kristy, thanks for bringing your weather with you and giving us a little reprieve here in Arizona. So I told you we're going to make these as fun as we possibly can. You guys, we always aim for that fun is actually one of our core values. So it's something we work really, really hard for. I say that today because I really wanted to talk to you guys about some regulatory compliances, which just even in those words sounds like womp womp, right? Like we're just, how do you make that exciting? Well, with the Dental A Team, Dental A Team can make anything exciting. We can have fun with whatever we want in everything. We truly believe that if we're not having fun, why are we even doing it? So it doesn't mean that things aren't hard, things aren't difficult, that you won't have to push through hard things. It just means that there should be fun on the other side. and it shouldn't be, you know, tears of pain the whole way through. So here we are, regulatory compliance. You guys know that this is actually really important in the dental industry. You guys have all heard of OSHA. So we'll dive into a little bit on the OSHA, but you guys have also heard of HIPAA. And I have to say, and Kristy, you can tell me what your thoughts are as well, I have to say that when I was in practice, like physically working in an office, we never talked about HIPAA. We talked about OSHA constantly, like OSHA is going to come in and you've got to have everything six inches from the ceiling and off these certain walls. And you've got to have so many fire extinguishers and the fire escape plans and like all of these, you know, barriers and masks and gloves and don't wear gloves outside the door. All of these pieces for OSHA safety compliance, but I never heard about HIPAA. I knew as a front office team member that patients had to sign the HIPAA forms and that they had to update them every so often, but I didn't actually know what it was. And when patients would ask me like, oh, what am I signing? I'm like, ah, it just says we're not going to give away your information. Right. And I'm like, I don't know if that's what it says or not, but like, that's what I heard someone say. And so I'm just repeating it. Right. So Kristy, I don't know if you had a different experience in office, but I really truly felt like until I had to train people on it until I had to be like, no, you have to do HIPAA in the office. And until as a company, we had to start taking our ow

Kiera takes listeners behind the scenes of Dental A-Team, sharing what exactly happens in Doctor Mastermind conversations. This includes unfiltered Kiera and consultants sharing top-level expertise, elite doctors sharing secrets of the trade, wealth diversification conversations, and so much more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera and I hope today's just a great day. I really do hope that you're thriving and not just surviving right now. I hope that you're fulfilled and you're not just living there, going along and really disliking your life because I believe we get one life. So let's make it the most fun that we possibly can. You guys today, I wanna take you behind the scenes of Dental A Team. Like let's take you behind the curtain and just kinda let you see what goes on behind the scenes. There's some really awesome things that Dental A Team is doing and I feel like it's really fun to just know like, okay, what does consulting look like behind the scenes? What things do you have in place? And I wanted you to see like what happens behind the scenes. We have Dr. Masterminds, ⁓ what happens in there, what happens with your team meetings? What does it look like? And so if you've ever been curious of what's behind the scenes in consulting, well, welcome. I wanted to take you behind the scenes. So just so you know, Dental A Team was created to help doctors and practice owners ⁓ not just survive, but thrive. to help teams not just survive but thrive, to be able to say yes to more things in your life by being focused on what you as a person want to achieve, improving your leadership, improving your life and like truly your personal life, making sure your business is working for you and not the other way around. We also do it on profitability, making sure you're profitable, that the cash flow is there, that it's predictable, that you understand where your numbers are at and then having systems and team development. We call that the yes model so you can say yes to more in your life. So you, earnings, system and team development. And that's really what our. the whole thing about consulting is. So what we do is we literally take you and we have an introductory call and we look to see what your practice is like, where your gaps are, and basically build a game plan with you of what is this gonna look like over the next 12 months together. And we decide, hey, where are you at? you a practice where we're gonna fly into your practice? Is this a practice where we're going to just do virtual calls with you? What's going to be the best option? And I will say our most popular and what most people want is someone to fly to the practice. ⁓ And so behind the scenes, what happens from there is once we decide what... what type of consulting is going to be best for you and your practice. From there, then you get paired with a consultant. You're like, how do you know the consultants? I'm like, well, my background needs to be marriage and family therapy. Like literally, I'm really good at reading people and 90 % of the time we get a perfect match. And what we're looking for is your practice needs the consultant skills and what they've done because all of our consultants have a clinical and front office experience and they've all had to grow multiple practices. So some come from DSO. All of them have had to come from private practice. They literally have been there, done that, done it successfully. And we're looking for personality types. Are you going to jive? Some consultants are very high energy and some are a little more lower energy, more calm. ⁓ What's going to pair well with your team? What's going to be like, I remember there was one office and they said, Kiera, my team. There I was like, wow, Kiera comes in with a lot of energy. We get. along better with no BS Brit, which is true. Brit doesn't come in looking like she's a hummingbird on Monster. She walks in a calm, cool, collected. She's chill. Some offices need a hummingbird on Monster. Others need a Brit who's more calm, cool, collected. So we're looking at experience, personality fit, and then also what's going to truly drive and get the results you're looking for. So that's really how we match you with your consultant. Then after that, your consultant, you and them, get on calls. We get on calls every other week. So we're really working with you to make sure that there's accountability, but it's not too often and you're not depending on us, but you have time to actually make some headway in between those. So it's set calls. So you always know perfect. I've got my set calls. They're also really good accountability check-ins. So I have a personal trainer and we used to do only virtual and I had a call with her all the time and I actually did better on my workouts than I do when I see her in person because I knew we had a set

Tiff and Dana discuss how dental practices are being innovative in 2025, including A.I., apps, and other technologies that will streamline the busy work and help teams focus on being human. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:02) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. Dana and I are back here today. We are really excited. We just did actually a really fun podcast. think that was probably, I think Dana, I don't know. I think that was one of my favorite podcasts we probably ever recorded. I love that stuff. So Dana, thanks for being here. How are you today? Dana (00:22) doing good excited to get you know I always I know I say this a lot but I truly am just excited to have some time. The Dental A Team (00:29) Thank you. Thank you. I know I actually I still have it on my mind. I need to put it in my click up click up organizer. You guys shout out to that. I need to get the soft skills training on there. So I was thinking about that a lot. So you make you make my day Dana. Thank you. I appreciate that. ⁓ You guys virtual teams are weird and they were like It's just weird. But I think the weirdest part to me or the oddest part is how sincerely close I feel to everyone. Like Dana, I feel like we're best friends and we never get time together. Like the last time we had time together, truly the last time we had time together, I guess, was when we did the December, we did the shopping for the kids in December, the give back. Prior to that was like, Disneyland last, that was two years ago, right? Two years ago, I think he's time flies, time freaking flies. So, but I feel like we were just together last weekend. Like it's weird. It's a weird thing that has come really far. So on that note, anyone who's considering a virtual team member, it can work really well. I mean, we've got Josh who's in the Philippines and I feel like I know that man. Like we've hung out together. Dana (01:45) Thank The Dental A Team (01:47) That's so weird. He's in the Philippines you guys it's nighttime when he's working for us And I'm like groggy just starting my day And he's already lived an entire day and his family sleeping like wild and I feel like I know Dana (02:01) We know things about his baby girl. We know things about his wife, his band. And it's like he's not even in the country on the same time zone. It's just virtually over the computer. It's crazy. Yeah. The Dental A Team (02:12) Yeah, it is really crazy. It's insane to me how far things have come. I think it's really cool. think 2020, we're going to call it 2020, not the other word we could call it, did a lot for us in a lot of ways. There is a lot of bad, I will never just credit that, but I think it forced innovation. 2020 forced human innovation. I think it was things that were already like in the works in the background or whatever, but it just pushed it to the forefront. And the innovation that has come in the last five years has been insane to me and the amount and what we've been able to handle and what we've been able to consume as humans is wild to me and working remotely and working on a virtual team is definitely something that came out of that. I remember, I remember Karen and I when everything first started happening. We were like, shoot, okay, it is time to innovate or die, quite literally, innovate or die as a company, because things are drastically changing. Dana, we were in offices constantly, constantly. And then all of a sudden we were like, guess what? You're not allowed to leave the state. Actually, you can't even leave your house. Like don't breathe on anyone. Don't look at anyone. Like it was wild. And that was when, Dana (03:22) Yes. The Dental A Team (03:30) Kiera and I got on a call and we were like, what the heck? How do we continue to help offices? And that was when we switched and started doing so much virtual. And it really spun, like it worked really well. We had so many offices that during shutdown, we're doing a ton of training with us. We were building operations manuals and really prepping for reopening. But it also brought a space of like, holy cow, Tiff and Kiera cannot do this alone. Like it brought on so much. And I think it just like speaks to the spiral of innovation that we've had in the last five years in our company and just in the country as a whole in the world realistically. But Dana, I'm so excited. You came not too far after our 2020 whirlwind of guess what? We're going to do everything by video now. And I was like, ⁓ crikey, here we go. This is going to be fun. And you came on board with us. So thank you for being here. You have changed the game for us. And I know changed the game for so many of your clients. ⁓ And Dana continues to help us innovate constantly. It is something that she is really, really good at. is brilliant and just constantly thinking of another way, like, and then the, the, and then theory, like, yes, you can do t

Growing your practice can be incredibly exciting, but incredibly intimidating. Kiera tells listeners how they can scale with confidence by giving specific questions to ask yourself. These include: Are your systems running smoothly? Are your teams aligned and accountable? Do you have a clear data back-growth plan? And more! Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera. And today I'm super jazzed because I feel like this is such a great question that so many offices ask me of like, okay, Kiera, how do I know that my practice is ready for the next level? How do know I'm ready to add in more team members? How do I know I'm ready to add an associate? How do know if I'm ready to add another location? And I feel like so many of these things sit in our brains and we're always wondering like, how do you know? It's like, how do you know when you're ready for the next baby? but instead of like babies, which like really, how do you really know? There are certain things to know or how do you know if you're ready to get married? Well, there are certain things actually. So let's take some of that guesswork out, make this a little bit more fun and have a great time on today's podcast. I'm excited and I hope you're excited. The Dental A Team was built for doctors. It's built for team members. That's why it's called Dental A Team. It's consulting for dentists and teams. I hate as a business owner where people just teach me and I have go try and take it back to my team. but I love being taught, I love being focused and I love having high level and then I love having implementable things for my team, but from someone who's been there, done that and done that successfully. So that's what we've created. We have a space for doctors and CEOs and entrepreneurs to come and get together like-minded where we're talking high level. This is where I come into play. We have fun, we have business freaking tactics. We call it Think Tank Tuesday and we literally get all together and have a great time. And then we have our in-person mastermind where we're doing the same thing as business and life on purpose. And then we have our consultants, including myself, our consultants then work with your team. We're going to be teaching your team members how to make your vision a reality, how to scale, how to have the conversations. I say we're like little fairy godmothers for your team members, where we literally are hanging out with them to help them know the resources and the easiest path to get the results they're looking for. That's what we're obsessed about. That's what we do for offices. And I hope that we're a part of your office. And if not, I hope we're apart really, really soon. All right, you guys, let's dig into how do we scale with confidence? Because growth is super freaking exciting. Like, oh my gosh, we're growing. But back to me, when I first started, we were 500,000 to 2.4 million in nine months in my first location. We bought our second location and you better believe it was fire. And fire is exciting, but it burns hot. And it got hotter and hotter and hotter. And it was because I didn't have a plan. We just were like, sweet, we're at this amount. So let's buy our second location. And it became mayhem and it became crazy. And so it's one of those things of like fires can be beautiful and we can sit there and roast s'mores. But fires can also be very, very volatile. They can destroy, they can burn fast and they can burn hot. And so this is a zone where if we have a plan, we're going to do really well. If not, we get burnout, we get turnover, we get stalled progress. We actually get sloppy. We actually could fall into really scary things. Like for us, it was full blown burnout. I was on burnout or my owner was on burnout. We were working from 2 a.m. till 10 p.m. every single day. ⁓ Our marriages were falling apart. Like everything was bad. Everything. It was not good. and we would show up to work just to feel like we were like barely, like nose barely above water, but you better believe there's water getting into that. And so this is something where I really wanted to come on today of how do you know and how can we scale with strategy? How can we scale and know that we're ready for the next level? Because if I would have known this, I would not have bought my second practice. I would have optimized my first practice. I would have put a few more things into place and then bought the second location. But you know, I was young, dumb, I was reckless. We were just like. We can do this. did the first one, but the first one wasn't like barely hanging on. We had two pending lawsuits on us. Like there were wild things going on, but yet shoot. I think that sometimes it's good to have a little bit of naive, ⁓ but I think it's more important to have a good plan and a good process. So this is the goal. It's not

Kiera and Tiff discuss chipping away at your goals and problems in small pieces, and how this can stack habits in a way that's not completely overwhelming. This can be applied to your personal life or your practice life! Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and it's a special day. Spiffy, Tiffy and I are back together on the podcast. You know Tiff, you love Tiff, you hear her with or without me, but today's a special day. You get both of us, one podcast. Tiff, how you doing today? The Dental A Team (00:15) No, I'm so good. I just love when we podcast together, first of all, and I love that we really well. We roll with the punches well, and this morning has proven that. And this whole week has been a pivot and roll with the punches, and I'm excited for everyone to hear all of the wonderful words we have to say today. Kiera Dent (00:25) you Me too. And it is fun because it's funny when Tiffanie started the company, I feel like we talked to each other all the time. And this morning I was getting ready at 530 a.m. because I was like, sweet, I got a lot of podcasts. We're going to start at 6 a.m. today. It's going to be a great day. And I'm like, you know, I used to call Tiff during this time and we just like chat and talk shop. And now it's like, hey, let's catch up on the podcast. OK, it's like, how's life? How you doing over there? Even though we work together all the time, but. The Dental A Team (00:58) Yeah Kiera Dent (01:04) I think that that just shows the growth that we've been able to have. And it's interesting, something I will say is as you grow and evolve, make sure that you still stay connected to your key players. think Tiff and I have to now be very intentional. Like we call each other or we'll FaceTime each other or like I'll just randomly FaceTime Tiff while I'm driving with Jason, just so we stay as friends in a relationship because work I think can sometimes accidentally, we're so busy ships in the night, even though we're in the same company. So Tiff, good time to reconnect on the podcast. Hi. The Dental A Team (01:17) Thank Good Kiera Dent (01:33) It's been a hot minute, great to see you. I think I haven't seen you all The Dental A Team (01:35) to see you. Kiera Dent (01:36) week, so it's great to see you. The Dental A Team (01:37) That is so true, we haven't, not since our leadership meeting on Monday. Kiera Dent (01:41) and we had like one client call together, which I'm like, hey, it's real fun to be with you here. I'm like, see you later. ⁓ But no, it's truly so fun. And today, and I wanted to just, I think we're seeing it, it's actually one thing that I will say Tiff and I are doing really well that we haven't done is we actually are coaching mutual clients together. We only have a couple and it's been really fun. think Tiff, I feel like it's like our shake and bake, like stocked into Malo, like Tiff to Kiera, like let's just have a good time on it because it's not often other than events that we get to do this. But I think in, The Dental A Team (01:44) yeah, straight. Thank you. Kiera Dent (02:11) coaching clients more together. I think you and I are starting to see this like really awesome pattern that you brought up of a topic of like this 1%. And I know you're obsessed in it and working out, which thank you because every day I think about you and I'm like, yeah, Kieran, just go move your body 1 % more today, like just 1 % today. And so I think in life, but let's also take it to practices and billing. Tiff kind of riffed us on the topic I did and we're just gonna riff for you guys today. Kieran, Tiff, stocked into Malone. If you don't know the jazz, well, you missed out, but. The Dental A Team (02:25) Thank you. Kiera Dent (02:38) Basically we're the glory days. That's what this is. It's a glory. It's a dream team back together doing our shake and bake, rattle and roll, talking all things dentistry. So Tiff, take it away. The Dental A Team (02:48) Yeah, I actually, I think we all know the 1 % rule and we know the compound effect and we know like, we know arbitrarily that these things and these ideas are something we're supposed to do and that they work. And last year, I found myself in this space where I was like, trying to octopus arms a lot of different things in my life that I wanted improvement on. And I had like three, four or five, whatever it was things that I'm like, okay, I'll do a little bit here, I'll do a little bit here, I'll do a little bit here. And it's kind of like, I was just talking to Erin the other day about like paying down debt, right? So like you're paying down debt and you're like, okay, I'll put a little extra on this card, a little extra on this card, a little extra on this card. And that little bit of extra actually isn't making any progress because the percentages, right? The interest on it is actually eating i

Tiff and Dana discuss the impacts mental health has on the dental industry, including how to take a step back and re-center yourself, maintaining a positive mindset, setting up a team of delegation and accountability, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. I am so excited to be here today with Miss Dana. She is a favorite on the team. Gosh, she is a favorite of so many of our clients. I know so many of you listening have personally worked with Dana and you've gotten to experience the amazing human that she is. We get to hear from you guys constantly. I just, I have to say kudos Dana. You have the biggest raving fans of our company. I just, gosh, I couldn't agree with them more. You seriously changed lives. So I'm excited to be here with you today, Dana. And I'm excited to do this subject with you that we're talking about today, because I just think it's so perfect for where you come into play with your clients. So how are you today, Miss Dana? Dana (00:44) Doing good, thank you for all that Tiff. As you know, my clients mean the world to me. And so the fact that they give love back is always appreciated. The Dental A Team (00:49) Yeah. Yeah, yeah, they do. You guys, if you are one of her prized clients or you are about to be and you're a future client, you are in the right hands and she really does have so much, so much love for all of you. So Dana and I are coming off of a whirlwind right now. Like we just spent 20 minutes trying to figure out how to get in here to record podcasts. You'd think it was our first day on the job, but luckily we have. a non-millennial on our team who knows how to use technology and clear out all the pieces that we needed. So Dana, I feel like it's also appropriate. mean, it leads right into what we're talking about today. I'm like, I've got a little headache like right here now and like, does this happen? And I think Eve calls it difficulties, but I mean, gosh dang it, technology and the world, there's so much going on. constantly, there's so much chaos and it literally led into this subject so well today. Dana (01:55) Yeah, I always say technology is great when it works. It's super frustrating when it doesn't. The Dental A Team (01:58) Yes. my gosh. It's so, it's so crazy. So just FYI, know that there's a lot of love and chaos sometimes that goes into recording these podcasts. And we do love what we do. We do love recording them. love seeing them on Instagram when they pop up and listening to what everybody has to say. And I love listening to them on my own. We know there's some huge, huge raving fans out there. So thank you. But it led into today so well. I wanted to take time today to talk about mental health and dentistry. I think it's definitely, I think it's talked about more now than it ever has been because I do think mental health and suicide and all of those, all of those different avenues and pieces are more widely like accepted to be talked about. and more widely known. So I do think that it is talked about more in dentistry and the awareness, you know, they say awareness is key. The awareness is there, but I really, you guys know we get tactical. We get super tactical no matter what we do. And I think that there are some really tactical ways that we can go about mental health and dentistry. And I wanted to take some time with Dana today to really chat through some of that and really look at what can we do? every day to make sure that we are considering our mental health within the career choice, whether you're dentistry or not, whatever career choice you've taken that has led you here to us today. I think this is going to be super beneficial. And I have personally experienced mental health issues in my personal life, in childhood and with my mother and suicide. And it's still here. It's still relevant. It's still It's everywhere. think everyone I know and everyone I come in contact with has had some sort of mental health disturbance touch their lives in some way, whether it's them personally or someone near them, family or friend. And I just, I reach out to all of you guys and I wrap you up in a huge hug because whether it's super personal or gosh, it was, you know, three times removed, but you still heard about it. It still impacts us and it still becomes a part of who we are. sending massive amounts of love out to everyone today and Dana, you are a master at coordinating chaos is what I will call it today. You are a stress and chaos coordinator extraordinaire. And I think that many, many of the spaces of stress that a lot of people deal with, and I think a lot of our clients that we talk to really actually deal with is the stress of Dana (04:22) you The Dental A Team (04:38) personal life and work life, the stresses of both sides trying not to take one into the other and trying to create this like ever seeked after wo

In this part 2 of his conversation with Kiera, Morgan Hamon, co-founder and president of EAG Dental Advisors, talks about the action items doctors must commit to to stay financially savvy. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera, and this is part two with me and Morgan Hamon as part of EAG Dentist Advisors, where we're actually gonna talk into the tax psychology and the tax strategies and the tax tips. And I really just feel like this episode is so powerful. And as always, thanks for listening, and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast. Morgan Hamon (00:22) But no, you got to do the stuff. So if your accountant tells you, look, take a board meeting, document it properly, there's a proper way to do it, you got to do it. That's how we say the proper legal avoidance. your account comes to you and says, look, it's time to be an S-Corp, Kiera Dent (00:30) Mm-hmm. Morgan Hamon (00:39) because the profit is appropriate, you gotta follow the instruction. There's a procedure there and it's gonna save a lot of money on self-employment payroll tax if it's done correctly. You gotta listen, but you gotta engage. There's action items. And so we, ⁓ every September, I made a checklist. You know, again, Navy guy, right? I got a checklist. Log in, do the checklist. I call it our business tax savings maximizer. That's the flashiest, catchiest name I could think of. But like, log in and do it. That's the secret. Kiera Dent (00:58) I love it. you Morgan Hamon (01:08) So, you know, for those listeners that waiting for the secret, that's it, right? We got to capture expenses as business deductions and there is action items for the doctor. It requires that engagement. And to circle back to where what you said earlier, like you can't come into the office and just fix it for them. They've got responsibilities on things to do too and that's the same with tax policy. Kiera Dent (01:31) I thought that was such a beautiful way. And as you were going through the phases of grief, I'm like, oh yeah, I definitely lived all of those. And I think it does feel like a kick in the gut. like, this is worse than finding out like coal in your stocking Christmas morning. Like it's way worse. Like it feels awful. And you're in total denial that like, how is this even real? Like I live in America. Like, how is this real? I didn't know. And I mean, then you put on your state tax on there. And I'm like, for people who are in California, Morgan Hamon (01:39) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm Mm-hmm. Kiera Dent (02:00) Like more than 50 % of your income could be going to tax pending upon your tax bracket. But I think Morgan is one of those things of also seeing, I know people don't want to hear, I'm going to be very unpopular right here and it's okay. It will like, you'll be in denial, you'll hate it. And then you'll be like, yeah, that's actually a really good point. Cause that's how I did it. Like taxes are a blessing though. Like we, we are so blessed to live in the country we are to be able to set the pricing that we want, to be able to do the work that we want to do that. like, I don't want to pay more taxes. Morgan Hamon (02:12) you Mm-hmm. Kiera Dent (02:28) but I can see me paying taxes as like my opportunity to be here and to be a business owner. And I think that's an amazing thing that we do get to have access to. But like you said, shoot guys, this is where the discipline comes in. This is where the engagement comes in. This is where the ownership comes in. I remember where I should like, I'll send you a picture. My husband and made this like vision board together, cause every December I would cry over taxes. And one of my goals, literally has like, it's a sign that says tax expert ahead. Morgan Hamon (02:33) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Kiera Dent (02:57) And I put that on my vision board because I'm I'm sick of this stupid stuff. I'm sick of Morgan telling me I owe this much money when I'm like, how is it even possible? I was like, I'm going to freaking figure this out. And I realized like, it's actually not that hard of a math equation. It's like, what is my profit that I get that month? What's my tax bracket? And let me go save that. Morgan Hamon (03:00) Thank you. Mm-hmm. Kiera Dent (03:16) pay your quarterly tax payments. And then what I love is when, cause I put myself in the highest tax bracket, some years I'm going to be a little bit higher, some years I'm going be a little bit lower, like it's going to flush out. But if I'm saving my max amount that I would be having to pay in taxes every single month, I'm like, it's not that hard. Like you literally just take it, put it in a savings account, I put it in a high yield, so I'm even making money on it there. What's amazing is at the end of the year, I get my W2, Morgan Hamon (03:32) Mm-hmm. Kiera Dent (03:41) like refund, if you will, bec

Morgan Hamon, co-founder and president of EAG Dental Advisors, returns to the podcast to talk about dentistry financials. As a CPA, Morgan pulls from his experience to talk with Kiera about what it takes to be profitable (beyond revenue and expenses). Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I am so jazzed. I have one of my absolute favorite guests back on the podcast, Morgan Hamon. He used to be with HDA. They have now upgraded their name to EAG Dental Advisors. Super excited. He's an incredible CPA, does all things dental, loves airplanes. He's been on the podcast so many times. We've had some good chats. Dear friend to me, Morgan, welcome back to the show. How are you? Morgan Hamon (00:20) Ha ha. Kiera, I'm doing good. It is so great to be with you and looking forward to our conversation today. Kiera Dent (00:31) to you and me both. So I have to know since you love airplanes and it's in your background, are you a fan or not a fan of Top Gun? I just need to know. Morgan Hamon (00:35) Mm-hmm. You know, I have a soft spot for that movie because when it came out in 1986, I was 15. And I, you know, I sort of set my sight. That definitely influenced me. said, that's what I want to do. So I went out and did it. And so. Kiera Dent (00:46) Mmm. So then how did you like Top Gun Maverick? was the second? Tell me, are you fan? Morgan Hamon (00:56) That one, the purpose of that movie was entertainment and it was entertaining, but it was a little, you gotta suspend disbelief a little bit. It was a little nostalgic because that was set in Naval Air Station, Lamar, which is where I was for eight years. So it was pretty cool seeing that and the flying scenes were real. And so they were all filmed out. It's called restricted area 2508, which is where we always used to fly. So it was pretty nostalgic seeing some of the flying scenes back where we used to go fly. Kiera Dent (01:17) Mm-hmm. Morgan Hamon (01:26) But technically, there's a little, like any movie, there's a little Hollywood going on there. But it was entertaining. Kiera Dent (01:26) No. can't How cool though that they like made a spot for Iceman with him having throat cancer. I thought that was incredible. Like way to go Tom Hanks. So I know you guys didn't come to the podcast to hear Morgan and I talk about top men, but we're going to segue now because Morgan does all things. We love to talk profit. We love to talk taxes. We love to talk all things nerding out on CPA land, which I have really truly fallen in love with like understanding my numbers. So this is a soft spot for me, but Morgan Hamon (01:39) Yes Yep. Hahaha Mm-hmm. Kiera Dent (02:01) Morgan said he won the topic today, which I think is a sexy topic and I cannot wait where he said leadership relates to profitability. And I said, Morgan, sign me up. Here we go. So Morgan, this is our time. This is our topic because I absolutely agree with you that leadership does relate to profitability, but take it away. And then we're to dig into tax savings. We're going to dig into all this stuff and who knows where else we're going to go, but ⁓ it'll be a great one. It always is. Morgan Hamon (02:16) Mm-hmm. Yes. Well, think this topic has evolved with me a little bit, because we've been doing this 15 years and going now. And so a lot of conversations over the years. And I've always thought about profitability, which let's face it, that's why we own businesses. We don't own businesses to pay tax. We own businesses to make a nice living and have some control over our lives. So you've to have profit, and it's hard owning a business. So if we don't have adequate profit, why bother? ⁓ Our mission has always been to really focus on profit, give our doctors feedback on what that profit is, and diagnose if things are, you know, if there's something that could put more money in their pocket. Now, with my CPA hat on, right, there's two parts of that profit equation. There's the expense side of the equation and the revenue side of the equation. And so for a lot of years, I mean, that's where our focus has been. But I've recently, last year or two, I've really come to the conclusion, look, there's a third component there, right? And it's not math, I can't point to the P &L. But where this comes from is I get asked all the time about, and it's from the clients either considering a startup or purchasing a practice, and they'll say, okay, Morgan, you got clients all 50 states, like where's the great area? Where should I go where folks are doing well? Kiera Dent (03:27) Ooh, I can't wait. Morgan Hamon (03:47) I that question. I get asked, hey, do you have a special report for pediatric dentists? Because I'm going to be pediatric, so I'm going to be making more money kind of thing. Or I'll hear a report. Or I'll get a question that, do you have a report just for your clients in

Tiff and Dana perform a practice autopsy of sorts — one of Dana's star students, and what's been put in place to help them thrive. The two discuss key systems, metrics, leadership, and how to stay committed to all of it. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello Dental A Team listeners. We are back live today it feels like you know it's so weird Dana to still be like on video it still weirds me out but whatever we don't do as many as Miss Cara Dutt does. So we are here today to chat with you guys we are so excited I've got Dana here and I have just like shocked her with reality today that I actually I want to hear about one of her incredible offices that she's been working with. And before we dive in, I want you guys to just know that we love what we do. We love helping you guys. We love consulting. We love helping you guys when you're not actually clients yet. And we want you to know that we're always here for you guys. Reach out. [email protected]. always here. Our social medias. Dana, she does this incredible video, live video. I think it's live. I don't even know anymore. On Mondays, it used to be Fridays, it used to be Donuts with Dana. Now it's Motivational Monday or something to that effect. you guys, legitimately Dana is there, just like ready to answer questions. She takes ideas. So if there's things you guys are working on or... things you guys are trying to work through, send them in to us. Dana's always looking for more ideas on hot topics. We take them from things that we're talking to practices about and then what we're implementing so that you guys always have the best, most useful information, but we love suggestions. Same as topics for these suckers. We're always looking for suggestions for these and if you're not a part of our newsletter crew yet, you better go subscribe because we've got a ton of newsletters that come out as well. all the ways that you guys can reach out to us. If you're clients, guys, gosh, I don't, Dana, I don't even. I don't even get suggestions from my clients on things they want to hear from us. And my clients, and I know yours do too, they listen to all of these suckers. So all of my clients out there, all Dana's clients out there, thank you for listening. But hey guys, we're here for the suggestions. We're just always thinking of everything. Dana, do you ever get suggestions? Dana (01:54) No, no, ⁓ no, I get asked about what we're going to talk about today The Dental A Team (01:58) Yeah, I was like, as I'm sitting here like asking a whole slew of people for suggestions, I'm like, hey, I've got a handful of people out there that aren't even suggesting. So I need to be, I need to be more open about that. But today, I'm really excited to hear about this. Dana has been working her tail off with all of her practices. She works really, really hard. Dana, you are the grit to the fullest in so many ways and solution oriented. For those of you who don't know, those are two of our seven core values. And honestly, you embody all of them. But today is really about grit, solution-oriented, passion for excellence, and results-focused. These are some of the key pieces of what I think you did really, really well, with these results that this client has exceeded. And I'm just excited to hear about them. I threw Dana for a loop today, reminding her that today is her practice I wanted to hear about and that I'm gonna let her kind of take the floor for for a lot of today I have a lot of questions to ask and and kind of chime in but Dina I really just am so excited to hear about them, but Really, how are you doing? And how are how are your clients doing overall? Like how are you doing in the world of consulting? We're about halfway through the year now, which is well a little over I guess which is wild to me It's crazy that 2025 is almost gone, but how are you doing over there and how are your clients doing? Dana (03:24) I'm doing pretty good. Thanks for asking. feel like 2025 has been like a wild year, a little bit different for some practices, but I feel like they're all digging in. Everybody is willing to like do the things, work really hard, talk to their team, build in leadership. I'm super proud of my clients and their perseverance throughout this year and their ability to just kind of like pivot and push where is needed. And I think a lot of that is getting clients to look a little bit more at their numbers, to look a little bit more at what they tell them. I think it's really made a huge difference for a lot of practices this year. And so I'm just, yeah, always super proud of my clients. They're just really blessed to be able to be a part of their lives, a part of their practice and their journeys. The Dental A Team (04:06) Yeah, I agree. think coming off of December of 2024 was a wild ride for a lot of practices, November and December rolling into January. And I

Kiera gives advice to those practices stuck in the $1 to $2 million range (because the same problems tend to apply). These hurdles can often be addressed in the leadership, systems, and mindset arenas, and Kiera spells out specific steps your practice can implement today to burst through the barriers. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:01) Hello, Dental A team listeners. This is Kiera and I am so happy to be podcasting with you today. I hope that you are just loving your life. I hope you remember that we are so blessed and so lucky to be able to do dentistry. I mean, talk about it. So many people dream of this world. So many people want this world and yet you get to live the dream. You get to live the freaking dream. This is your life. And so today I thought it would just be fun to tackle into this of, you know what? Why are you still stuck at 1 million? and how to break through, or maybe while you're still stuck at 2 million and how to break through. I feel like there's very similar problems from zero to 2 million. So I thought, hey, let's talk about it. Yes, it might seem like, okay, no, they're not quite the same. Actually, they're pretty darn the same. And I thought, hey, why not tell you why you're still stuck here and how to break through that ceiling? I remember once I was told about like the wifi symbol, and I feel like every one of those layers is just your next layer. And it's like, how can I burst through that next layer and actually make my life easier? I remember I also had a friend and I was working towards my first million. I remember when I hit our first million in the company and my friend texted me and he said, Kara, now that you've hit your first million, the rest are easy from here. And I will say getting to that first million mark is tricky, but then getting beyond it. So from really, it's like zero to 2 million. Honestly, a lot of these things are going to apply. So you're still stuck at 1 million. Let's break through that plateau. You guys, this is the Dental A Team and we freaking love helping practices break through limiting beliefs. Create the impossible into the possible. Make your life easy. Make your practice experience amazing and truly give you the life and practice that you deserve. I'm obsessed with having your life and business on purpose. Truly, why not? Like why? Why be a business owner? Why do all these hard things if we don't get to do the life that we wanted to have all the things that we wished for and to give our teams the same type of life and experience as well? So the reality is when we look at this, it's not clinical skills typically. Sometimes it is. Sometimes you do need to take some courses. If it's clinical and you're struggling clinically, think Coice and Spear and a lot of those will be really great for you clinically. So typically though, it's not clinical. It's systems, leadership and mindset. Like literally that's what it is. It's the systems, it's the leadership, it's the mindset. Systems do tie into our numbers and knowing that. And so I just want to break through like these three little hidden barriers that oftentimes keep practices stuck and some ways to get around that. So you can plateau through that one million, that two million mark. and really be on your way to great success, but doing it not harder. How about that? Like, I don't want to work harder here. I don't want to have to do more. Don't worry. When you actually put these things into place, you get more time back. You get more happiness back. It's not like, let's do this and have less happiness, less time, but you can if you do it your hard way. But we're going to teach you, today I want to teach you how to do this easy. Are you on board for that? If so, welcome. I'm super happy. I'm Kiera. This is the Dental A Team. We created it to help hundreds and thousands of offices scale beyond that 1 million mark to get to the 2 million, the 3 million, the 5 million. We have offices doing 500,000. We have offices doing 1.5. We have offices doing 3 million, 5 million, 10 million, 20 million. The reality is these things apply across the board. There's different layers and different ways to fine tune and refine based on the size of practice you are. But at the end of the day, these are really easy areas to help you see where your gap is and to break through. This truly is an episode that's for practice owners who know that they're capable of more, but honestly don't know where to go. I hear all the time when people talk to us about joining dental hygiene, they're like, Kiera, I don't know what I don't know. I'm like, you're right. So let's help you. Let's like peel off the mask, give you the resources and make it to where life is so much easier for you. So number one, the first block that I want to break down for you is you are wearing too many hats. This happens all the time. It's called the bottleneck.

Kiera is joined by Ted Osterer of Synergy Dental Partners to talk about the money field of dentistry in this moment of 2025, including tariffs, negotiating and raising fees, finding supplies, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I am jazzed. I have a super fun guest on the podcast today. We're going to talk about the tariff sheriff, how that's impacting dentistry, the rise of dental supply costs, and honestly what to do because I'm so annoyed by all these pieces. What's the economic outlook? How do dentists freaking survive? Like, gosh, it just seems like a funny world out there. But we have Ted Osterer. He is with Synergy. I love this buying group. I think they're Absolutely incredible. We're gonna shed some light for you guys. So Ted, welcome to the show today. How are you? Ted Osterer (00:32) I am doing very, very well. Thank you so, so much for having me. Congratulations on your thousandth episode recently. I'm happy to be a part of this and any value I could bring to your listeners, hey, we're all better for it. Kiera Dent (00:39) Thank you. Well, thanks, Ted. And yes, ⁓ I'm still in utter awe that we hit a thousand episodes. Like when I started this, it was just a whim, a pipe dream. Jason and I were hiking. It's not a joke. I literally was hiking half-dome. Mind you, Jason had said, hey, let's go down to Yosemite. I'd love a nice relaxing weekend down there. And I had learned that you could go get, like, this is prior. You can't do this anymore. That you could get these like day passes, like these day camping passes. And if you just went and sat at this little lodge for a few hours. So I was like, Jay, yeah, of course we'll go down there for this very calm, welcoming, welcome, like very easy, relaxing weekend. Little did he know I had full plans to try and get half dome tickets and like hike half dome. I even brought the gloves, like I was ready to go. And sure enough, I got the lottery, got the tickets. Jason was like, what the heck? We're going to freaking hike half dome. Like, Kiera, we haven't even prepped for this. We haven't done any of this. We don't even have a hotel. We got a hotel an hour away. We had to drive an hour outside of town. It was the nastiest hotel. They were like, I'm not even joking. There was like hair and like this little pill on the pillow that were not ours. Jason's like had the worst sleep of his night and I'm like listen there's no hotels around me of 70. Like we're filing so we had a place. We went back super early the next morning to hike Half Dome and lo and behold on our hike I said Jay I think we need to build a podcast. This is where it all started. It was like one of those things that I never imagined a thousand episodes would hit and here we are. Ted, you're hanging out with me a thousand in. And I think it's just fun because of all the value, all the stories, all the people. And like you and I were talking about pre-show, the podcast is really just a place where I get to selfishly hang out and just have a good conversation with people that I like. I get to meet new people in the industry. And as a byproduct of my nerdiness and excitement of meeting people, all of our listeners get benefited by this. So Ted, I'm so happy you're a part of this. Thank you for that. ⁓ Outside of Yosemite, let's talk about the rising cost of dental supplies, the tariffs, how this is going to impact. Because I know people are really nervous about it. I see in lots of dental groups out there, and you guys are really great. That's why I had you come on, because I think you're a huge solution to these problems. So take it away, Ted also, so the listener know how on earth did you even get into dentistry? Let's talk about that first, and then let's talk about what this even looks like for dental practices long-term. Ted Osterer (03:00) How did I get into dentistry? ⁓ It was fate, it was just destiny. Growing up, I had 13 teeth pulled. I had braces for five years and it was like, well, I'm here for life, I guess. And this is just how we can all grow as a unit. ⁓ I've been in dentistry for about 15 years now. I started out as a dental supply rep. I was going door to door for over five years and... funny enough that, you know, this isn't the, I grew up in the New York area. This is the major metropolitan New York area. And I had a really good buddy and he was like, I think you'd be a really good fit actually managing anal practices. And I can actually introduce you to someone. And it was like a small like eight practice group. I can introduce you to somebody, the practice on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Go see if you'd be a good fit. And I'm just kind of like, sure, guess. know, it's like always like have a conversation. And I had a conversation and sure enough, I got along really well with a particular office manager ⁓ fr

Re-releasing a DAT listener favorite! Dr. Lewis Chen is aboard the Dental A-Team! Dr. Chen has become an extremely successful dentist in a short amount of time — like, 10-practices-in-two-years successful. He shares with Kiera what he did differently to find his success, including utilizing the right resources and committing to a schedule. Dr. Chen and Kiera also discuss the difference between work and luck, things that went well, and pitfalls he wishes he'd avoided. He also shares life hacks, his best tip for delegation, and how to elevate teams. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera (00:05) Hey everyone, welcome to the Dental A Team podcast. I'm your host, Kiera Dent, and I had this crazy idea that maybe I could combine a doctor and a team member's perspective, because let's say dentistry can be a challenging profession with those two perspectives. I've been a dental assistant, treatment coordinator, scheduler, pillar, office manager, regional manager, practice owner, and I have a team of traveling consultants where we have traveled to over 165 different offices coaching teams. Yep, we don't just understand you, we are you. Kiera (00:14) Because face it. Kiera (00:34) Our mission is to positively impact the world of dental. And I believe that this podcast is the greatest way I can help elevate teams, grow VIP experiences, reduce stress, and create A-Teams. Welcome to the Dental A Team Podcast. ⁓ Team listeners, this is Kiera and you guys. Today is a pretty special day. I have a dear friend. We have chatted so many times. He is a rock star on Instagram. If you do not watch his channel, you definitely need to. And he's just one of the coolest people that I feel is a great inspiration. He's been able to do what a lot of other offices have not been able to do. So I'm so jazzed to bring on Dr. Louis Chen. How are you today, Louis? Dr. Chen (01:14) Good. Thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure. It's been so long since we've been actually meeting in person. think the last time was in 2018, 2019. Kiera (01:23) I Because I saw you I think first, was it Paul Goodman's event, the dental nachos? I think that's where we first met. Dr. Chen (01:30) Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's when I saw Mark in person for the first time and then I saw you for the first time, but I've known about both of you, you know, from some years back. So it's about time. Almost fangirling at the time. I'm fangirling now still. Kiera (01:43) So. Well, you're so kind. You just you inspire me. So I am so jazzed. Kind of take our listeners. I know a little bit of your journey, but gosh, you have done some impressive work since 2019, only in 2021. And in the middle, we had COVID. So kind of just walk our listeners through just your back history, your backstory of how you even got to being a dentist, what kind of inspired you to become one, where you're at today. Just kind of give people your quick bio on you. Dr. Chen (02:13) Quick bio, so okay, I'll give myself a short version. So I started in college with an economics major to which I graduated with that degree. And during that time in sophomore year, I remember interning at dental office and my parents liked the arts, liked the sciences, tried dentistry and I did. since that time, I shadowed a dentist and he was very, I was very shy guy. He's like, listen, you should spend some time learning about patient care. Just learn about patients. Don't think about the dentistry. Dentistry will come. go to school for that. School doesn't teach you how to speak to people. ⁓ then later I focused a lot of my time doing it. And I realized in New York City, the crux of New York City, dentistry is not cheap. It's an expensive commodity. part of that you when I sat there, realized like, you know, patients who've had a great time when they checked out, they had to build a pay, it's usually not as exciting. Kiera (03:21) It's true Dr. Chen (03:23) Yeah, so I had I was sought out on mission. said, well, you know, why in New York City is very saturated? Why should I be perpetuating that sort of, you know, that the stereotype of dentistry, dental work to be expensive? So I sought out a vision and said, you know what? I love dentistry. I want to provide good quality care. It's like, social hour, happy hour, every day, every hour. But why can I just make it a little bit more affordable? than my neighbor, neighboring dentists. And I wanted to provide exceptional patient experience and exceptional patient care, the dental care, so on and so forth, the whole camera things. And then I said, know what? I want to do on a scale. I want to at least have five offices by the time, and I want to achieve that. And I was 19 at the time. Kiera (04:13) Haven't even gone to dental school. You're like, here's the vision. This is what I want. And let's make it happen. Dr. Chen (04:18) Yeah, and that's exactly what I mean, through dental school,

Tiff and Kristy talk about revisiting those goals your practice set at the beginning of 2025, and if you're falling short, discuss how to get back on track. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. I am so excited to be back here today. I've got Kristy with me. You guys know I love podcasting with the consultant team and I love each of them for something very, special. Kristy, you are my gal that, like, I feel like we can talk about anything. Always be on the same page. You riff with me very easily. And you always, always, always, I have to value this and appreciate it at the end. If I ever ask you for anything I missed, you always catch something and always have a pearl of wisdom. And I just think it's really, really, one, talented. Like not everyone can do that or think. A lot of people get like stressed, especially podcasting. And two, it just makes me really, really excited for your clients because I know you just operate in that way. You're always thinking of like, my gosh, what else can I add? What value can I bring? And your clients are just insanely lucky to have you as a consultant. And your previous clients I know are just always checking in with you and they're always asking those simple questions or those hard questions. And Kristy, think it's just really cool. You're an insanely special human. So thank you for being here. Thank you for being a part of our team. I hope you understand and know how valued you are, the Dental A Team, and just personally and professionally. Kristy (01:25) Absolutely. Thank you. I'm honored to be here and be a part of ⁓ changing dental lives. ⁓ The Dental A Team (01:26) Yeah. Thank you. And just so everyone knows who's listening, podcasts are not like super easy. Recording podcasts can be a little daunting. And that was even before we had to do it by video. And I think about this a lot, actually, because it just, I think it's so funny. This is kind of like cell phones. We're going go on a little small little tangent because I think it's hilarious. I remember way back in the day when we were like, bricks with these giant cell phones. We were like, this is stupid, like, why it needs to be small? So we had this little tiny flip phone that you really couldn't do a lot on, right? Because it was so small, but it was small. We wanted small and compact. And then we went to a BlackBerry and it was like, this is a whole computer and I can do my emails. And then we went small again. We like keep going back and forth and back and forth. And now, know, iPhones got it pretty well dialed in, but it's so much bigger than my cell phone was in high school. And I think about this a lot because I think we go forward and backwards in life constantly. This is no different than that. Because you remember, I remember Brody was little and I used to do Beachbody coaching. I loved it. It was just like a past life that I absolutely loved. The fitness industry, the fitness world is my passion. But I remember we used to get on Facebook Live or we do YouTube videos and we were like, hey guys, this is how you make this cake or whatever it was. And then we removed the video aspect, right? And that's when podcasts got popular and podcasts were not video. Podcasts were strictly just talking. And I remember Dana and I, or Britt and I, like get together and we could see each other, but it wasn't being recorded. So we could come however we wanted to look. It was just like, come as you are. We're only here for the voices. And then now, then we added the video back in and I'm like, wait, like we keep going backwards. Now I feel like we're doing YouTubes all the time. So. Anyways, my small tangent there is like going forward and then coming backwards and feeling like you're making progress, but then technology pulls us back a little bit. And I think that we do that in life and personal life. We do that in habits. We're like, so good. The 30 days sugar detox, like I'm doing so good, right? We get to 28 days and we're like, but just a little bit won't hurt. I just want a little sugar. And we're like, dang it. Now we're sliding backwards or whatever the I think we do that a lot in life and it doesn't have to be technology. It can just be habits. It can. It can be anything in some some places. A place that I see it a lot is within our goals within a company that only team has company goals. We we do the same thing over here. Every business is business is what I always say. We've consulted eye doctors and chiropractors and like business is business. I talked to. You know, my financial advisor about his business structure, he's like, help me with the CPAs, whatever. Business is business and we all move forward and fall back and move forward and fall back. And today, Kristy, I thought it might be beneficial kind of being mid-year-ish to do a check-in on that. I know we do it with

Ryan Isaac of Dentist Advisors returns to continue his discussion with Kiera about the future of dentistry, including options aside from DSOs. The question a practice owner should ask themself, Kiera and Ryan say, is what that individual wants out of their life — then consider the best platform to get you there. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera, and this is going to be part two of mine and Ryan Isaac's conversation where we're digging into DSOs to sell to not to sell, all of that. And I truly am so excited for you guys here, part two. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast. Kiera Dent (00:17) why don't we take a pause and just think of like, what's the future of dentistry as now the future pioneers of dentistry? And what are we going to do to our profession? Yes, there's top dollar. Yes, there's things about it, but is there a way to influence? and make sure that the integrity of dentistry can maintain long-term. I have no answer to that, but again, this is Kiera Dent sitting on my podcast where I think that there is a voice and an influence and like on Dentist Advisors podcast, is there a way that we can influence our industry in ways that will protect and still pay out? Because I'm like, even if you don't get the 10X EBITDA, you still can get a freaking great payout if you do your life right to where you can be financially set up. Ryan Isaac (00:33) Mm-hmm. ⁓ Kiera Dent (00:58) still be able to sell your practice, not have to sell it in ways that could potentially hurt the industry. I'm not saying one's the right answer or the wrong answer. There's no judgment on my side. It's just, let's maybe think and consider how it could influence. Can we get people that could be private equity higher up that could help protect it? Those are things that, and again, I'm just Kiera Dent here in Reno, Nevada. Ryan Isaac (01:03) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Same, okay. Okay. Yes. No, these are the questions. You're totally influential. I think it's just in the opposite direction. ⁓ I don't think we can influence private equity. Private equity is ruthless in every industry. They don't. It feels dirty. It feels dirty. And I have a question for you, but I just want to say really fast. ⁓ I do feel like, yes. Kiera Dent (01:30) It's dirty. It's dirty. Is there a way though, Brian, you don't finance better than me. Is there a way that there could become dentists that could become in private equity where they own it? Because once you, there's no way to insulate, you don't think. Because once you get to that level, you just, I mean, I've had. Ryan Isaac (01:44) Yeah, but they'll do the same thing. I mean, they'll want the same thing. Now, money's money. It's why capitalism runs the world. mean, that's why, you know, it's like why it influences politics and money and business runs the world, you know? ⁓ Okay, hold on. There's so many good things here. Number one would be not every group will be a DSO, private equity backed DSO. And you know, many, many ⁓ clients and just dentists around the country who will end up being owners of Kiera Dent (02:05) Okay. Ryan Isaac (02:19) 20, 50, 100 group practices that will stay privately held and ran by owner doctors. That will be a chunk of this ⁓ group practice ⁓ takeover. So in that space, the influence can still be huge. ⁓ I think the chance to influence the integrity of private practice is in those who don't sell to DSOs. I think it's in the industry, educated in influencing the industry for people who aren't going to sell and who are going to maintain control. Now, I do think that in the future, more and more dentists will be in a group. ⁓ are probably, yeah, be fewer and I can see why it would make sense to do that. There would probably be fewer and fewer people with just solo doc, solo location practices. know, some towns and rural places, that would be hard to do. Kiera Dent (02:47) Mm-hmm. I do too. Ryan Isaac (03:15) So I think you're Dorothy, is that what you said? I'm Dorothy. I think that is possible, not with private equity, but with still the owner doctors that still exist and the group practices that are ran by dentists, not private equity back. I think the influence is still gonna be, I mean, if you took the projections of what will stay private, Kiera Dent (03:20) Yeah, hi. I agree. Ryan Isaac (03:40) and then the chunk of the group stuff that'll be non DSO non-corporate, that's still got to be 40, 50 % of the industry eventually. Kiera Dent (03:49) I would think so. I mean, look at it right now. There's corporate dentistry within. And again, there's nothing wrong with any, because I have clients that are in corporate dentistry that run their practices like private. They take care of their teams. So it's one of those things I still think, like even if you are, and that's another way that w

All the new tech out there available to practices can be exciting to get your hands on. But if you're not integrating things in a productive way, it'll likely end up in the digital broom closet, collecting dust. Tiff and Kristy talk about the best methods to use when bringing a new program, software, service, etc. to the team. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello Dental A Team listeners. We are so excited to be here today. I have a really exciting, I don't know, subject today on our content and I'm actually really, really excited to talk to you doctors about this and team members, office managers alike, everyone who's here, this is great information for you. I have some offices I'm gonna chat about and just some things that they're doing really, really well I think with their dental assistants that's really setting them apart from. other practices that I've seen or worked with or other practices in their area specifically. So I'm really excited to talk with you guys about that today. And I have brought on with me, of course, one of my favorites. I love all of our consultants, you guys, but Kristy, I know I just love your heart, like your heart and your soul and the love you have for other people. I love having you on our team. And I think that No matter what content we're talking about, you relate to it in some way or you find a way to love on our clients regarding it. But I think today, like, I think it's gonna be a really cool one to do with you. So, Kristy, thank you so much for being here with me today. How are you? You're in a new home. hope, gosh, everybody, if you are a client of Kristy's, I'm gonna brag on Kristy right now. And Kristy does not brag on herself often, unlike any of us do. But Kristy moved states. She moved... She moved states, you guys, without anyone even knowing. I told Kristy, and I will say it again, if I didn't know you were moving, I would never have known you were moving. And I know your clients felt that same way. So you guys, if you are clients with Kristy's, if you see Kristy on social media, you want to write in, like, please give her some kudos because you literally never would have known that you moved entire states. And now you are in comparison in my backyard. It feels like I know you're still like. Kristy (01:49) Yes. The Dental A Team (01:50) hot minute from me, but ⁓ you're here in Phoenix with me. So welcome to Phoenix, Kristy. How are you guys doing? How was the move? How is your family? Tell me. Kristy (01:58) Yep. my gosh, we're doing wonderful. We're enjoying this weather. I know it's going to heat up pretty good this weekend, but we're enjoying it and just making the most of it. ⁓ Getting rid of boxes. How about that? We'll leave it at that. The Dental A Team (02:11) Yeah, yeah, good. I know you went through a garage over the weekend, you said, and it is hot, you guys. Like, I was freaking dying this weekend. I'm like, gosh dang it, why does Phoenix do this to me? But I love it. I'd rather, I have to remind myself all summer, I would rather be hot and like dipping in my pool, you know, or my community pool or my friend's pool or whatever. Somebody has a pool somewhere. I would rather do that than shovel snow. any time of the day, any time of the year. So I will not complain too much about our weather. Kristy (02:46) That's right, amen. I agree. The Dental A Team (02:48) Awesome. I love it. Well, I know a lot of people, you know, follow our journeys and I just think it's really special. So thank you again, Kristy, for the dedication you have to our clients, to our company, and to the results for clients and non-clients alike. You really worked your tail off to, like, you know, you integrated just family and work so well. I think while I speak on behalf of your family as well, I think you really do it seamlessly and every one of us really truly appreciate you. So. That's my spiel on Kristy today, you guys. And I'm so excited to jump into this and you'll see it in your newsletters. If you're not subscribed, go subscribe because there's a slew of information in there. And just so you guys know, if you're not subscribed to the newsletters, you should be. Those newsletters, we actually write them. So the consulting team and our marketing team, we put a lot of work into those newsletters. actually, we write a lot of the content that goes along with those. know marketing takes like one a month, I think, but gosh, there's anywhere between four and six newsletters a month, and they are written by us consultants. So you're always getting the most up to date, accurate consulting information as possible from there. And then we do utilize those similar subjects in our podcast here. So today we are going to speak to one of the newsletter subjects, but we're actually going to spin it just a little bit. So if you're not getting the newsletter again, go check that ou

Kiera is joined by Ryan Isaac of Dentist Advisors to dive into DSOs. They discuss such questions as: Are they the best financial choice for your practice? The best life choice? Are the horror stories true? And so many more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and I am freaking jazzed for today's podcast. It has been way too long. Me and this guest talk quite often on like life and personal and business, but podcasting it's been a hot minute. I've got Ryan Isaac from Dentist Advisors, my personal advisor, one of my dearest friends. I think we're siblings in another life. Ryan, welcome to the show today. How are you? Ryan Isaac (00:07) Mm-hmm. Thank Thank you. I'm really good. just realized I was trying to hit mute and cough, but I hit like a chapter marker instead. So there you go. To your listeners or your ⁓ editing team, then there's a chapter marker while I'm coughing. So in your intro. Yeah. Tis the season. Kiera Dent (00:35) You're welcome. Yeah, that's fine. I'm okay with it. This is real life. We're sitting on, I mean, Ryan, you're sitting on the couch. I should get like my posh chair. I've been considering changing up my podcasting zone. Yeah, of course. All of us can see it. We're excited for that. Ryan Isaac (00:40) Hahaha Can I show you? Can I just give you a little vibe check here? I mean, it's actually, that's the ocean. I'm on a little summer getaway for a second. So yeah. Yeah. Kiera Dent (00:54) my gosh. That's amazing. So that's Ryan's life. Ryan's living his rich life over there. He's like truly. So, okay. If you're new to the podcast, Ryan is my personal advisor. Like truly he actually works on. We talk about my life. He's helped me make some really good decisions and not make some bad decisions. So I feel like financial advisors. My best advice is you gotta just find someone you trust. And I know Ryan is way more conservative than me, but cares about me as an individual so strongly. And Ryan, huge kudos to you. And so we talk about it a lot, but something we talk often is like, what's our rich life? And I remember Ryan for years, you were like living in your van, truly driving to California all the time to be by the beach, because you love surfing so much. So it just makes me so happy to see that you are living your best life by the ocean. You're doing what you teach all of your clients to do of living their version of a best life. Something that we try to do in dentistry and dental team too, like, hey, let's help your business provide you the best dream life you want. So that's Ryan. Ryan Isaac (01:36) Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, thank you. And there's no there's no right way to do that. I mean, everyone has their own thing that's worth the money or worth spending on. We're just kind of joking around about this, too. There are people who will sit in ⁓ small rentals or apartments on millions of dollars because to them having lots of security and liquidity is more valuable than houses or everyone's got something different. But, you know, we're all we're all chasing it, hopefully. Kiera Dent (01:57) Catch y'all. I think it's called the like emotional ROI and what helps you sleep at night in your financial world. So Ryan and I usually get on the podcast and we'll talk about finances. I mean, obviously dentist advisors, Ryan do a spiel. What is dentist advisors? Just so people know. I think you guys are financial advisors for dentists specifically. I'm not a dentist, but I can speak honestly, but a spiel. And then we're going to actually go like a hard left turn of what we're going to talk about today. Like really. Ryan Isaac (02:26) Ooh. Uh-huh. Yeah. Thank you. ⁓ Yeah, yeah, our on ramps coming up here really soon. We got to get over it. We got to get into the right lane. Dentist advisor started ⁓ almost A Team years ago now with me and Reese Harper. Shout out to Reese Harper. And yeah, we were dedicated to being ⁓ an independent fiduciary fee only ⁓ advisor for dentists to manage investments and give financial advice. Ultimately, Kiera Dent (02:51) Yep. Shout out to Reese. Ryan Isaac (03:17) you know, a dentist path through school and debt and taxes and all the stuff they go through, ⁓ you know, buying a practice, building businesses. There's no reason why all of that should not pay off every it should pay off for every dentist. There is enough money to be made in dentistry. And so our job really and you kind of said this with the you know, in the intro, ⁓ I really do feel like just protecting my clients, you know, and that's a philosophy that we've. built into our business. There's no reason why dentists shouldn't make it to the life they want and to the finish line financially. so, you know, ⁓ it's more about consistent, small, good decisions for long periods of time and avoiding like a few big mistakes that could derail you forever. S

As the weather heats up and schools let out, there's one main thing on people's minds: vacation! In this episode, Kiera talks about maximizing the slow days and weeks at your practice, including batching vacation days, production goals, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera, and I just thought this would be a fun one to release ⁓ right before we're prepping for summer, ⁓ because I know a lot of you want to take some summertime off, but our practices are still running, right? ⁓ A lot of times we don't want to close it down. Sometimes we want to close it down. So I thought, let's just pop on, do a quick tactical practical of what to do to have products for our team to figure out what to do to make this tour. You can have an amazing summer vacation and a profitable practice. As always, Dental A Team is here for you. We are here for dentists and teams. We love consulting. We love working. We love making your life easy. We love helping you have the dream life that you've been looking for. And honestly, it's so magical to be able to help so many offices turn what they thought was impossible to possible. So today, let's dive in. Let's talk about, all right, I go on vacation, but my team's still working. What on earth should I have them do? Like... honest to goodness, what do I do? So I'm going to give a few ideas, but before I get into that, I think it's super important that for future, some offices will actually strategically plan when doctors are off and when the full team is off. So what I would say is let's look at this and is this something that you want to do or is this a way to like max out all the vacations that you're looking to get done? Cause team members might be wanting to take vacation too, or is there a time of year that you want to take off? that then the rest of your team could take off. So we're kind of like batching our vacations. Some offices will do that. And you can look at a projection forecaster and figure out, okay, how far do I need to go? What do we need to do? What would we need to produce? And it will help you actually set goals so that way you can be on vacation stress free. So that'd be number one. Other times offices love it. They love to where the hygienists are going to keep working pending upon your state laws. Front office is going to catch up, but what do we actually have them do? So that way they're working effectively. we're able to move this practice forward. So things that I would recommend are always an operations manual. This is a great time. People always tell me, I don't have time, I don't have time, I don't have time. Let's actually get that operations manual completed. Let's build out the protocols, let's take the pictures, let's write the pieces. And we have an operations manual, a template in our, ⁓ in our virtual academy that all of our offices get. And so like just certain things that you could do for like an office manager is leading morning huddle tracking. Like how do we track our production? How do we track our collections? How do we do our reappointments? How do we fill out our KPIs, end of day checklists, next day schedules, checking to see it? How do we fill out a scorecard of all of our metrics? What about for monthly closing the month by the fifth of every month? How do we do that? How do we set the supply budget for the next month? How do we do production and collections? Doctors, you might not even know how to do half this stuff I'm rattling off. ⁓ making projections for the years, putting in our OSHA training, our HIPAA training, who do we contact for all of that, ⁓ looking at payroll, how do we do team training. For schedulers, would be like routes look prep, new patient referral tracking, confirmation calls of all the patients, re-care calls to fill the schedule, patient check-in. Like these are the type of protocols going out to our dental assistants and hygienists. How do we set up for... breaking down a room, how do we do a bridge prep? How do we do burr blocks? How do we do the seric machine, changing traps, charting, checking insurance eligibility, cleaning the mill, co-diagnosing treatment, crown prep, crown seat, downtime. There are about a bajillion ⁓ protocols that your team could honestly do. And we have this whole beautiful checklist where you literally, who's writing it? When does it need to be done? What does it look like? And also in our template, we show exactly how these protocols should be done. So like at the beginning, what's the purpose of this? What are the steps? What are the supplies needed? And then a picture of it if applicable. So that way everybody knows how to make this template. Everybody knows what we're looking for. We have it in there. So it's like all of them should have a purpose, step-by-step, supplies if needed picture, and then making sure that they're all in a

Tiff and Dana are in the mood to talk about moods — specifically when it comes to setting the tone for patients and case acceptance. The two discuss overcoming objections from a foundational level, including your mindset, effective language, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello Dental A Team listeners we are so excited to be here with you today. I have back on the podcast with me Miss Dana. I am so excited to see your beautiful smiling face today and gosh Britt did Rim to Rim, Grand Canyon Rim to Rim recently and Dana I've lived here my whole life. I am an Arizona girl. I love the mountains and I'm like, gosh, people just go out there and it's like, why didn't you bring water? Right? Like you guys are crazy. You've been here for a long time. You hike avidly. Your husband hikes more avidly than anyone I know and knows the Arizona mountains like the back of his hand as if he grew up here. And I'm like, yeah, I could do rim to rim. And then Britt got back and I was like, Dana (00:47) you The Dental A Team (00:48) Okay, Dana, like we should do Rim to Rim, but holy cow. If you guys don't know what Grand Canyon Rim to Rim is, please go look it up. It's like an event that people literally, my boyfriend says to have like, you take it for granted. People literally come here from other countries to see the Grand Canyon. I do take it for granted, that's fair. But hearing Britt's story, Dana, I'm like, holy cow. If we are going to ever do that in our lifetime, I think we need to start today. What do how do you prepare for that? Dana (01:18) Yeah, my biggest takeaway is like the planning of it because I like because I avidly had because my husband like you're right hikes more than any human on earth like I'm just like we can just go do room term and honestly, I'll be like I was like, no, I'm doing rim to rim to rim. Like I'm not loving at the first. I'm not starting at just rim. And then hearing her I'm like, Okay, well, I definitely need to plan. The Dental A Team (01:22) Yes! Literally. Yes! Yes! literally the same. Dana (01:45) more because I'm like I hike in Arizona all the time. I know what the heat is. I know how to hydrate. I know how to do all those pieces. I'm like but maybe I should plan it out a little bit more. The Dental A Team (01:54) Literally what I said, my takeaway was I did not do planning for it and I didn't, I just, I don't know, I'm take it for granted. I didn't think it was necessary. I'm like, I hike, I work out, I run, I do the stair climber, I do cycle, I do spin classes. Like I am pretty okay to just like sign up for a race and do it and whatever and I thought the same thing minus the rim to rim trip. I was not going an extra rim. I thought I could just pop over and do rim to rim like no big deal people do it all the time constantly can't be that hard just kidding just kidding so I think we need it on our bucket list here within the next I would say three years based on the fact that I'm over 40 at this point I'm not gonna lie to myself I'm not I need to get myself three years to get this sucker done ⁓ and probably shorter than that so Dina we just need to prep and plan for this sucker Dana (02:53) Yep. Yeah, we just need to pick a date, right? Because if I don't pick a date, can think I'm going to plan all I want. ⁓ So I just need to pick a date and then I will force myself to plan. Now that I know how much prep I should probably put into it. The Dental A Team (02:55) We need to a Yep. same. Same z's. I agree. I agree. I tell people that constantly. I'm like, gosh, the most fit you'll ever be is when you know vacation is coming. You will have bikini body ready when you know that vacation is coming. But when there's not something planned, you're like, I'll do it. I'll eat this for now and I'll make it up later. I do it constantly. So you're right. Okay. Everybody just congratulate Britt for surviving rim to rim. And that's a real statement for surviving. Um, it's a huge feat. It's massive. So if you are on our Instagram, which I'm sure you are just give her a shout out. If you see her face in there, if you're one of her clients and didn't know she did it, congratulations. Here you go. Text her. Um, but it was super cool. So Dana, we're going to put it on our list. That's our next to do. We'll add it to, uh, our fitness challenge thing over there. channel. Today guys, I wanted to talk about more than the Grand Canyon, but seriously if you don't know what it is, you should look it up. And if you are planning on coming and you don't live in Arizona, like seriously you think we need to plan like prep and freaking plan you guys? There was another hiker this weekend and it's not even our true ⁓ hot season yet and there was another hiker this weekend in Phoenix that did not make it through her hike and she was an avid avid hiker. So it's no joke you guys. ⁓ Please be safe. So on

Kiera returns with the Green Park Dentistry team, Chief Operations Manager Jeff and Dr. Andrew Sugg, to discuss tips for those who want to evolve their leadership. Jeff and Dr. Sugg share their own journey, which included immersing themselves in a new community. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera, and this is part two of Dr. Andrew and Jeff talking about, they already went through their expansion, what they did, and now I really wanted to get into the nitty gritty of what makes Andrew so incredible as a doctor and what makes Jeff an incredible leader in his practice to get the growth and the success that they've been able to have. And I'm so excited for you to experience it. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast. Kiera Dent (00:24) Andrew, can you walk us through, what do you feel are some of the things you do so superior? Like, I want you to brag a little bit. This is a moment where Kiera Dent is so freaking proud of you. Tiff is proud of you. Our company is proud of you. ⁓ because I think other people want to know how to do this. So I almost want to peel back the curtain just a little bit on what are some of the things you do really well in assembly? Like I said, Jeff, chime in too. Then we're going to reverse. We're going to talk about Jeff and Andrew, you can chime in on him. So like both of you can just schmooze each other tonight as well. You guys are going to have an amazing night post podcast. You're welcome. All right. But truly, Andrew, what are some of the things you feel set in part? Jeff & Andrew (00:52) Yeah, thank you. Well, that leads into a great, was going to say, like, I feel really lucky to have Jeff, obviously. And I know not everybody has a Jeff or can trust someone as much as I trust Jeff. But I think obviously it can be very hard on our marriage. So that's one side note. And I know like a lot of couples that that happens. But I think I have to always. Right? know. Two years ago, I was worried. And in gay years, that's like 40 years. Kiera Dent (01:19) I'm so proud of you. 10 years in and you still, I think, love each other, which is amazing. I think everybody is. You're like, okay. But it's one of those things also though, I will say, like throwing it out to couples, when couples go through what you have gone through and you're able to like be through the thick and the thin of it, I will also give advice. Like when I watched people go through dental school, and Andrew, I'm sure you saw this, I was so angry at so many of our like friends that went through. Jeff & Andrew (01:33) you Kiera Dent (01:46) Like they went through the residencies, they got to the end and I'm like, you freaking made it. And that's when they get divorced. And I'm like, Oh, if you're to get divorced, get divorced during the hard times, but like you have made it. You've made it. And now it's like, it's a matter of like, we bonded together, we grew together. And I think like making sure that stays a priority in your marriage. You guys remember I was a marriage and finally therapist prior to this. Like that was my thing. I like, Oh, don't give up on what you like. You went through the freaking hardest years together. Now it's like, enjoy this amazing life we built together. Jeff & Andrew (01:50) Yeah. Right, yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah Kiera Dent (02:16) and don't lose sight of how grateful we are for one another. anyway, like off my tangent, keep going. Jeff & Andrew (02:20) No, that's that one. So I guess that's that's part like that's kind of part of my after always remind myself I need to be very appreciative for everyone around me. So that's probably number one. And I guess that goes into like, you need to kind of check your ego, right? Like as much as everybody wants it to be all about the dentist and all about me. I'm really just the guy that does the dentistry and I enjoy kind of being like that side note, like I'd rather people come talk to him. Right. So I think like the more you can step back and see yourself as that clinician is very beneficial. And then kind of let, again, the people around you lead and be those positive lights that they can be, that's like how you're gonna grow, right? And then I think that goes along with an associate where, ⁓ again, kind of being humble, like, yes, I know a lot, but I don't know everything. And I learned stuff as much from the associates or how they do things differently as much as they may learn from me. And I think when you come to a situation more with ⁓ curiosity and... really trying to find how you can learn and be better every day, then they only want to do the same. So you really have to lead by example, lead with curiosity, really come to work every day, just trying to do better for people around you. And I want to chime in. think you lead from your heart too.

Kiera talks with Chief Operations Manager Jeff and Dr. Andrew Sugg of Green Park Dentistry about identifying your dreams as dental leaders, and finding the path to get there. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today is such a special magical day on the podcast. I have two of my absolute favorite human beings. We have known each other for so many years. They are incredible, incredible dentists, practice owners, managers, like you name it. These two men are some of the most brilliant people I've watched in dentistry and I've watched them grow from beginning, very basics. to this masterpiece of their life, of their community, of this practice that I truly think is such an example in this world. So Jeff and Andrew, welcome to the show. How are you today? Jeff & Andrew (00:33) Great, thank you for having us. Doing well, thank you for having us. Kiera Dent (00:37) You're so welcome. And I know it'll get a little weird, because when there's three of us here, it's always like, who's supposed to talk? So I'll try really hard to just call someone out. But honestly, guys, how does it feel to be, and I'll ask Jeff first. So again, I'll just riff through this. How does it feel from when we first met to where you are today? How does it feel? What would you even say? What's a word? Or what's the expression of where you started to where you are today? How was that experience for you, Jeff? Jeff & Andrew (00:42) Yeah. ⁓ if I had to sum it up in a word, looking back at myself in this experience, I think my younger self would look at today and be astonished that one, this is the career path I'm in that I didn't set out to. ⁓ you know, two, I started in this dental industry with zero experience other than knowing Andrew and listening to what he talks about when he comes home, to today. that we have gone from a team of seven in this tiny building with five ops we started with to now a team of 20, 17 ops in a 16,000 square foot building. I literally cannot, I have to pinch myself being like, we did this, take a minute, let's reflect. I'm still kind of coming down from all of the renovation and the moving and calibration. ⁓ So every now and then I have to remind myself like, wait, this is our place, we did this. So take a minute and reflect. And I'm still kind of battling with that because I'm used to going full force. So I'm astonished. Kiera Dent (02:16) It's amazing. And Jeff, I'm so glad you said that. we've known each other. Jeff and Andrew have been clients of ours for years. This is like a client spotlight where we bring on people to just, I think, share their journey, share their experience. And for me to have like a proud mama moment of just being so freaking proud of where you are. And I agree, I'm astonished. It's not something when I met you too that I thought, would it be capable? But I do think it's all for all of us, like a pinch me moment. And for me, What I love is seeing my favorite humans just flourish. And I feel like you guys give back to your team, you give back to your community. You're the good guys that I always want to win. And so I'm your biggest raving fan over here. Yes, have the life, have the experiences, do the things because you're just amazing humans that are contributing so much to this world. So I love that. Andrew, want to hear, and also Jeff, always you should just love Andrew so much and the fact that he brought you into dentistry. Welcome to the best profession ever. So kudos on that, Andrew. Jeff & Andrew (03:07) ⁓ huh. Yes. Thank you. Kiera Dent (03:12) What about for you? How's this journey been from where you started? You and Jeff, think it's like adorable. Jeff literally had no clue. I remember Jeff, you're like, I don't even know what these things. Jeff & Andrew (03:20) That's exactly what I was going to say. Like Andrew brought me and I was like, Hi, Kiera, I'm Jeff. And I don't know what I'm doing and I think I need your help. So I do have to throw in a kudos, a super thank you for guiding me and helping me get to this place. So yeah, you guys really helped kind of us. Kiera Dent (03:32) my gosh, I can't take the huge credit. Tiffany has been like the mass superstar for you guys. I've been able to be the proud mom on the side that's just freaking rooting for you all day long. But yes, I do remember definitely like, hi, your adorable glasses. Like you guys were just like dressed in white I think the night I met you and hi guys, super nice to meet you. So, Andrew, didn't mean to cut you off, go ahead. Jeff & Andrew (03:47) No, it's okay. I think that's it though, is you guys have really helped bridge that like my clinical side and love of dentistry and what I've always really enjoyed and still geek out over all the time. And you helped pull Jeff in and help him understand how he can kind of make this what he wanted to be. And I think

Tiff and Dana give guidance on how to successfully manage a practice through an office manager, including long-term business vision, powerful leadership, productive systems, and a ton more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello Dental A Team listeners. Dana and I are back at it again today ⁓ with our podcasting spirits behind us and we are so excited to be here with you guys today. Gosh Dana, this is like the beginning of summer for us right now and no matter where you're at in the country, I think you've either been on summer for a few weeks or you're just barely getting there. feel like summer breaks are wild. Like Brody is in school two weeks past my niece. Like it's just been crazy but. The most fun part about this for both of us is that, I don't know if you guys know this or not, we get asked this question a lot, where is your headquarters? Like, where are you guys based out of? And Dana and I, Britt and I, gosh, I think most of the consultants at this point are in Arizona. Our HQ is actually Reno, Nevada, but we work from home. So, fun part about podcasting during the summer is that each of us have some sort of little or family member or someone At the door honestly like I had to text in our you know got a family chat go and that's like hey guys FYI and Dana's like let me put a sign on the door so Dana welcome I know I know being a mom is something that lights both of us up and I think one of the best I don't know most I don't know it was like fun parts of our relationship is being able to also laugh about what it's like to be a mom in Arizona in the sports and in the summer and I love that about the two of us and Dana tell me what has what's the start of summer looking like for you guys over there you've got your I have it easy I will never never discredit the amount of moming that you do over there so tell me how is mom life today Dana Dana (01:47) it's good. You know, I mean, it's wild, right? Like, there's a beauty of being able to work from home in that, like, I can very quickly throw chicken nuggets out the door and everybody is fed, right? Yes. But they like all summer long, there are no go zones, depending on what I am doing during the day. So like, if I am on calls, the front room is off limits, because it's directly beside my office. And so I can hear everything that you do. The Dental A Team (01:58) You just turn them down the whole way, get it. Yep. I love that. Dana (02:17) So I'm constantly like chunking my windows of time as to like where they can be in the house and I've had to put signs up because my neighbor kids also want to come get my kids and I'm like well we just can't knock on the door right now. The Dental A Team (02:31) Yeah, yeah, please just give us a moment. I love that. And honestly, though, it's kind of ⁓ like time blocking for practices, right? Because like, when can you do certain procedures? Like you don't want, you know, sedation in the front room with everybody walking by, you've got to have a very specific place for the sedation and a very specific, like no-go zone of do not pass this line once we've started. So it kind of kind of makes me think Dana (02:34) Yeah. question. The Dental A Team (02:59) of how synchronistic life is in general. I say this a lot, with clients that tell us work-life balance, right? We just talked to a client about this together recently, and I'm like, goodness gracious, like we just need a life-life balance, because if we take the systems that work in whatever aspect of life it's coming to you, and if you've got systems that are working at work, you can probably duplicate them at home and vice versa. If you have systems that are working at home, you can probably take that same thought and that same theory and apply it at work. And it works truly like tremendously because your brain's already wired to think that way. So when you can just stop trying to recreate the wheel and use what you know works, applying it in all areas of your life, things just are easy. I feel like that's how you create easy discipline. and how you create easy habits. So taking that like time blocking and room blocking and like, guys, from these hours, this is what you're gonna be doing. It's very similar. Billing, you know, all those things. Billing coordinators need to be like, don't bother me between these hours. It's just like, you've got your kids on the other side. I tell doctors constantly or office managers, leadership teams that people are people. We learn how we learn. And if we look at how we teach our children, we can duplicate that. Dana (03:59) Yeah. Thank you. The Dental A Team (04:18) in training systems as well. So Dana, I just spiraled my whole brain right there. I love it. Thank you. Thanks for being such an incredible mom. You are truly impressive. And for those of you who don't know, she's got a slew of children and animals and happeni

Kiera gives tips to get your practice to become one where team members have accountability and ownership. Set clear expectations and empower decision-making. Create measurable goals. Celebrate those who achieve. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00.834) Hello, Dental A Team Listeners, this is Kiera, and I hope you are just having an amazing day. I hope that things are going so well for you. I hope that things are just really, really, really incredible for you. I am so excited to be podcasting with you. I just truly, truly love and adore all of you. And I just think that the world of dentistry is such a great place for us to be a part of. And so today I just wanted to dive in. I wanted to give you guys some tips. I wanted to have some fun with you today. And a topic that comes up often is how do we honestly help our team have ownership and accountability? It's something I hear a lot on sales calls. It's things that I hear from clients of, Kiera, like I just want my team to want to own this company. I want them to be accountable. I want them to feel like they own part of this. And so I wanted to just dig into this because the reality is there are a lot of ways to do this. And I just want to ask you, what would it be like if every team member in your practice actually took ownership? Like, what would it look like? So today let's talk about how to make this happen. The reality is when we have accountability, there is better basic care. There's higher efficiency. There's like we get stronger team engagement. We're able to have better profitability in the business. We're able to have a happier, more cohesive team. All these things are super, super powerful for you. And the reality is that these are gonna be some effective strategies to help you create that culture of ownership in your practice. So. You guys know us, we are the Dental A team. We love what we do. We love being here with you. We love serving you. We love giving you tips and tricks to make your practice even better and easier. So that's what we're about. That's what we're here for. And we are so excited to have you here. The reality is we have coached hundreds of practices, thousands of team members and helped them figure out exactly how to give this ownership feel, how to give accountability feels, how to be able to do these things within your practice. And I'm happy to share those things with you. We do work in person and virtually with practices. We work across the nation and we do it in a fun and effective way. We're truly the experts in consulting and it's something that I just love and obsess of working with clients. Today, I just want to do this quick short actionable episode with you guys so that way you guys could go implement them. I like it to be tactical, practical, having a good time. What do you say? I'm here for it. I hope you're here for it. So step one to get this ownership and accountability is Kiera Dent (02:16.386) Number one, you wanna have clear expectations and empower decision making. So something that we did just recently was we changed up job descriptions and we were able to make it to where people knew exactly what their decision making power was. And I thought that that was something so just weird. I was like, do people really need to have this? And what I realized is they do, they need to know, they need to know what is it? Like, what can I make decisions on? And Britt and I talked a little bit about these six principles. of how to make decisions of like, number one is look into it, report it and I'll decide what to do. Number two is look into it, report alternatives with pros and cons and your recommendation. Number three is look into it, let me know what you intend to do, but don't do it unless I say yes. Number four is look into it, let me know what you intend to do and do it unless I say no. And five is take action, let me know what you did. Six is take action, no further contact required. And what's interesting is when you start to give team members kind of even these levels, which one do you want them to do? How can they make it? What are the areas that they have control over to make decisions and really empowering your team? That way it doesn't fall all back onto to leaders. This really can help them start to feel a sense of ownership because now they know, they know their department, they know the areas that they can actually influence and impact because otherwise it just becomes blaming, it becomes waiting, it becomes like, hey, we don't really know. And so what you've got to do is you've really got to make sure that there's clear defined roles. I notice the front office is often what I call sloppy soup. We don't know who's doing what, everybody's doing everything and no one is actually accountable. Nobody actually can do things. They have no idea what they're doing. And so let's get out of that. Let's figure out w

Kiera is joined by Dr. Christy Moore of Moore Smiles to talk about how Dr. Moore has maintained her passion for dentistry over the decades, including providing solid leadership for your team, keeping an amazing culture, and branching out to services like Botox. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera. And today I have such a special guest. I love this woman so much. She has been a client of ours. She's been a dear friend of mine. This woman just makes you want to be a better human. And she's an incredible dentist, has some really fun ideas. I want her to come on and just share like a super unique way she runs her practice and just let you guys know this woman who I've just been so lucky to know for so long. Welcome to the show, Christy Moore. How are you today, Christy? Dr.Christy Moore (00:27) I'm doing great, Kara. Thank you so much for that introduction. How about yourself? Kiera Dent (00:30) Yeah, I'm doing really, really well. It's been a podcast full day, but it's been fun. You're my last podcast of the day. So always an exciting thing. But Christy, you're such an incredible human. I feel like the world needs more Christy's. So I feel like you should tell them a little bit about who you are, where you're practicing, a little bit about your journey to practice ownership. And then like I said, she's doing something so special that so many offices are trying to do that can't do it successfully and Christy, you've done it. So. Dr.Christy Moore (00:45) Thank you. Kiera Dent (00:57) Just kind of tell everybody, like, how did you get into dentistry? What's kind of your path to where we are today? Dr.Christy Moore (01:03) Yeah, so I actually started in dentistry all the way back in 1995, which was quite a few years ago. I started out as a dental assistant and then went to high-teen school, work, yeah. Kiera Dent (01:13) That's why I like you. I had no clue you were a dentalist. This is why we connect, Christy, all right? It says so much about you now. I get it, I understand. Dr.Christy Moore (01:18) Yeah. So I did, I did hygiene for about 10 years and then I went to dental school. I got out of dental school in 2012 and knew that I wanted to own my own practice and came out of the gate purchasing a practice from a previous Dr. Moore, no relation. We still kind of get people wanting to know like if that's my dad or my uncle, there's no relation whatsoever. But it came out in 2012, bought my own practice and started, started right out of the gate being an owner at that point. Kiera Dent (01:52) That's incredible. And do you regret it? Because so many students straight out of school are like, ah, like, I don't think I'm ready. most of them are like, no, just buy. Are you so glad you bought right from the get go? Or do wish you would have like done an associate ship if you could do it all over again? Dr.Christy Moore (02:06) I'm glad that I bought straight out of the gate. I kind of had an idea of like how I wanted to run the practice. I think being in dentistry for a few years before I even went to dental school, I knew what I liked, I knew what I didn't like. So being able to just start out and then own my own practice and then kind of build it from there was kind of nice. You know, I didn't go in and change things immediately that the previous owner had been there for 40 years And so like I kind of slowly started implementing things and changing things like he didn't even have Computers so, you know you come out there's they were still scheduling on the little piece of you know The book we had to like erase it and all that stuff So ⁓ it we didn't have internet in the building, you know, and I come from like having internet. Yes. Yes 2012 Kiera Dent (02:50) 2012? Dr.Christy Moore (02:53) So it was an event to get things up to par. But I'm so glad that I did it that way because the team that I lost team members, of course, but then the team members that stuck it out with me, like I still have one to this day. And she's one of my ride or dies and just levered her dead. Kiera Dent (03:04) course. That's amazing. I think that that's something like, I can't imagine. I mean, this is a true definition of a sleeping practice, Christy. Like I tell everybody, like, you want to buy a sleeping practice, like paper charts. I've never had anybody with no internet. And when I first started assisting, so let's think it would have been in 2003. So that's when I first heard we had a paper book and they like erased it, but that was 2003. I mean, you were multi-years post that and still Dr.Christy Moore (03:35) Mm-hmm. yeah. Kiera Dent (03:41) Yeah, and I remember like erasing, like Terry was her name up front, it was my first office. They had the like suction, we're gonna spit in it. I thought it was disgusting, but I'm like, sweet, now don't have to worry about the UV light. I have no way

Kiera and Dana perform a practice autopsy mashup. In this episode, they specifically take a look at multi-location practices, and how to make all of them profitable instead of just one or two. Topics discussed include overhead, associates, marketing, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today is such a special day. I have the one and only Dynamite Dana. I think that that's what we're sticking with. I think it's better than the other nickname that we came up with. But Dana, if you guys know her, you love her. She's been in a consultant with us for years. Dana, welcome to the show today. How are you? Dana (00:17) Yeah, good morning. Thanks for having me. I'm excited. I don't get much like podcast time with you. It's usually with him. So it's a fun morning for me. Kiera Dent (00:26) I know Dana's a rock star. ⁓ I, yes, I can sell a little podcast and yes, that's fun to do, but it's more fun to have someone on here. So I sent Dana a message and I had it like in the afternoon. And then I was like, Ooh, my schedule changed and moved it to like first thing in the morning. So Dana, thanks for being easy to accommodate. but I think that that's you. You're just always there, always willing to help and offices love you for that. So Dana (00:43) Yeah. Kiera Dent (00:51) We have a fun topic, you guys. I love a good office autopsy. So Dana and are gonna kind of mash a couple practices together and dig into some practice profitability trends that we're seeing on an office autopsy. You ready for that today, Dana? Because I love these. Anything more than a good profitability story and how to get there, that's what it's about. And I think that that's what so many practices struggle with. They don't understand how to get profitable. They know that it's there. They know that it can be an illusion. Dana (01:03) Yeah, this is exciting. Kiera Dent (01:18) They know that it can be a reality for some. so Dana, I feel like some of the practices we've been dealing with lately, it's like actually making it turn into a reality rather than just as hope and a wish. So take it away. I know you've been working on this. I've been working on this. Let's have some fun today. Dana (01:31) Yeah, it's been really fun the past couple weeks. I've been like able to just do a lot of numbers crunching a lot of future projections a lot of like hey what effort is it gonna take to like get things where we want them to be and it's really fun to give owners like the possibilities of What they currently have or where they want to be and so it's just been really really interesting the last couple weeks getting to do that and getting Kiera Dent (01:43) you Dana (02:02) offices to see like where they want to put their energy where they may need to put their energy and so it's just been numbers aren't you know I'm learning to love numbers more and more ⁓ Kiera Dent (02:14) Yes, did you hear that? Dana, did you start out that way? Let's just let's just help listeners feel like is this a normal thing? Dana (02:22) No, I mean, I am a systems girl through and through. And so, you know, I know how important the numbers are. And of course, like those are pieces I look at. But really, really being able to manipulate the numbers, to be able to project things, that is something that I've really had to dig into more and more. And it's been fun for sure. Kiera Dent (02:45) Yeah, and I love the reason I highlight that is because for myself for Dana numbers were not something natural for some people it is just wired into you but I think for 90 % of human beings out there they would feel very similar to how you and I feel and so I just want to highlight that it's totally normal not to understand numbers but it is also normal to figure out how to use numbers and when you do it actually feels like like life becomes so much easier it's like my gosh, there was an HOV lane this whole time. And I had no clue that there was like a fast pass, fast lane over there that if I would just learn my numbers and dig into it, I would honestly be able to do things a lot better. And so I think like, that's what makes me so excited Dana is this is where we also help practices. Like let's use the numbers to manipulate and actually do less work, more profitability and more ease. So kudos to you for digging in kudos for you, like admitting that systems are your gem, which I think it's easy, right? But to me, I'm like, systems are only as valuable and only as important as the numbers are reflecting. Like, yes, we should put them in, but I'm like, if we're just putting systems in place, but we're not moving the dial, what does it matter? ⁓ You're going to be struggling. You're going to have financial stress. You're going to be like not happy. Use the numbers to figure out which system's broken and then go to work there. It becomes so much ea

Tiff and Britt dive into the nitty-gritty details of turning all that CE energy you have into an implementable system in your practice. They give insight on establishing a point person, training the team, identifying patients, and more. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. Thank you for being back here with me and I have Miss Brittany Stone. What is it? No BS Brit. Miss BS Brit. I don't remember what Carrie calls you. This is one of them, right? One of them. But also soon to be Grand Canyon champion. If you didn't listen to our case acceptance one, go listen and hopefully soon we will have some results from Brit killing it. Yeah, you will be a survivor. Britt (00:10) What fun of them! Winner survivor. One of the two. At least one. The Dental A Team (00:29) but then I wanna know how much you sleep on Saturday when you're done. So that'll be the big question. Exactly, yeah, how long does it take for you to get back on the bike once you're done? But thank you for being here with us today, Britt. I think we've gotten, I love podcasting with you, your hygiene brain, like Dana's hygiene brain, you guys just kind of come at it from a different angle. I know the rest of us all have dental assisting backgrounds and. Britt (00:32) Yeah, like that. I if I can reach my legs or not. The Dental A Team (00:55) you know, hygiene assisting, but that hygienist brain just shares a different section. ⁓ And I think you do really well relating with the doctors and kind of that support team space like we spoke to on the case acceptance one. So I'm excited for today, Brett. Thank you for being here. ⁓ You've got the Grand Canyon, but like, gosh, what else is what else is new and exciting? You just went to one of our favorite Mexican restaurants not too long ago. So that's true. Britt (01:21) conferences, I went to PNDC, that was a good time. Luckily it was gorgeous weather there. mean, podcasting today is special. I wear my tooth earrings for us today since we're podcasting, know, just lots of fun things. The Dental A Team (01:35) Getting a little fancy. I like it. And you guys, so you just went to that conference, you went to the Arizona Dental Convention that was in March, right? I think that one's always March for like the last, I don't know, 50 years. It's always been in March. ⁓ And then you just went to the other one and then you're heading out again in a couple weeks to dentist advisors. Yeah. Britt (01:55) Yeah, Dentist Money Summit is by Dentist Advisors, which will be in gorgeous Park City, Utah. So, you know, it's a rough life over here. The Dental A Team (02:01) Yeah, I know, right? And actually it's perfect timing because they, I think we've all like our, our seasons were a little bit off this year. So we are barely getting hot, which normally we're at like 110 already, um, which has been fantastic in Arizona, but that meant that Nevada and, um, Salt Lake area, both Reno and Salt Lake area have had snow longer. So I think you're going to hit Salt Lake for Dentist Money Summit right as the like peak. summer season starts. So you're gonna get some beautiful weather and I'm a little jealous. I will be in California or something like that. But anyways, somewhere. Britt (02:36) somewhere else. It'll be great. And my second, my nephew, second of my nieces and nephews graduate. So I won't go to graduation, but I'll get to go. I'm like, I'll be coming like a couple weeks later to see you. So I'll go get to see them while I'm up there too. The Dental A Team (02:50) Okay. Okay, good, good. I was like, wait a second, how do we get you there? That's good. Britt (02:55) I'm not fighting the crowd up there for graduation, which he's like, mom, everybody graduates. I'm like, no, it's still a big deal. We'll just celebrate when I come see you on my own instead of along with everybody else. The Dental A Team (03:06) gosh, that's funny. I was just talking over the weekend, we had a graduation party that we had to drop in on yesterday. So was like, gosh, I'm gonna have to, which is, I don't like thinking about it, but I have to start thinking about it that Brody's in a year. So was like, Aaron's like, is he gonna want a party? And he, said, no, he's gonna be the kid that's like, everybody graduates. It's fine. Like it's no big deal. But it is a big deal. same, Exactly. Britt (03:26) But they still want it, even though you know it, even though they're like, they're disappointed, it's like, oh, come on. But like, they want it. The Dental A Team (03:33) Exactly. It's like my birthday where I was like, it's fine. Like just a dinner, but like, had they not done a big deal for my 40th, I probably would have, you know, been in shambles. So when it comes, he's surely going to want it, but graduation season is upon us and it's wild that we are in the space of life that we're experiencing it with them. think

Kiera shares a key secret from the most recent Dental A-Team Summit: common traits of highest-performing and happiest practices. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript Kiera Dent (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I am so excited to chat with you. I hope that you're just having an incredible day. I hope you're having an incredible life. I hope you remember that honestly, we are so blessed to be in dentistry. We are so blessed to live the lives that we do. You are making huge changes and I hope that you're always so proud of yourself and that you're remembering that what you're doing is truly changing lives. Today I wanted to pop on and I wanted to talk real quick about... something that we did at our virtual summit in April. And I hope you were able to attend. you weren't, your calendars for next year. We are having it on April 24th, 2026. So mark your calendars now, plan to be there. I would love, love, love to see you there. Because this year our topic was on unlocking extraordinary leadership and profitability. And I think those things go hand in hand. And one of the quotes that we had in there was, extraordinary doesn't mean perfect. And Simon Sinek has said, there is no such thing as a perfect leader, only one who learns, adapts and grows with their team. And I really, really loved this because we went through an entire model of what's extraordinary leadership, what's the extraordinary leadership formula. And then at the end, we actually went through this amazing thing of common themes of practices. And so what our team did is we actually started looking at all of the dental offices that we've consulted, that we've been a part of, that we've worked with over the years. And we started looking to see What are maybe some of the common themes of awesome practices that have amazing leadership and practices who maybe have not so good of leadership? And so I thought today it would actually be really fun to hop on the podcast. And for those of who attended summit amazing, this is a nice recap for you. Hopefully to dive it in, there are no recordings of summit. So I thought this would be a fun thing to bring back to the table for you and something I really loved. And I thought about it so much. And also for those of you who might not have been able to attend to help you start thinking because I found that when I can figure out what are the patterns, like Tony Robbins says, success leaves clues. And I think about this often of, okay, what are the clues of the successful practices? What are the clues of the offices that are doing things differently? What are the clues of the offices that struggle constantly versus the offices that do really well? And one thing that is always in common is there's always an amazing leader, always. They're always watching their numbers. So they make their decisions based on their numbers. And the third thing is that they have these common themes. So our team actually went through and I remember asking our team, said, okay, let's look at these leaders. Let's look to see what are the themes? What are the pieces? are, like, what is it? And we picked out a couple of offices. We picked out some of these different things and we said, like, okay, here's these awesome offices. What do they have in common? What are the things that they're doing consistently? And let's see if we could build this like, common theme. ⁓ let's go through it. And it was really a message. Amazing because when we were in summit, we had people I was like, okay, this isn't you. This is other practices, of course. But let's think of like, what are some of the not so good attributes of leadership? What do you think? Of course, this is not you. This is someone else. But what is it for you that that maybe would be like the not so good leadership again, and these are these are offices that could be doing great. financially. But what I usually find are the great leaders are always the more successful and more profitable practices. So the not so good what they have, what they tend to have ⁓ is they don't trust their office manager or their leadership team. I'm always here for trust and verify, but to truly trust your office manager and to let them lead and to have them as a partner in the business and to hold them to that high level. They're also usually sometimes poor clinicians. ⁓ Again, I'm not a dentist. I'm not here for it. But was interesting of like a lot of the practices that we see struggling, was the dentistry is actually not so good. And I feel like that kind of ⁓ like truly kind of revolves and it might reflect some possible pieces. So for that, just know, again, these are not all, but we started just looking at like, what were some of the common themes? They were poor leaders. So there's team turnover constantly. So they weren't having the conversations. They were trying to be people pleasers. They were t

Tiff and Britt explain the right way to achieve case acceptance — without over-complicating or over-simplifying. Getting this down will increase trust among team members and help keep your schedules on track. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:01) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. I am so excited to be here today. I have Miss Brittany Stone. I pull her in every now and again as often as I can to do recordings with me. And I love, love, love nothing more than having Britt here. I love having all of the consultants in a rotation, but Britt is, you know, a special OG podcaster. She has been with me since the beginning of time on these podcasts, it feels like. So, Britt, thank you so much for being here today. How are you? It is a beautiful Monday morning for us. I'm actually a little warm. It's getting hotter in Phoenix again, but Britt, how are you today? Britt (00:40) I'm doing good. I mean, it's the time of year where shade is beautiful, right? Like it makes a big difference. And right now in the shade, it is still very nice. It's just the direct sunlight that's a little bit warmer. So it is a gorgeous day outside and I will still definitely go get out on a ride later today. So but happy to be here. It's always fun. I feel like we said it before like these are times like geek out together. So it's like hangout time, but we get everybody else to come along with us and listen to the fun things we chat The Dental A Team (00:43) Yes. fair. That's so true. I do love bringing them on rides. I always make Dana talk about like workout apparel and have something for me to do. Britt (01:12) Dana's like the deaf queen. need something like Dana's got whatever it is that you need. The Dental A Team (01:20) know, I know I love it. So I just pick and choose like what do I need from who's on who's on with me today and what can I gather from them and you are my outdoors like Dana's outdoors too, but she's my apparel and my protein. You're my like outdoors you're doing Grand Canyon this weekend, I was supposed to be doing it next weekend. I don't think I am but you are doing it Friday. So in just a couple days, are you prepped and ready? I don't know that there's every day that anyone says yes, I'm ready. But are you prepped and ready? for the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim, guys. She is hiking from one rim of the canyon to the other rim of the canyon. It's a big deal. Britt (01:54) in one day. yeah, it's four days away and I'm as ready as I'm gonna be. Like at this point, like let's go. The Dental A Team (02:01) Yeah. I agree. agree. I'm near doing it in one day, which we had planned on doing as well. I was calculating the other day based on like how our hike was going what I felt like our timing was going to be. And I calculated with the addition of the extra like two ish miles because the bridge is closed. ⁓ I was thinking like a good 20 minute a mile pace obviously would get you to like 10 hours but then that's no breaks. That's a freaking hauling pace. Britt (02:20) Correct? The Dental A Team (02:31) So I thought for us it was gonna probably be like 12 to 13 hours. Is that what you're thinking? Yeah. Britt (02:37) Yeah, and I have to remind myself, like it's one of those things. I'm a power through girly for most things, but this is a marathon, not a sprint. And so from things I've read, they're like, take a break every hour, eat something every hour, make sure you're hydrating. So I'm gonna try to do that. And they say, get down the canyon in the first like third of whatever time you're planning and it's gonna take you like double that time to get out. So that's fun. The Dental A Team (03:05) good. Good. That's what I was thinking too. Like, take your time. That's what we were saying when we checked our pace, did like almost we did nine and a half, 10 miles, and kept like a 20 to 25 minute pace and it was fine. But it was like, that's a third of what we are going to be doing. so making sure that was to get down. So that was, you know, get down in that amount of time. Britt (03:08) Yeah. The Dental A Team (03:26) But I'm excited for you. can't wait to hear about it. You're to have to post pictures, send them to our marketing team so that we can see a Duna-Lay team out on the rim to rim. It's something that our team has been actually talking about for a couple of years now. So Britt's going to be the first one to overcome that bucket list item for us and test it out. So she's our test queen. Britt (03:44) We'll see if I go do it with you again when someone else wants to go do it or if it's like, I did that once, I'm good. The Dental A Team (03:51) Yeah, yeah, well, hopefully it's I'll do it with you again, because it sounds like my Grand Canyon partner is you know, he's younger than me, but he's an old man and is falling apart. So he may not be able to do it. So you might have to do it with me later. So you just keep me poste

Kiera and Dana offer a life raft for businesses struggling to keep cash flow in the green, including specific steps to help get your practice back on course. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I am jazzed. Dana, the one and only Dynamite Dana over there. She's on the podcast with me today. Dana, how are you today? Dana (00:10) doing pretty good. It's a beautiful day here and so I'm just excited to be on the podcast with you. Kiera Dent (00:15) Dana, I am so glad because you and I, feel like we're ships in the night. We see each other, we wave to each other. We love working together, but the reality of us like being on the same boat to talk to each other is few and far between, which is so ironic. But every time I see you in person, I'm like, Dana, we need to hang out more. Like, so it's fun to podcast, even though, I mean, it's a funny way to say hello. We're like here to do work, but at least we get to like have more interactions. So, ⁓ thanks for being on my ship today. I guess like welcome, welcome aboard, matey. Dana (00:44) Yeah, happy to be here, Gatton. Kiera Dent (00:48) But today you guys, Dana and I, we were talking about like some burnout and cashflow row. So think about death row. We actually have a lot of clients that come to us. Thankfully, like once they become clients, they get off death row, cashflow row. But we thought about, think oftentimes burnout and cashflow row ⁓ go hand in hand. And so I figured, Dana, let's get into like, how do you get off of cashflow row? like death row, you're about to go and like die like literally. ⁓ I feel it's becoming a bit more common than I've seen in the past. I'm super grateful and I just want to shout out and for all of you listening, if you're on cashflow row or you're on burnout row, ⁓ just like a huge hug, a huge hug of love, a huge hug of no judgment. Gosh, I get like emotional thinking about it I think it's so easy as a business owner to like just harp on yourself to just feel like Like, why am I so dumb? Like, why can't I figure this out? Like, the mean girl or boy in your mind is just like vicious and wicked. And it makes me so angry that we're this way to ourselves as business owners. Cause I'm like, you know what? You're freaking strong. And like, you took these risks and like, you don't know what you're doing, but you know, you wanted to like build a great like culture for your team. You wanted to build this amazing life for your family. And yeah, it's hard. It's really hard to be a business owner. And I think I speak of this so candidly because Like I've been on death row, like cashflow row. I've been on burnout row, like, and you just sit there and when you need to like have the most love and respect for yourself and grace, it's when we like punch ourselves and kick ourselves and yell at ourselves. And so ⁓ I thought it would be a really, ⁓ hopefully timely podcast for some of you listening of just love of no judgment, of encouragement, and maybe some like shining little stars when you need a North star right now, because It can feel very daunting. And I want to tell you, you don't have to do it alone. ⁓ You telling yourself you're alone and on an island is your choice. And it's a choice that you don't have to stay with. There's so many ways we can help. I think even just like when we get clients that are on cashflow row, I feel like they feel they finally got a life raft sent to them when they didn't know it was even possible. And as consultants, think Dana and I and our whole consulting team are so passionate about getting you into cashflow positive and doing it with ease where it's not that hard. But Like it wasn't overnight that you got here either. So it's not going to be overnight. get you out of there. We're to move you pretty quickly. Cause I think like, Hey, someone's like holding the lantern for you in this dark cave. Like, all right, here's the way out. can really, really help you. But really Dana, think like just again, I hope all of you listening know we come to you with love, with no judgment. You're not a terrible business owner. You're not dumb. You shouldn't have known this before. It's just, this is where we are kind of like a patient with perio, right? Like it's okay. Like this is where we are. And the great news is There are solutions and there's a way out and there's a way to happiness again if you want. So Dana, that's kind of my like emotional pitch to start this off with. Any thoughts you have? Because I think you've seen quite a few come to you on Cash Flow Row from day one. Dana (03:49) This is. Yeah, yeah. And I love just your vulnerability there, Kiera, as a business owner, because I say it to doctors all the time, like, whether it's a dental office, whether it's a consulting company, whatever business it is, it doesn't come with an instruction manual. And

Kiera reflects on some of her most memorable episodes and experiences across 1,000 episodes (!!!) of the Dental A-Team podcast! Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today feels like a ridiculously special, amazing, incredible day. We are at 1,000 Dental A Team podcasts. Like, can you honestly believe this? I can't believe it. I can't believe that we have hit record on this podcast a thousand times. And honestly, I wanna say thank you to you as listeners, to all of you who have made this podcast a reality. If you're new to the show, welcome. I'm Kiera Dent. I love dentistry. I love making people happy. I love. truly enjoying life. And this podcast came to me while Jason, my husband and I were hiking Yosemite. And I said, Hey, I've noticed that there's this area where they're unserved, where doctors and teams are not communicating on the same way. And like, there's really got to be a better way to help practices scale, to grow, to evolve. And being a team member myself and a business owner, I thought let's combine both of those perspectives. So truly it's an honor. ⁓ I honestly cannot believe that we are here. So if you've been here since episode one, please send me an email. [email protected]. I will send you a personalized thank you to you. I am just so honored. If you've been here for at least like 900 of them, let me know. But truly it's such an honor to be able to have this podcast where we're able to give back, to serve, to share, to laugh, to grow. This podcast has been such a healing space for me. And so today I thought it'd be really fun. for us to actually go through some of our most powerful success networks that's helped hundreds of doctors. It helps you. And I've called it the yes model. ⁓ that's focusing, wow, that's focusing in on you being able to say you, earnings and systems and team development. So focusing on you as a person, helping make sure that you're profitable as a practice, and then having systems and team development in place ⁓ to make sure that you can really, truly say yes to everything in life that you want. Because I truly, truly, truly believe. that running a practice, having a successful team, having a team of people that are accountable does not have to be hard. And so really that's been the whole purpose of this is to make it tactical, practical. And I thought like, Hey, this is going to be something really fun. We're actually going to pull from our framework. But what I'm going to do is I'm actually going to pull from past episodes, some of our hottest episodes, some of those fun episodes to kind of help you see how we can focus on you as a person, how we can focus on your earnings and profitability of the practice and helping with your systems and team development. Now, something that is fun is that there actually were several episodes that were our top downloaded episodes over the years. And so this is just something fun if you enjoyed it, amazing, but truly we looked back and these ones stood out. And so our episodes were episode 469, 10 Practices in 2 Years with Lewis Chen. So such a fun one to inspire, to ignite, to help all of us like really just get, I remember that practice and I was like, my gosh, I thought I like. rampaged up and in like two years we had three, but to do 10 practices in two years. Our other top downloaded episode is episode 501, What Office Managers Need to Know and really helping those office managers highlight, elevate. Being an office manager in dentistry, I feel is such a tricky zone because there's really no rule book for it. And that's what we tried to create at Dental A Team is what is an office manager supposed to do and giving support to office managers and doctors so you can truly have these incredible leaders in your practice. And then our next most downloaded episode was episode 607, A Day to Remember. And that was actually released on Thanksgiving. So shout out to you guys for having these as the most popular downloaded episodes. But like I said, I want to give you guys that framework for being able to say yes to everything with some podcast tools. Don't worry. You want to go back and listen to them if you don't want to. But trying to chunk that so you can really look at your life and your practice. Kiera Dent (03:41) So breaking into the you section, this is about you as a person. This is about you being that visionary, that owner, that fulfilled human, because honestly, if you're not fulfilled and you're not happy with what you're doing, honestly, your practice can't be there. And when we build the yes model, we purposely put it in a specific order of you first, and we focus on you as a person. Then we focus on earnings and profitability. And then we focus on systems and team, because what I found is if we put them in this order, You as a person first, kind like take the oxygen

Kiera is joined by Mark Rasmussen, CEO of Moolah, to talk about the landscape of credit card fees and how to reduce them, membership discount plans, and other bonus features offered by the dental payment tech company. (Pssst, Mark was last on episode 866, It's Time to Modernize Payment Processing!) Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I am super jazzed because I have a guest here who's going to help us with cashflow leaks, modernizing your practice, figuring out those membership plans, all the things that you need and want. We're going to talk about some case studies. This is one of my absolute favorite guests, Mark Rasmussen, CEO, owner, founder, Moolah. How are you today, Mark? Welcome to the show. Mark Rasmussen (00:22) Hey, Kara, I'm doing fantastic. I'm doing awesome. So, so, so it's connected with you and your listeners and excited to get into all this juicy good stuff about revenue and payments and modernizing things. Let's do it. I love it. Kiera Dent (00:31) Yeah. Let's do it. So I have a slight crush on Moolah. Like truly you guys like just make credit card processing easy. And so what I want to start off, if you guys don't listen, Mark and I have done other podcasts in the past together. ⁓ But I don't know, Mark, what you guys say on your email subject lines, like on your little, what is it your signature, but I feel like it should be like your new favorite credit card processing company. Like that's what I feel like Moolah's tagline should be because I wanted to do a couple case studies with you since we last chatted. Mark Rasmussen (00:40) Hahaha Kiera Dent (01:05) ⁓ Mark knows, like, I do have a crush on Moolah. I try to get them to come and be our processor too. Mark Rasmussen (01:10) I need to like soundbite clip that, like I have a crush on Moolah just like everywhere in social. I love that. Kiera Dent (01:15) I do. do because I like companies that make things easy, but also are like the cheapest on the market and credit card fees are one of my biggest beefs. Like really truly I get annoyed when I look to see how much credit card fees are charging. And when you guys, ⁓ deadly team listeners, just so you know, I'm going to throw it out there. Like anybody who goes through our link literally saves 10 basis points. ⁓ on it, which is huge to get anywhere in the credit card industry. So you're getting below that 2.99. So you're getting 2.89 on cards not present and 2.39. And I hope that Mark, I'm allowed to say that because I'm just going to be bold and brazen. And if not, we'll cut that out. So don't stress about that. Mark Rasmussen (01:52) No, no, no, for sure. And not only that, it's like, that's not just a like teaser rate, like they look, your practices will get that preferred rate forever, right, which is awesome. And, and it's like you and I were talking a little bit earlier, too, of like, a bit of shock and awe of like, I and myself as well, I've been seeing like some statements from potential practices. And I'm like, ⁓ my God, I'm like, I'm seeing like, Kiera Dent (02:03) which is so big and you don't add extra heat. Mark Rasmussen (02:19) six, seven, eight percent, like net effective rates. I know you were saying you have been seeing even higher. It's crazy. Yeah, that's crazy. It's almost criminal. Kiera Dent (02:25) Mm-hmm. Yeah, so it does feel criminal because like here's the thing like you might get a cheaper rate somewhere else but when you look and dig into the details and this is where it feels annoying and obnoxious to me and doesn't happen right away it happens like when you've stopped looking at it you're like I've checked my credit card company for years they don't do anything and then all of a sudden it starts creeping up and being eerie and that's where I just get annoyed and that's why like I have a crush on Moolah because you guys don't do it and you guys stay consistent for it so I felt Mark and I, you didn't listen to our last podcast, we'll definitely link it in the show notes for you. But Mark, I felt we should kick today off with some case studies because I have some clients that I've recommended over to Moolah. And I think my favorite one is we were looking and I had a practice and our overhead was high. So like this practice, they don't love to like look at numbers. They have an amazing CPA. Like I will say we do look at numbers, but they're kind of like, yeah, carry it. We'll just like out produce our problems a little bit. And that's fine. Like anybody can have that. But I said, Hey, Mark Rasmussen (03:17) Alright. Kiera Dent (03:21) Your credit card fees are really high. think that they were honestly like 10%. And I'm like, is that really true? Like that just seems outlandish. And they said, well, Kiera, we're in a contract. Mark, do you want to throw up with contracts? Tell me about credit card contracts