Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran

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What's the best way to grow? Should you do more volume or less volume? What's your frequency? Should you work out or go to work every day? Or every other day? Should you work four, five, six, or even seven days a week? Is there only one right answer to build muscle?

The best way to increase your sales is to realize that your front desk is your sales team taking incoming and outgoing calls. Do you track how many incoming new patient calls are closed with a scheduled appointment? Do you ask them when they want to come in, or do you just tell them when your first available new patient appointment is?

What do dentists and construction workers have in common? They don't buy the income stream they need and buy a $20,000 skid steer when what they really needed was at least a $40,000 backhoe, better with a $60,000 dozer, or just get er' done with a $80,000.

Is it better to have a higher total case price by adding up each individual tooth and gum procedure in a full mouth rehabilitation? Or… is it better to set one price for the total case that is lower in price? At what price does demand stop? At what price do you break even? What would be the optimum price to collect the most total revenue.

Dr. Zuckerberg is a 1978 graduate of NYUCD and owned his own practices in Brooklyn and Dobbs Ferry, NY from 1979-2013 before moving to California. Dr.Z was an early tech adopter, placing his first PC in his home based office in 1986 and pioneering technologies such as intraoral cameras in the 80s, air abrasion, lasers and digital radiography in the 90s and created a paperless office and utilized CAD/CAM technology twenty years ago well before they were mainstream. His early adoption caught the eyes of industry leaders (like Dr. Farran) who enlisted him to write articles, lecture, beta test new technologies and advise startups in the oral health field. Dr. Zuckerberg now acts as the Chief Dental Officer for Keystone Bio, an exciting biopharma company with a biologic to eradicate P.gingivalis, and he also acts as a Venture Partner for Revere Partners, the first Independent Venture Fund for Oral Health. He can be reached via his website at www.painlessdrz.com or his Facebook Page www.facebook.com/painlesssocialmedia Join the community on Dentaltown at https://www.dentaltown.com

Dr. Howard Farran discusses the patient experience and just how important communication is. Join the community at www.dentaltown.com

Dr. Howard Farran discusses what to look for when considering where to work during your associateship. Join the community at www.dentaltown.com

Dr. Howard Farran discusses hygiene profits and things to consider when looking at associateships. Join the community at www.dentaltown.com

Howard answers "When do you know it is time to retire?" Join the community at www.dentaltown.com

Howard answers "What tips do you have for work life balance?" Join the community at www.dentaltown.com

Howard answers "How do you know when it's time to start your own practice and how did you manage having children and being a practice owner?" Join the community at www.dentaltown.com

Howard answers the question "What is something you wished you had learned sooner in your dental career?" Join the community at www.dentaltown.com

Nolan Patel is a recent graduate of the University of Michigan School of Dentistry. He started off working in private practice part time for his mentor and part time at a DSO. At the beginning of 2021 he switched full time to the DSO and has recently started looking into practice ownership. To stay up to date with dentistry he attends Spears CE courses and in his free time you can find him checking out local bars and restaurants in Chicago. Join the community on Dentaltown at https://www.dentaltown.com

Howard answers the question "sometimes patients don't want exam with the prophy for whatever reason. Can you submit exam code with the prophy if dr. doesn't see patient? What is the legal status around this? Join the community at www.dentaltown.com

Dr. Howard Farran gives a new graduate some advice on working with pediatric patients. Join the community on Dentaltown at https://www.dentaltown.com

On this episode, Dr. Farran answers the question "What would you say is the most important part of owning a practice, but often gets overlooked."

Dr. Howard Farran looks into how inflation affected dentists in the 1980's, and if he would have done anything different looking back. Join the community on Dentaltown at https://www.dentaltown.com

Dr. Howard Farran helps a dentist looking into how much production they should be expecting from increasing their number of operatories. Join the community on Dentaltown at https://www.dentaltown.com

How do you compensate hygienists for additional cleaning? Dr. Howard Farran takes community questions and gives you his uncensored take on everything dentistry related. Reply to these videos, or use the hashtag #askhoward on Twitter or Facebook to submit a question for Howard. Join the community on Dentaltown at https://www.dentaltown.com

As seen on the Doctors, founder of the nation's largest new dentist and student community, Dr. David R. Rice travels the world speaking, writing and connecting today's top young dentists with tomorrow's most successful dental practices. In addition to igniteDDS, David is Chief Editor of DentistryIQ and leads a team-centered, restorative and implant practice in East Amherst, NY. With 28 years of practice in the books, he's trained at The Pankey Institute, The Dawson Academy, Spear and most prolifically at the school of hard-knocks. Join the community on Dentaltown at https://www.dentaltown.com

Dr. Gebrehiwot was born in Eritrea, East Africa. He won a diversity visa lottery to come to the United States and arrived here without any family or friends or any sense of direction. When he arrived, he worked odd jobs while starting with English for Second Language Speakers at Phoenix Community college. After graduation he was fortunate to get a job with Motorola as a Product engineer. Working for Motorola provided health and dental insurance, which allowed him to go to the dentist for the first time ever in his life. This very experience shook him because he had calculus, cavities, bleeding gums and so on. After following through with his oral care, and the impact it left him to have a better self-esteem, he decided to switch gears and change careers into dentistry. He started dental school at the age of 32. After dental school he worked as an associate in different corporate dentistry and finally he decided to start a scratch practice in Wylie, Texas. Join the community on Dentaltown at https://www.dentaltown.com

Try using a longer leash to attract and retain the most talented people that reflects your company's mission and values which includes building an employee-focused culture. You build your patient base with word of mouth referrals, the same holds true with attracting new talented employees and why they should be involved in the recruiting process. We have several mother / daughter employees who claim working together all day is the best part of our benefits package.

Your treatment plans must last at least five years. Patches will come back to bite you, especially on the elderly who usually outlive everyone's expectations.

Dentists could learn a lot from Sol Price (1916-2009), the founder of Price Club in 1963, which became Costco, which pioneered the membership, absolute pricing authority, warehouse store retail model. The membership model is currently one of the hottest trends in retail. A store that tries to be all things to all people will end up being nothing to anyone. A retailer reflecting honesty, credibility, and a definite direction that can be understood by its customers and vendors will have a good chance to make it. Costco's 3 Business Categories: Personnel, Product & Facilities. Costco's 6 rules: Have the right kind, in the right place, at the right time, in the right quantity, in the right condition, at the right price. Costco counts on very significant productivity because they pay high wages and benefits. If you buy into the concept that Costco is the low-cost provider of goods and services and also pay the highest wages in retail and have the richest benefit plan, then we must be getting better productivity, because of every dollar that we spend on our business, $0.70 is on people. There's a categorically false notion that the only business model in the service industry is the minimum-wage business model. Costco people work for years making great money plus health benefits. 87 million people have a Costco card because they have absolute pricing authority meaning if you see it at Costco, you're sure it's the best price you can find. Advertising is cost. The only secret to lower prices ins lower cost. So, if you spend 1-3% on advertising, you'll raise your cost which will raise your prices. Advertising is like heroin, once you start doing it, it is very hard to stop. Word of mouth is the lowest cost most effective type of advertising. Costco saves 2% a year in costs by not advertising. In 2017 Amazon spent $6.3 billion in advertising, Target $1.4 billion, Walmart $2.9 billion. The average markup at Costco is just 11%, Walmart is 24%, Supermarkets 30%, Home Depot and Lowe's 35%.

In baseball and HR, three strikes and you're out. So, if you fire someone and they're surprised, you need to reexamine your ability to manage and lead your team. Sometimes no matter how many times you tell someone they're not performing and meeting expectations, they just don't get it. However, more times than not, managers and leaders want to avoid confrontation and they don't ever address the issues with someone and instead avoid the person. That's being a horrible leader or manager. Let's say you open at 7:00 am and your assistant rolls in at 7:05. Young dentists are mad but don't say anything. The better managers, as soon as time permits will call the employee back into their private office and explain the problem, open up a word document and leave while the assistant types out in their own words what went wrong and explains why it won't be a reoccurring problem. Many times, you comeback to learn that she does this because she always stays an hour after we close while the other assistant flies out the door and she doesn't think it's fair. This is what you need know so you can build a winning team as opposed to other more common method where the first time it made you mad and you didn't say anything. The second time it made you madder and you still didn't say anything. Then the third time you erupt like a volcano and fire them. This person had no idea this was going to happen, they have monthly bills they need to pay, and now they're shocked, saddened, and unemployed, all because their coach never showed up for the game. Watch any professional game and watch how the coach is intimately involved during the entire game, standing at the sidelines calling in plays, time outs, etcetera. Now watch Doc go back to their private office in between every patient and shut the door. If this is you, then you need to delegate to an office manager that has the same authority to make plays that match their responsibility. You're either the coach or a player, cuz you can't be both. So, play ball... and okay to win.

Getting to Yes by Tracking No means you better know your overhead and break even point for the day. The average net income for: Dental Specialists ($320,990) General Practitioners ($197,190) Dentists who owned their own practices ($244,980) Dentists who were employed at a practice ($147,950) Oral and maxillofacial surgeons $448,140 Periodontists: $330,690 Endodontists: $307,460 Pediatric Dentists: $304,280 Orthodontists: $289,190 Prosthodontists: $219,950

Does your dental team celebrate as much as your family? Do they spend more time discussing problems than celebrating victories? The whole team is greater than the sum of each team member. There's no such thing as a self-made dentist. You're only gonna reach your goals with the help of others - and that means having fun.

Is a bird in your hand really worth two in the bush? Is it really better to hold onto something you already have than risk it all for a double? Did capitalism die? Why didn't you keep your fast-food job instead of spending years and student loans for something better? Saving money for retirement is about laying out a bird now to get two or more out of the bush. Do you really want to be an associate dentist? When you decided to be a dentist back in grammar school did you envision yourself as an employee dentist or the dentist owner of your own dental office, land, and building? Associate dentists are paid just enough money to kill all off all their dental self-mastery dreams. Don't settle for a sure bird in your hand today if you have already proven that you have the internal self-discipline of delayed gratification to invest it in yourself in the hopes that someday it will be worth two birds. Dentists know this or they would have invested eight years of their life and half a million dollars to get a dental degree.

Transparency vs Opaque. I was wondering why successful dental leaders are transparent and not opaque until it became clear to me that if your not it's clearly offensive. Does your dental office team know the daily breakeven point? Do they know the office overhead? Do they get to see the accounting reports for the balance sheet, statement of cashflow, and statement of income? Management transparency is the key to trust and the foundation for strong management-employee relationships to analyze and grasp how the practice is doing and where we're going. Are collections meeting expectations in the 30/60/90 day periods? How's are overhead looking and could we lower it? Are costs being managed? What's helping us achieve our goals? What are our obstacles? Everyone in the entire company has complete visible transparency into the budget, how and what we're spending, what our results are, and does everyone have a voice on how we can improve our performance. How often have you heard that people leave a job because of the manager not because of the company? It's true whether it's a small family dental practice or a large dental group practice DSO. One of the common complaints you hear from disgruntled employees is they don't trust their dentist or office manager who is not very transparent, and have no idea what they're thinking, what is happening, the performance of the office and don't know what's coming up in the future. If you can't trust your opaque non-communicating dentist, office manager or team leader then your life and work become an exhausting challenge day in and day out. The late Herb Kelleher (1931-2019) co-founder & CEO of Southwest Airlines was the only airline CEO who was a member of his own pilots union because he knew how important that relationship was. His book was called Nuts!: Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success. Maybe it's time to go nuts and start trusting your employees to help you become successful.

Dentistry could learn a lot from Sanford I. Weill, the former CEO of Citigroup who tried to join the Air Force until his application was denied by a dentist after examining his teeth. His major break on Wall Street came with a mundane job doing g the paperwork behind the brokers trades. Sandys success with Citigroup came from mastering the back office mundane details of Wall Street trading, banking, insurance, and finance creating value from the knowledge and details of accounting, record keeping, and every other mundane task that was mostly unknown to all the major CEOs. How many dentists could do every task from scheduling an appointment to billing the dental insurer company. Sandy Weill fired Jamie Dimon when he was 66 years old because Jamie wanted to be CEO and then Sandy retired four years later, and in that time, the ship of Citi was wrecked. Young associates share this same issue working for older dentists who swear they are about to retire, it's never in writing, the older dentists keep delaying their retirement, with nothing in writing, and eventually the relationship breaks down and the younger dentist moves on. Tearing Down the Walls: How Sandy Weill Fought His Way to the Top of the Financial World https://www.amazon.com/Tearing-Down-Walls-Financial-Journal/dp/0743247264/ref=asc_df_0743247264

Let's get back to the pre-pandemic mindset. If you're double vaccinated you know this pandemic is over. Let's get back to fight mode in building a championship dental office. What do champion dentists do more of that their colleagues don't?

Dentists could hit a Hank Aaron sized grand slam if they could just learn and implement any of the major business lessons that Denny's have used in over 1,702 locations since Harold Butler and Richard Jezak founded the first Denny's in 1953 in Lakewood, California. Denny's are 24/7/365 explaining why in 1988 more than 700 of their 1,221 stores didn't even have locks. During an economic contraction being poised for growth means you're conveniently available, with low enough overheard, to perform profitable, high volume quality dental services with low prices. During an economic expansion… this strategy is even better. I'd rather own McDonalds (MCD) any day with a $177 Billion market cap than Ruth Chris (RUTH) with a $700 Million market cap.

Chris Pistorius talks with Dr. Howard Farran, the founder of the incredibly popular online dental community, Dentaltown. Chris & Howard have an open and honest conversation about all things dental.

First you need to stop doing it backwards. If you get the wrong person you spend all your time managing that person, you get poor results, and then you look like a bad manager. Get the right person who is already internally motivated, loves to work, loves their new job, who gets along with people, now you barely have to manage them and they're making you look like a pro, because that's how the pro's do it. Sporting teams couldn't manage me to be an NFL quarterback or the next ballerina. Your new hire has to already have the natural ability first. As far as turnover, it should mostly be at the new employee beginning as you and/or the new hire find out the new job isn't a fit and then at the other end have employees that have been with you since the beginning. Whenever the person doing all the hiring is the only person in the company who's been there for more than five years and no one else has made it five years then the wrong person is doing all the hiring.