I am Sheela Roth, head of clinical education from Pearl.

Excited to be here. Also a hygienist, but really by heart, a love of practice growth. So enjoyed working with practices throughout the years and excited to hear from Lacey. I'm going to introduce Lacey Phillips this evening.

She has been a powerhouse in dentistry since nineteen ninety two, working every role in the dental practice. Sorry.

And that's actually fantastic. From a chairside to business office leader to managing high end cosmetic practices with forty to fifty thousand treatment plans, which were the norm. That's incredible.

And since two thousand eight, she's really kind of taken her expertise to teach the rest of us, share with, what she's done in her life and see how we can benefit from that. Speaking on the national stage, major dental conventions and study clubs across the country.

As the founder of Practice Dynamics, Lacey's known for really taking her real world experience, business metrics, which we all enjoy sometimes, team development and technology into real practical strategies that drive measurable growth. Her mission is simple. Help dental teams build balance driven success through strong systems, empowered teams, and visionary leadership. So when we choose who we're having on our webinars at Pearl, we're very selective, and we wanna bring to our dental space, you know, topics that are gonna resonate and that you can walk away.

So I'm really exciting. Exciting. I am exciting. No. I'm really excited to have Lacey here tonight. Please join me in welcoming Lacey. And, Lacey, start us off.

Well, that's a pretty amazing introduction. You did a little bit of research there, which I love. I might have to start taking you with me when I go speak places and and let you do my introductions for me. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Of course. Pearl is absolutely on my top three technology companies that I love to work with. Love what Pearl is doing and everything that it's offering. Of course, I've been a huge fan for years now when it was just clinical and super excited that it's moving into the business realm as well.

And, of course, there are a ton of questions anytime that anytime it comes to AI. But tonight, we'll specifically take a look at that practice playbook. Really, we're talking about three three things that are very different, but without them, the practice just doesn't function. And, of course, the first one is leadership.

Systems, which I love systems. We have to talk about it because we wouldn't have a dental practice without it, and then the team. And none of those things happen without the others. So it's it's an exciting place to be.

Like Sheila said, I love questions. I view this as a conversation. So if you have questions about anything that we're talking about, raise that hand, type that question in. Sheila's gonna read them, and we will have an actual conversation about all this.

So let's jump right in. Why do offices stall? And it oh, we already have a question. Oh my god.

I'm so excited. Is it what is it? Hey. Can be from Virginia? That's awesome.

We finally have someone telling us where they're from. So representing Virginia. Yes.

And it's late there. So thank you for joining us, Katie. I appreciate that. Alright. Back to, oh gosh, we're gonna just do this the whole time.

I'm gonna jump into this. You read it real quick, Sheila. I will. Why do offices stall?

And this could be the month for stalling, to be honest with you. Everybody gets excited towards the end of December because we're rounding out the year. We're finishing out a year. And then January brings new growth, new ideas, new eyes, and it's very exciting.

And then February hits, and and we forget our resolutions. We forget that one word now. We forgot our goals and our bonuses, and we're just once again trying to survive.

So where do we fail with that? Well, one place we fail is the leadership gap. Leadership is not staying consistent. They're not holding us accountable and to our expectations and to our guidelines. The other place are those systems that we work so hard throughout the year to put into place.

We kind of forget about them. Right? We start forgetting about those systems and how we should be doing things. And, again, there's nobody there to really hold us accountable or to say, hey. Let's get back on track because we're all just trying to get through the day.

Alright. So we will go on to so here's the framework for our playbook. Always starts with leadership. Has to start with leadership. Sheila, you probably had this over the years with offices you've worked with. My favorite thing is when I'm working with a dentist, and the dentist says to me, I really don't wanna be a leader.

I don't know. I I don't wanna manage people. I don't wanna be a leader. What I really like to do is just dentistry.

And and I get it. I get it. I've heard it. I've seen it. I've experienced it.

I completely get it. What we have to understand is, sorry.

You're the leader.

Right? So we coach, and we learn. And worst case scenario is you're the leader up here, and we're gonna find your next person in line that's really going to exude leadership. But but, guys, we have to have leadership, and, hopefully, it's closer to the top than your person who's down here doing sterilization.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm all for it. But then we're gonna have to promote that sterilization, assistant and get them leading the team. Right?

Then we have our playbook. We're gonna talk you're you're probably gonna even have to slow me down Because when I start talking about SOPs and systems and the and the playbook itself, I go off on a tangent. This is I guarantee you everybody on this call right now and in America, the dental office, has sticky notes, a composition note, somewhere detailing how we do things. That's our playbook.

Then when we have these two things, an excellent leader and this playbook that we can follow, we start enabling our team to be as successful as they possibly can, to give them the outcomes that they're looking for and that they desire. Let's be honest. Teams desire that. And I say all the time, the more you read your books, the more you start leading, the more you empower people, the better you feel, the more you wanna do it, and the easier it becomes.

It's it's not something that all of sudden you wake up in the morning and you say, I have to lead people today, but more you're excited to get in there and empower that team. So I encourage you to become that type of leader.

So what does great leadership look like? I I've had people say, I'm a boss. And then I've had people say, I just like to empower people.

I like to help them accomplish all of their goals. My ultimate goal is to truly help my team realize their potential and set a goal every single year on how we can be the very best that we can be.

So big difference there. That's what leadership starts to look like. But in that, we need a clear vision, a clear mission that we can act on.

Everybody needs guidelines and expectations, even adults, especially adults. We need guidelines and expectations. We've seen the chaos in the office and the drama in the office when we don't have it.

And we need accountability. So once you give me my guidelines and my expectations, I really I do. I don't know about you guys, but if I'm losing weight, if I'm not picking up another glass of wine, if I need to go work out, I need somebody to hold me accountable. Sometimes I'm not the best person to hold myself accountable.

I told you Sheila at the beginning of this. I said, can we have wine during this webinar? Could this be a sip and learn webinar? Yes.

And she said, yes. She is not my accountability partner. No. I'm not.

I'm your fun partner.

Right. Right. Absolutely. Well, I I no wine yet, you guys. We'll do that afterwards. So we need that accountability partner.

These are things that make a great leader, and you don't have to be verbose. You don't have to be loud about it. You don't have to be stringent and combining with it.

One of the best things I've learned over the years is to ask questions rather than make statements.

Going off just on a little bit of a of a tangent here with being with being a leader is I personally don't like being told. Right? But when you start asking me questions to get around, it's an understanding. What I'm ultimately trying to do is understand where you're coming from, why you did it that way, and maybe your way is actually better than the way we've been doing it.

But I would never know that if I didn't ask the qualifying questions to get to that point. And I also find that leadership is diffusing situations rather than saying, you two stop acting that way. Right? I don't care if you have to work together or you're gonna get along with each other.

But let's find out why. Like, what why are we not getting along? Why is the culture not what we want it to be at this point in time rather than just dictating what the culture should be every single day?

So leadership is so many things. And I think more than anything, it's not a title. And that's what I'm talking about. It could be the sterilization assistant.

Your hygienist could be the best leader in the office. Your business team member might be the best leader. It's not a title. It's culture.

It's attitude. It's understanding, and it's that wanting everybody to do an amazing job and for all of us to be the best that we can possibly be.

So also with leadership comes communication. I'm a huge fan of communication. I love me some communication. And I think that in dental practice, we especially need it.

You know, in every dental practice I've ever been in in the United States, there's that natural line. I don't know if you know what I'm talking about, Sheila. There's a natural line between the front and the back. Yes.

And when we call each other or when we call ourselves the front and the back, it has a tendency to really dig that line in the sand.

And because we have these different areas in the office, we need constant communication. So this leadership is not just saying thing once, saying the vision, the mission, the guidelines, the expectations once and expecting everybody to get it. Communication has to happen every single day in the office. The annual communication starts with a strategic planning session.

And then we look at quarterly, monthly, weekly, and even daily. So what does that look like? The annual strategic planning session is about a four hour session. It's out we try to do it outside of the office if possible for no distractions.

There's a ton of prep work that goes into this. How did we do last year? What were our expenses? Where do we wanna be in twelve months from now?

Right? So we have to start building the plan at our annual strategic planning session. Now how Bonnie and I like to do this, Bonnie is my better half of this business and my soul sister with Practice Dynamics, is, we we read a book. Right?

And it's the WIG. The WIG is the wildly important goal.

You and your team are gonna set your WIG for the year. Wildly important goal. Perfect timing if you guys haven't done this yet or if you've done it, and as we listen tonight, you're like, I think we need to tweak it. Perfect.

Wildly important goal. So where do you wanna be twelve months from now? Do you wanna see growth? Gosh.

I hope so. Every single office, I hope, is experiencing growth. Do you wanna implement a bonus plan? Are your plans to maybe incorporate an associate or build your hygiene program?

Right? So where where do we wanna be? Then what we're gonna do is every quarter, we're going to set three goals to hit our WIG.

So every quarter, we're building the plan to get to where we need to be. Whoo. Going crazy here. So that annual strategic planning session, we've got the WIG, and then our first three goals for the first quarter based on the WIG.

Sound make sense, Sheila? Yep. Alright. Perfect. So we're always keeping that in mind. I love it when we put the wig maybe in the employee lounge.

I was told once that it's only an employee lounge if there's lounge chairs and a cave, which I felt like that was, fair, but maybe not appropriate.

So post your WIG. Post your WIG in the employee lounge. Everybody can see it.

Then you're gonna set those goals. Like I said, your quarterly updates are going to start with and this is about a two hour meeting. Entire team is always involved. K?

This is about a two hour meeting. Very first thing you're gonna do is what's our progress? How did we do with those three goals? I'm also gonna tell you guys, if you haven't read it yet, the law of diminishing returns.

If you the more goals you you make, the less likely you are to actually accomplish them. So two to three goals per quarter. I've been saying three because I like the number three, but two to three goals per quarter. So in your quarterly sessions, what's our progress from those two to three goals that we set?

What's our progress to our WIG? And then updates, k, which is the same thing. And then we're gonna set two to three more goals for the next quarter based off of our WIG.

And we're gonna assign this you know, we're gonna have an agenda. We're gonna have action items. When is it due? What should we do? And we're gonna assign somebody to keep track of that for So those are our quarterly updates.

Now we're going monthly.

Now the monthly the monthly meetings, the monthly, communication, this part's all about the team. I love me a good lunch and learn. Now when I say lunch and learn, most offices are immediately gonna go to inviting your reps in to tell us about the latest and the greatest. And that's all good and fine, but I have another idea. Hear me out here.

You have six internal and six external. What does that mean? Your six internal lunch and learns are the team only, and each department gets their own lunch and learn.

So business team, you're gonna educate us on all things business. What's new? What's going on? If you're an in network provider, tell us what's happening with insurance.

Explain to us why you need that darn PA and why it can't have a cone cut. Right? This is also an amazing conversation about Pearl. This is how are we truly utilizing Pearl clinically, and then how does the business office utilize this amazing technology as well.

Right? So, clinical team members, tell us what's your favorite thing to assist on. What's your least favorite thing to assist on? Why does it take an hour and a half to do a crown prep?

What is the difference between a post post and core and pins? Right? Why why do we sometimes recommend gold in the posterior of the mouth and force? So teach me, educate me, help me learn, and teach me the same verbal skills you're using because the more I use, the more we all as a team use the same verbal skills, the more the patients trust us because they believe us.

Right? Hygienist. Oh my gosh. This is the perfect time to explain to us a periodontal procedure versus a prophy.

Periomaintenance versus a prophy. Why? And what should I be say as a business team member, what should I be saying to the patients when they say, just bill it out as a prophy. It'll be fine.

Right? Doctors, you get your own little lunch and learn. Tell us what's your favorite procedure. What do you love to do?

What gives you energy? What makes you happy? And what absolutely sucks the life right out of you? Right?

We need to know that because we need to probably put less of that on your schedule. And nobody wants to do a crown at four PM. I know. Put it if an if you love doing crowns or endo at four PM, please put it in the chat right now because I disagree.

Nobody wants to do that. Right? We are all ready to go at four PM. So those are our six lunch, internal.

Six external, yes, bring your reps in. Better yet, start thinking marketing. If you guys have your favorite coffee shop that you go get your your boost every afternoon, go on a field trip. Take the entire team.

Go in. Ask them. There is actually no better place to learn systems in an SOP than in a coffee shop. Think about the way we order.

I need the size, whether it's hot or cold, then all of the extras. Right? Fifteen shots, shaken oatmeal, no sugar. Right?

So all of this stuff that you get, there's no better place to learn a system than in a coffee shop. And then take it a step further and invite them to come take a tour of your dental practice. Now maybe they don't need a dentist, but you might convert them. And they might know somebody, a family member, a dear friend, and they're instantly like, dude, this place is amazing.

I love this place. I'm going there. Right? So think outside the box a little bit.

You have twelve of them. So six internal, six external for your monthly lunch and learns. It brings a little bit of fun to it as well.

Then we're gonna have our weekly communication. These are our weekly team lead meetings. Now what do I mean by team lead? If you're a small practice, this may not work for you.

If you have more than two employees at every department, this could work for you. So, ideally, we have a hierarchy. I actually have a slide here in a little bit. I'll show that to you.

But we have an a hierarchy. You have your dentist, practice owner, maybe a practice administrator. You have a business clinical hygiene if you're a GP. Right?

Maybe you have a business lead, a clinical lead, a hygiene lead.

Makes sense.

This helps also with these doctors who don't love being in the thick of things. Our leads are.

So everything starts at the top and trickles down except for chaos and drama. It typically starts down here and trickles up. When you put leads in place, it stops all this. So our weekly team leads meet for twenty minute, maximum thirty minute state of the union address.

I even have an agenda here for you. So it's the doctor owner and all of your team leads. I like starting tell me something good. And then how was past week?

Right? How is this next week? Are there any patients coming up that I should be aware of? Is any are any team members gonna be out of the office?

Am I gonna see any new faces? Right? And then let's talk. What's working well?

What needs what are our obstacles?

And what needs to be reevaluated? So, again, twenty to thirty minutes max, date of the union address. It's at this time, doc, that you are sharing any pertinent information to your team leads, your leads go back and share it to everyone else in their department. Also, team leads, when this happens down here, it should come to you first.

You should try to resolve it. Be the leader. Ask the qualifying questions to dissolve it. And then, hopefully, all we have to do is tell doc that it happened, but it's been resolved, and we're good to go.

So it's a great situation. There's your there's your weekly communication. And then, of course, you gotta start your day off right, people. Now I have lots of offices who say, Lacey, I accommodate moms or dads that need to get the kids off.

I think that's amazing. I love that. Still, you have to find ten to twelve minutes every day for the entire team, and, yes, the entire team has to be there and on time, prepared, ready to go. If you can't have an AM huddle, have it right after lunch.

Every day right after lunch, you mark off fifteen minutes, and you finish the app you you huddle the afternoon and then the next morning. K? And, again, I'm all for agendas. What's an agenda?

It's an SOP. SOP is a standard operating procedure. These are my guidelines and my expectations and how I am ready for my day every single day.

I am happy to share anything that you guys see on these slides. So my last slide, of course, will be my contact information. You can email me and say, hey, lates. I need the team huddle. I need the team lead. I need you.

I am here for you. I got you. Alright. So that's how we're starting. That's how we're continuing. That's how we stay consistent with our communication. Annual strategic planning session, quarterly updates, and new goals to hit our WIG, monthly lunch and learns where we're learning, we're educating, and we're creating empathy with one another, our weekly team lead, k, and, of course, our daily huddle.

Super important. Super important. So then that's our leadership. So then what does the a playbook look like?

Oh, I got a question. I got a question. I love questions. Yes, please. The inter you got it.

Alex, you email me at the end of this, and I I got you. I'll give it to you.

Got you, boo. Okay. What is a playbook?

A playbook is a document that describes operations. How do we do things? It's instructions. It's systems. It's procedures.

How we set up. It's verbal skills.

Right? It's operations.

It's an SOP, and an SOP is a standard operating procedure manual. Now I have a lot of offices that say, hey, Lace. I have a handbook, and I am super proud of you for having a handbook. But a handbook is not an SOP manual.

I want you to think start when you pull into the draw in into the parking lot in the morning. Where do you park? Which door do you go in? Is there an alarm system?

What's the code? What do you do after you get through the alarm? What's you know, like, literally walk through your day. Every single process, procedure, operation of your day all the way till you are walking to that back door, locking it down with the alarm code, and leaving for the night.

It should be all of that, K? And more. So what does that look like? Well, I break it down into categories, and here are the biggest categories.

Right? Ownership should have a category.

HR. Now I recommend every single office in the United States have a legal HR manual that has, guidelines or that has state laws, k, and guidelines. The HR I'm talking about that you should have is how do we deal with conflicts? How do we deal with pay?

Compensation, CEs. If we're if it's mandatory, we go. How do we deal with evaluations? Right?

That's all HR. What time are we supposed to be at work? If our per how do people not know this, Sheila?

How do people not understand this? If your first patient is at eight Yes.

You should probably be there at seven thirty. We're gonna have a huddle if applicable in the morning at seven forty three. And then your patient should be in your chair seated ready to go at eight o'clock. How do we not understand that? I don't get it.

Yep. That's true. Because a lot of times we slide in as assistants, you know, at eight, and then all of a sudden the doctor's sitting there going, where's the patient? And the problem is I didn't really see this until I moved to the front, but that really trickles down throughout the whole day.

Right? And it just starts off that bad feeling of Very good. Know that things happen, but it's important that what you stated, which is eight means you're in the chair chair side. It doesn't mean you're clocking in at eight, and I think that's important.

I do too. I do and it what is this? It's a guideline. It's an expectation.

It's an Did we lose you?

Oh, no. Really? Am I still here?

No. It's me. We lost me for a minute.

Oh, good. I mean, I don't wanna lose you, but I feel like it wouldn't be appropriate to lose me. So Oh, you've you've got the slides. I guess you could keep going with it. But no.

It's it's a hundred percent. It's an SOP. It's a guideline. It's an expectation. Who carries it out?

Leadership. Who holds people accountable? Team leads. Right? And then we develop that culture. So I I love this.

Can a new team member follow it, repeat it, and be coached on it without confusion? Because, ultimately, your SOP manual should be a training manual.

So I loved what you said in the beginning. Doctors, if you have to be gone for thirty days, what the heck happens to the practice?

Your SOP, your leaders, your self driven team, hopefully, are holding down the fort for you. Obviously, we can't do actual dentistry. We can't do restorations. We but depending on what state you're in, you might be able to hold up that hygiene department.

Right? So your you've got your categories here of the of the different areas that you should have. What does that look like? I would start it can be very, very, very overwhelming, folks.

I would start with business team.

Everything that happens in the business office. For example, your new patient intake, scheduling rules, presenting treatment, financials. Yes. We collect.

Oh my goodness. Yes. You have to pay your bill. What is that in dentistry?

I have yet to go to Sam's Club, and they don't make me pay. I I don't get it. What is it in dentistry? We teach our patients how to treat us.

Right? And so I always say, assume they're gonna pay. Assume they're gonna schedule. Like, that's we're just gonna go with that.

We're gonna go with it, and it's gonna work. The recare system. Then start your top priorities with clinical and hygiene. So how do you set up a room?

How do you turn over the room? How do we handle X rays? How do we handle people who don't want X rays and verbal skills? By the way, X rays are a diagnostic diagnostic piece of technology.

It's the only diagnose well, one of the only. You have to diagnose your dentistry, folks. And one of the ways we do that is with our X rays and then putting Pearl over the top of that to help us out a little Right? So when when a patient tells us, I'm not gonna have X rays today, well, guys, they're just setting you up for a lawsuit because that's a legality issue.

But how do we as a team handle that? What what do we say to them? How do we educate them, and what's the process for if they keep taking it too far?

Who's charting? Who's documenting? When should those things be done? Before you leave for the end of the day.

Handoffs. Oh my god. Handoffs are my favorite things to do in the entire world. I love it when I'm in person with people. When I'm speaking from the stage, I will literally call people up there and go, let's do a handoff. Because the communication in a handoff will one hundred percent create your success or break your success. And if you don't think it's true, ladies at the maybe gentlemen at the business office, have you ever had a patient come up to your desk on their own with nobody with them?

And they stand in front of you like this.

Yes.

And so you do the same thing. You go Yep. Then you get present. So, what they do to you today?

Right? Or better yet, I love this. When a clinical team member runs up to the business office and throws the chart, and it kinda does the swirling thing. Right?

Super exciting. Same thing with dentists to enter an operatory, and they have no idea what they're entering or who they're talking to or what's going on. Handoffs, gotta have it. Needs to be documented.

Verbal skills, how do we do it? When does it happen? All those good things. And then bring in the leadership and the team portion of this, which is your HR, which is your huddles, those those, meetings that we just talked about.

Right? Monthly trainings, keeping everybody up to date. What is my role in the office?

And favorites, conflict resolution, correction, and feedback. By the way, I don't think it has to be conflict, Sheila. I just think it has to be a conversation.

Don't you think too, Lacey? And that's so well stated that I don't know about you. It feels like every time you get to the very bottom of what happened, it's always a lack of communication.

Hundred percent.

So we wear, like, earpieces earpieces in my old office because the goal is if you're not over communicating, you're not communicating. But I think when you sit down with those two people and you finally figure out, oh, I didn't know you meant that. I thought you meant this. And it's really just communicating to your point.

Hundred percent. Started. Hundred percent. It doesn't have to be a conflict. It just has to be a conversation.

Now I'm not saying it's an easy conversation. Sometimes it's difficult. Sometimes it's uncomfortable. But you just kinda gotta lean into that and know that ultimately, you both have the same end goal.

Right.

First and foremost, it should be the patient.

Secondly, it should be the culture of the office, which then creates a great environment for you to work in. And then you have great success.

Right? It doesn't have to be that hard.

We just need to talk to each other. Now where does Pearl fit into all of this? You guys don't ask me to do this. You're you never say, hey.

Talk about us. As a matter of fact, most likely, you're like, hey. You don't have to talk about us. But Pearl is a big part of our SOP.

It is a big part of our guidelines and our expectations. Quick quick little story. I have a dentist, a female dentist in Texas who hired a male dentist straight out of school.

And she's coaching him, but she's also running a giant practice. And so they have Pearl.

Her favorite thing in Pearl is the second look. Because in the beginning, he had this major tendency to over diagnose and to scare the patients, and his verbal skills were very, you have to have this done. So she started using Second Look with Pearl, which enabled her to physically coach this assistant. Now then what happened is he pulled way back, and he's like, oh, am I gonna diagnose anything?

So, again, she's looking at second look. Right? And she's able to use this technology to help him become more comfortable in what he's seeing, but also to utilize the technology on on what the technology is seeing. And then to be able to find the verbal skills and work on his bedside manner because the technology took the guesswork out of it.

Yes. Which was amazing. Amazing. I love that. This should be a part of your SOP.

It should be a part of how do we do things in the practice and how do we utilize our technology. What's the steps? Just having the technology isn't enough. We've gotta have the guidelines and the expectations on how do we use it and what are the procedures.

And what's what's the you know, if somebody again, not wanting if they're pushing back on diagnosis, on the technology, how do we handle that as well?

What's your favorite feature of Pearl, Sheila?

You know, for me, not only is the quick colorized pathologies for the doctors to move through the images faster, it's really when we turn on the tooth parts and we colorize the teeth completely and bring that into the chair side case presentation.

That's where it's been a game changer, for the patients. I think we all realize that when patients accept the dentistry earlier and more often, they have better patient outcomes. They're retained. They had a great experience, and they refer their family and friends.

So many times you see a patient and you my doctor would say, Sheila, before I come in, I want to know what needs to be done, why it needs to be done, and where is this patient at? Meaning motivation, right? What, why, and where. And I would spend so much time explaining shades of gray that when Pearl actually came in and were able to stand next to the image and say, okay.

So this these are the areas of concern.

I could stop talking, and I could then have my patients ask the questions they need to be able to kind of look here or you know, that's that pivotal moment.

Do they trust us? Is there value? What are they worried about? That's been a big game changer for more patients to have more transparency. That's my favorite is the colors and the chairside case presentation.

I I love that you said you you didn't have to spend as much time explaining the gray.

Because, see, when I was a chairside assistant, I spent a lot of time explaining the white because I have those tone cuts all the time.

Oh, let's get to our team. We've got a little bit of time left here. Let's get to that self directed team and how important it is to have the team because, truly, we wouldn't have a dental practice without it. Right?

So leadership is building a strong team. Leadership is building, a team that is comfortable doing their job. I read a quote once. Oh, who was it?

Oh, I should know this. But he said, you know, we we hire the very best. We work really hard at hiring the very best. Then we onboard them, new word in dentistry, we onboard them, give them their guidance, their expectations, their procedures, and then we let them do their job.

But I love that. Let's hire well.

Let's train and onboard and set ourselves up and set them up for success, and then let them do their job. But part of that comes with making sure that they have job descriptions. I still, to this day, am shocked when I walk into a dental practice, and nobody has job descriptions or titles. How do you know what to do every day?

It's crazy to me. And everybody loves a good title. I mean, I'm still looking for my the queen title. I'm still looking for the whole tiara thing.

I I am.

And then we have to have those guidance, the guidance, the expectations.

A scoreboard is nice. Everybody likes a scoreboard. People work better with goals. If you have a bonus system set up, good for you.

Here's what I'm gonna say to because everybody works better with goals. Right? And we all think people are motivated by money. That's that's not actually true.

That's a whole another course right there. It's not actually true. People are not always motivated by money. But here's what I mean by a scorecard and bonuses.

Remember we talked a little bit earlier about the natural divide between the business office and the clinical part of the office. Right?

When we provide goals, bonuses only to one group of people, it really deepens that divide.

It doesn't foster culture of a team or that we wanna work together.

My favorite is Lacey, I get a dollar for every new patient I book, And I wanna say, well, don't you get a paycheck for that? I mean, I'm pretty sure that's just your job.

I want I want rev share.

I want when the practice is doing well, when all of the expenses are taken care of, when the practice is succeeding, the entire team succeeds. Because the fact of the matter is it takes an entire team. It truly does. One thing can't happen without the other. A new patient can't be in the chair without us answering the call and scheduling that and doing the intake. The new patient doesn't get to hygiene without an exam from the doctor.

So there's it truly does not happen without the team. So I am all for a bonus system that allows rev share when the practice is doing well. It's actually a scientific mathematical equation. Happy to discuss that with anybody afterwards if they want to, but it it fosters culture. It fosters what we're looking for in teamwork rather than I gave fluoride, so I get more money than everybody else. Right? It it just doesn't it doesn't give us what we're looking for.

And then the other portion of this is training and onboarding and training. I have found over the years in dentistry, I've experienced it. One job I got hired to be a chairside assistant. They were crazy.

And I I was supposed to work with the chairside assistant that was leaving for two weeks before she left. And I showed up day one, and she was gone. She wasn't coming back. So what do they do?

They throw you in a chair. This is what we do regardless of the position.

You get thrown in a rolling chair. Thank god for our rolling chairs in dentistry. Then they put something in each hand. So as a chairside assistant, you have a water gun and a vacuum.

As a business team, you have a mouse and a phone. Right? So as a hygienist, you have instruments and the suction tip. So we just kinda throw everybody in rolling chairs, fill up their hands, and say, you go.

You be successful.

Let's reschedule the patient and collect their money. You got this. Without any real onboarding or training, and then we wonder why people quit.

We wonder why people are not happy. We wonder why there's chaos and there's drama and why we can't find anyone really good to hire. My guess is you can. You're just not onboarding and training correctly.

Now we have a thirty, sixty, and a ninety day onboarding program, which includes training. I guarantee you if you follow this, by day sixty, you will know whether or not this is a good fit for your practice, which is ultimately what this boils down to is whether or not people are a good fit. Now here's that hierarchy that I promised you, Doctors, owners at the top, practice administrator, and then you have your business lead, your clinical lead, and your hygiene lead. Now if you only have two people at the business office, certainly one of them can be a lead.

If you only have two chair side assistants, certainly one of them can be a lead. And if you only have two hygienists, certainly one of them can be a lead. Now if there's five people in the practice, you're all leaders. Good job.

Be nice to each other.

It's a nice little hierarchy. For larger practices, we even have how do you start here? The we have kind of a a hierarchy in regards to responsibilities and pay. And how do you get to the next level to the next level to the next level. So it really lays things out nicely. Oh, do you wanna read that one?

Yep. I do. So, Katie, the hygienist joining us from Virginia Yes. Wanted to talk about a bonus structure, which is so valuable.

We should just bring you back for a whole another webinar because this one is really challenging. They've tried some things in the past. The doctor wants something that shows change instead of if we made goal, because he feels that was expected. But then they make the goal.

All the systems are running together. Your point, the team needs to be working together.

She's in the leadership team, and he's always been open to incentives but shuts down. So I finally just did a perioincentive for hygiene, but, of course, it did hurt morals with the other parts of the team. For sure. Hurt the morale. I think that's so key.

How do you handle that when you're trying Absolutely.

Absolutely. Again, I'm gonna do it quickly. We have, like, twelve minutes, and I still have some information, but I'm gonna do this quickly for you, Katie. Also, I saw that Sheila put my email in there.

Feel free. I'll set up a thirty minute courtesy conversation with you to go over this. But here's how this works. First and foremost, we have to know what are the expenses of the office.

Right? We have to know what is overhead. A typical overhead, a healthy overhead is sixty five percent for GPs. K?

So we have to know what overhead is. That means, how much, not only a percentage, but what are we producing?

What are we producing to hit expenses? But it's not only producing.

We have to then look at collections. A healthy collections ratio is ninety eight percent. That means you're collecting ninety eight percent of what is available to collect, not adjustments. This is net production.

So if your if your collection ratio is ninety percent, I have to figure out what do you have to produce in order to collect ninety percent, and then what percentage of that is going to ROI, k, to expenses. Then we figure out above and beyond that, how much what are we looking at? We typically take about twenty percent, and we divide it equally between full time employees and part time employees get a portion of that.

Now you could take it one step further, and you could do three month average so that if you have one bad month but two good months, you're still getting something. I actually have a spreadsheet, and I have it all lined out, Katie.

So any of you, feel free to email me later if you have additional questions. But, again, what I'm looking at is rev share after all of the expenses are taken care of, and it's based off production, and then what do we need to collect in order to make it happen. Hopefully, that makes some sense. It's a very fast explanation of our rev share program, but happy happy to explain it.

Perfect. Look forward to hearing from you, Katie. Alright. Now as we're talking about the team, you cannot please everyone.

You just can't. It it especially in this day and age, it's getting harder and harder. You cannot please everyone. What I've also noticed is not everyone wants to be pleased.

Not everyone wants to be in a great office with a great team with great culture. However, like I said before, it just means this is a good fit for your team. That's all it means. It doesn't mean they're a bad person. It doesn't mean that you can't stand them, that you think they're terrible, or they think you're terrible. You've created a culture.

You've created teamwork. You've created an amazing office that provides the best quality care that you always knew you would provide to your patients because, let's face it, anybody in our industry is servant by heart.

Therefore, is also your responsibility and your obligation to covet the culture, to covet those who have stood by you for years, who have the great attitude. We don't have to have bad attitudes. We just simply realize it's not a good fit for us, and we move on.

Super easy to do, but it's our responsibility as leaders to get that done. It's a big part of leadership.

Right? And so leadership management, it's aligning our people. It is aligning the behaviors, the culture. It's making sure that the attitudes are there every single day, including ours, including our own attitude, making sure that when we walk through the door, we're here for patients. That means we're here for each other.

We're gonna provide the very best health care that we possibly can and serve our own hearts with this as well.

And we just can't avoid anything else than that. It's it's neglect. Can't do it. So here's a quick, simple thirty day implementation plan for you guys. Number one, audit your gaps.

Have a quick team meeting. I love my team meetings. Have a quick team meeting. What do we have right now? What do we need?

Right? Leadership, systems, team, what do we need? Here's what I typically do, folks, is take a piece of paper. Take a spreadsheet if you're a fan of the spreadsheet, and put it into the categories. Right? Ownership, HR, admin, business, which includes financial and insurance, clinical hygiene, marketing, verbal skills.

Start making a list. We have we do this. We have this. Maybe it's written on a sticky note.

Maybe it's written on a composition note, but we have it. What don't we have that we're missing? K? And then you start documenting.

And write the top five.

Write the top five for each of those departments, for each of those categories. What do you have? Write it up. So how do we walk through the door in the morning?

What's the alarm code? Right? How do we send claims? How do we take X rays?

How do we utilize Pearl? So we're typing those up. Then we're gonna start training each other, educating each other, coaching each other on how do these things work in the practice. Educate every single one of us.

Make sure that we're all utilizing the same verbal skills, and then accountability.

Make sure and you're gonna build your SOP manual. You're gonna build your your playbook. But in all of this as well, leadership and your team leads are stepping up and saying, okay. These are the things that we're doing.

We're holding each other accountable. We're making this happen. And you'll feel those wins come every single week, every single day. You'll see the change in attitudes, and everybody's walking a little bit lighter because we know what we're doing, because it's documented, because we're all doing and saying the same things.

And if I'm working at the business office and Mary has to leave for the day, I'm not stressed because I know exactly what she does and how to do it, and I can pick up the slack for her. No problem. Again, this comes down to leadership.

It comes down to systems, guidelines, expectations, and it comes down to building truly, truly building that that winning team.

Here's my contact information.

I could do this for hours. I love doing this. But, Sheila, thank you so much for having me. You know I love this stuff.

Anybody on here, feel free to reach out to me. Ask me questions. Ask me for my stuff. Ask me for help.

And that's what we do. We we coach teams across the United States. We work with them. We help build SOPs.

As a matter of fact, we have a very comprehensive SOP manual. It's what we do. We love to help, and I appreciate all of you being here tonight.

So wonderful, Lacey. Those of you that are still with us, love to hear from you a little bit about some questions, some feedback.

I'm gonna share my screen as well here.

Let's see.

Just a second. I wanna share one thing with you. But, Lacey, for me, what was really interesting, you talked a lot about, which is the culture of the team. And one thing that I found in our practice very interesting was in reading some reviews, they were the patients were commenting about, I love this practice because they treat each other so well, and it makes me feel very comfortable. And it's one thing I would bring up into a team meeting, which would be you have no idea how much that makes a a patient feel so much better. And that's a big win for teams, and we don't think about that all the time.

I think the other part here was when you were talking about expectations.

And when you onboard people, one thing that I was, people always laugh at me, but my my motto was, you know, you you move them up or you move them out. And the main reason I said that was because when they onboard, if there's clear expectations, that's one thing. But if there's unconditional support, then they really are having the best time. They are moving up.

They are doing more. They are learning more. They're they're getting along with their teammates, or they're just moving out. Like, they will probably quit before you fire them, which we have to take some responsibility for if we're not onboarding properly and we're not supporting them properly.

So I love your whole design here about, annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly, and it feels overwhelming, honestly, if you're an office manager. But think about had we put this in in in January, it's already March, and we would have probably had you know, you're saying three goals a month. That's really impressive. And the way you broke it down is really very helpful.

So I I want you guys to really reach out to Lacey, one of the funnest, most real humans that has that real life experience that can take your practice to that next level.

We love Lacey. Also, with Pearl, what our team has done is kind of tried to align with that patient experience, that whole workflow from phone call all the way through. And we know we're known for these, X rays. And this was the the image we were talking about, which is where you turn these X rays into color where they're patient friendly.

They can see, like, this little area is moving into the green part of the Sheila, I can't I don't see your screen.

I don't know if the participants do, but I don't I can let me stop my share.

K. Thank you. Yeah. We wanna make sure we can see my screen.

For sure. Stop share. Got it. Okay.

Thank you. Of course. Yeah. I'm not just talking to myself. So, yeah, these colors are great.

So we were talking about what I love most about Pearl, and it's bringing these images into the operatory. And remember, this is real time. So you take a bitewing, and the next thing you know, the next X-ray is up with all of those pathologies. It's not to replace a doctor, obviously.

But we go beyond the radiograph. Love for you to scan this QR code, set up a demo. But being able to look at how you take case presentation to that next level, right? The black and white images we were talking about, you show a patient an area of a cavity in between the teeth and like a millimeter to two over, there's a perfectly healthy pulp.

But we're telling them, This is really bad. It shouldn't be gray. But this gray is okay. So when we can turn the color on, that's really the game changer.

I love the cavity bugs. I think this is really fun that Pearl decided to move into the pediatric space, and really made it patient friendly. I was talking to a doctor this morning, and they were saying, we really want that for adults. So, again, just something I wanted to share with you guys about, how Pearl's moving into areas to remove blockages in the practice.

This is one of them where the second you take the image, you're gonna see that little, you know, yellow line. I say little because it's actually not. But reminding you, Hey, just take one more real quick. And more importantly is for the patient, These root tips, this overlap.

I remember I didn't get the distal of a molar one time, and it was a very good friend of mine. I'm like, oh, you're fine. We'll see you next time. There's a big cavity there.

So these images are great, these reminders for you, as well as when you're going to submit a claim. Like, don't use this image, right, because you're probably gonna have a dinner.

Love that.

Your chart audits, let Pearl do them for you, your morning huddle. Right? Every single provider has one. Instead of printing out ten and everybody looking at them, each provider can walk in the door. So I just wanted to share with you guys today about kind of how, we all struggle with the same things, whether you're, you know, two doctors or or twenty two doctors. But at the end of the day, it's really about spending the time with those people in your practice.

And, Lacey, I'm so thankful that you spent time with us tonight kind of breaking this down. And I know I'll see you soon, but thank you again for being here with us, and thank you to all of you that spent your evening with us. We look forward to seeing you on more webinars, and, best of luck to all of you for this year. Take good care.

You, everyone.

Bye bye.

‍