Dental A Team Podcast

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...

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...

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...

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. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. 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...

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...

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...

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. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. 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...

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...

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....

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...

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...

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 Hello@TheDentalATeam.com 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...

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...

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...

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...

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. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. 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...

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...

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...

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...

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...