Brett Allen (00:19) Hi, Brett Allen here, host of the Marketing32 show where I connect with leading dentists, dental influencers, and industry experts to uncover the latest and greatest. As you guys know, we’re all about value here at Marketing32. This episode is brought to you by our team here at Marketing32. As you know, we are the only dental marketing team that I know of that is truly performance driven. We have a performance guarantee that if you’re not growing, you don’t pay. It’s that simple. So reach out to us if you’re looking to grow your practice with an ethical marketing team with predictable results. Head over to marketing32.com, set up that call, let’s help you out and see if it’s a good fit for both of us. Quick shout out to Doug Fedig. Recently had him on the show. We talked about leadership advice, mindset, making impact in the industry, and abundance. I’m all about abundance. It was a great episode. Check that one out. Today I’m excited to have a new friend of mine on the show, Dr. Steven Katz. He is a practice growth coach and founder of Dental Excellence Advisory with over 35 years of experience as the owner of an award winning dental practice. He’s a graduate of Columbia University and Washington University School of Dental Medicine. He has coached over 160 practices to more than 300 million in revenue growth, you guys. A lot of value we’ll be talking about today. Dr. Katz has delivered over 500 presentations to 60,000 plus dental professionals, and he is the author of the acclaimed book. They didn’t teach us that in dental school. He’s also a certified personal trainer now and a competitive rower. Dr. Katz, great to have you on the show. Welcome. Dr Steven M Katz (02:02) Great to be here, Brett. And just want to mention that I love your concept of performance-based marketing. It’s so comforting to dentists who often complain that they’ve spent a lot of money and not gotten any return. Brett Allen (02:18) Yeah, it’s, you know, it’s one of those things. ? marketing is, is, is nebulous. It’s hard to kind of pin down what’s working. Will it work for me? And, and we, we try to avoid all that by saying, you know what, we’re invested in you as well. And we’ve got, we’ve got systems and processes in place that work very well in particular markets with certain doctors. And so let’s have that conversation and see if we can be a fit to help you grow. So yeah. Dr Steven M Katz (02:34) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Good. Brett Allen (02:48) Yeah, that last part in your bio, competitive rower, that was something that stuck out to me when we first met in Rhode Island at the SCN event. You were telling me about how you were a rower in college. Let’s talk about your background. Like how did you come from rowing and college, get into dentistry, and now transition into being an advisor? Okay. Dr Steven M Katz (03:10) So I went to college to play football, but very early on in my first season, I got seriously hurt. I had an athletic scholarship. The athletic department was kind enough to me that they enabled me to switch sports. and ? the crew was suggested because the movement would be good therapy for me. And I liked it. The only problem was I was a five foot eight, 250 pound offensive lineman, which made me heavy enough to become a lightweight, but not tall enough. And so back in college, I had to lose 70 pounds more to become a lightweight. And that’s what I did my last three years. ? Then… Brett Allen (03:48) That’s a bit. Dr Steven M Katz (03:53) you know, dental school and professional training and my career hit. And I ballooned back up to the 240 to 260 range my whole life until a couple of years ago, a teammate called me up and said that Columbia was going to have an alumni race in the fall of 2024 and would I want to participate? And at the time I said, I didn’t think I could. I’ve had seven shoulder surgeries. I was overweight, out of shape. Brett Allen (04:01) Hahaha Dr Steven M Katz (04:22) poorly controlled diabetic, high blood pressure. I said there was no way and being a very good teammate, he turned to me and said, you did it once, you can do it again. And that’s when I rejoined the gym, started training two hours a day, six days a week. Last October, I rode my first 2000 meter race in 47 years. I got hooked. Brett Allen (04:47) Wow. Dr Steven M Katz (04:49) rode a bunch of races in the fall, this spring. And now this fall, I’m actually enrolled to row a couple of long distance races. So my training has gotten a little more intense. And ? I just think it’s a continuation for me. And adding to my mantra has always been, a way to make a difference in people’s lives. ? It’s really the reason that I… Brett Allen (04:58) fun. Mm-hmm. Hmm. Dr Steven M Katz (05:16) sold my practice and moved to speaking and coaching. Because ? back in 2014, ? I had the opportunity to speak to 2000 dentists at the Mad Owls event in Miami, TBSC. There were 2000 dentists in that audience. And I walked away, I won an award as best new speaker in dentistry. That was my first national event. Brett Allen (05:21) Hmm. Mm. wow. Dr Steven M Katz (05:46) And I realized that in my own practice, I had the ability to change the lives of my 2,000 or 3,000 patients. But if I could bring some of my system strategies, verbal skills, philosophy of care, and get 2,000 dentists to apply it, I could conceivably be affecting the care of 2 million patients if they each had 1,000 patients. Brett Allen (06:13) Yeah. Dr Steven M Katz (06:14) And it was on the sales of that that I sold my practice three months later and started devoting my time 100 % to helping doctors grow their practices, become better leaders, learn how to improve diagnosis, increase treatment acceptance, and in doing so, make a difference in the lives of their patients, their teams, and themselves. Brett Allen (06:38) I love that the impact there. We’re all about impact here at Marketing32 as well. And everything we do is driven towards impact for the practice. We call it the practice impact formula is our process. I think that’s great that you’ve made that transition and you’re helping not only the docs, but like you said, their patients. So let’s dig deeper into that. When you work with, now as an advisor, you’re working with your clients. Dr Steven M Katz (06:43) Mm-hmm. Brett Allen (07:05) what are, what are some of the things that you tackle with them? What are some of the biggest wins that you can have with them? mean, 300 million and, and production that’s, that’s quite a bit of impact. Let’s dig into some of your tactics. Dr Steven M Katz (07:19) Well, there are five ways to grow practice. You should always be looking to increase your number of new patients. And that’s certainly where you come in with Marketing 32. But marketing can cost some money. Second way is to increase the number of high-profit procedures you do. Look at what you offer. If you’re not doing a line of therapy, ortho, if you’re not Brett Allen (07:32) Yep. Dr Steven M Katz (07:46) at least restoring implants, but maybe placing them as well. If you’re not treating sleep and breathing disorders, these are high revenue procedures that can easily grow practice, but they involve the cost of training and training your team. Third way is increasing your capacity, lengthening your hours, adding more providers, expanding your office, but that can be all costly. Brett Allen (08:01) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Dr Steven M Katz (08:12) There are two ways of growing a practice that cost you absolutely nothing and are guaranteed to have to create an upward trend in what your practice can do. One is calibrating your diagnosis criteria. Number two is increasing treatment acceptance. If you increase either one of them, you get a direct relationship to how well you increase it, to what your numbers will be. But if you can work on both of those, Brett Allen (08:39) Hmm. Dr Steven M Katz (08:43) it’s really a much different type of algorithm type curve. And they’re both easy to do, but they’re neglected. They’re neglected by doctors and they’re typically neglected in consulting from what I’ve seen. And that is because truly it would be helpful if there were more doctors doing consulting and coaching. Brett Allen (08:48) Hmm. Hmm. Dr Steven M Katz (09:11) If you’re to talk about diagnosis and you’re to talk about refining diagnosis criteria, that really needs to be assisted by a doctor driving it. what we know is that offices, and this comes from analytics. I’m a huge believer in using dental intelligence. The analytics shows that 34 % of patients coming through hygiene Brett Allen (09:16) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Dr Steven M Katz (09:39) typically have something diagnosable, restoratively, but there are many practices that have lower diagnosis percentages. It can be for several reasons. It could be due to a very conservative philosophy. It could be because of not paying attention. Brett Allen (09:55) Mm-hmm. Dr Steven M Katz (09:59) It could be because of confusion between hygienist and doctor. It could be confusion between two doctors. You know, one says one thing, one says another. And this sets up a type of lowering of confidence in patients because they’re not sure which is the right way, especially when they get mixed messages. And so, you know, the two parts of diagnosis are number one, Brett Allen (10:02) The team doesn’t know, yeah. Mm-hmm. Dr Steven M Katz (10:29) recognizing restorative opportunities, communicating about them in a consistent way, and standardizing it so that everybody within the practice has the same guidelines and has same criteria and talks about it the same way. Brett Allen (10:45) So, so let’s dig a little bit on that. I think those two are awesome, so let’s review that. The first is standardizing diagnosis, right? Figuring out a way to do that. And then case acceptance, right? Those two. So digging into standardizing diagnosis, how do you help your team do that? Are there some tricks to doing that? Is it just, hey, let’s have a monthly training on this. And then are there tricks also for the hygienist when they see that there’s an opportunity for a cavity or something? Dr Steven M Katz (10:53) Mm-hmm. Yes. Brett Allen (11:15) ? Yeah, what do they say? All of that. Dr Steven M Katz (11:15) Sure. So in my earlier consulting and coaching, I saw the need for it. And what I would do is at the beginning of an engagement with a client, I would give them a thumb drive with about 50 photographs of teeth in various stages of this repair. And I’d say here, go through this battery of photos, come up with your diagnosis, share it with your associates. Brett Allen (11:35) Hmm. Dr Steven M Katz (11:44) and share it with your hygienist. And I did this for several years and then went to observe an office that I was coaching a couple of months after we had begun. And a hygienist had a photograph of a tooth up on the monitor with a crack through the lingual cusp. And they had done a very good job of explaining why that tooth was a problem, how it could become a more serious problem over time. and the benefits of taking care of it. And then doctor came in, looked at the photograph and said, that’s not so bad, we can watch it. And the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I asked for a copy of that photograph and it really became my poster child. And then I said, well, how can I impress upon these doctors and team members a better way? And so I went and started. Brett Allen (12:22) Mmm. man. Dr Steven M Katz (12:43) going through that deck of photographs individually with the senior doctor of the practice. And what I found was that most doctors don’t have a standard criteria. They wing it. And depending on the day, depending on what their mindset is, depending on what they’re planning to do outside of the practice, sometimes they diagnose, sometimes they don’t. Brett Allen (12:56) They just kind of eyeball it or wing it. Yeah. Hmm. Dr Steven M Katz (13:12) And so it’s coming to a standardization of what is diagnosable and that we don’t let those opportunities go because that’s benign neglect. And, you know, most doctors are very, very conservative because no doctor wants to be thought of as being aggressive. They all want to be thought of as being conservative. But there is a huge range of diagnosis in between those two. Brett Allen (13:24) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. Mm-hmm. Dr Steven M Katz (13:40) that I’ve always called protective diagnosis. Protective diagnosis is to protect the patient from having disappointing outcomes, to protect the doctor from having the patient disappointed in them. And the typical examples are a doctor who says, well, we can do a filling there. And then they do a filling because they were afraid to talk about a crown, they were afraid about the insurance not paying or about the fee. Brett Allen (13:43) Mm-hmm. Yeah, it’s for their best interest. Yeah. Right? Right. Dr Steven M Katz (14:09) or whatever potential objections the patient could have. So they downplayed it and gave a lesser treatment option. And then six months or nine months later, the patient comes back with either a cusp broken off or sensitivity. And really it’s because the diagnosis was too conservative at the time. And patients are more likely to accept Brett Allen (14:30) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dr Steven M Katz (14:37) the correct diagnosis at the time that you do the evaluation. If you run into situations, and I see it when I observe doctors all the time, where they say one thing, maybe a more conservative treatment, a three surface resin, and then during the appointment, it turns into a crown. Well, the patient is never happy there. They view that as a bait and switch. Brett Allen (14:58) They don’t want that. Yeah, that’s a surprise. Right, right. Dr Steven M Katz (15:05) not sure how far the decay goes down. And what you’ve said in the originally is, you know, this is a deep filling and there’s a slight chance that it could possibly, maybe, perhaps need a root canal. And then it turns into a root canal at the time. The patient doesn’t remember all of that cautioning that you did. So why not make the more comprehensive diagnosis from the beginning and then set yourself up to be a hero? Brett Allen (15:18) Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah. Dr Steven M Katz (15:34) I’m a firm believer that a lot of problems down the road come about because doctors were too conservative because they were afraid to present what the patient really needed. Then it breeds resentment down the road when it doesn’t go well. I have a saying I enjoy that when you tell a patient what they’re going to do before they do it, it’s a diagnosis. when you tell them what you’re going to be doing during or after you’ve started it, it becomes an excuse. And so what I propose is if you think there’s even a chance that a tooth could potentially need a root canal, include that root canal in your original treatment plan. Now, I hesitate with this because it’s really dependent on doctor ethics. I… Brett Allen (16:10) Hmm. Yeah. Dr Steven M Katz (16:33) took great pride in being able to avoid the more aggressive treatment, typically the root canal in a case like that. But if it ends up being a root canal, you look good. You made the correct diagnosis. And if you feel at the time of preparation that you were not near an exposure, that there weren’t any cracks that were of concern, Now you can sit the patient up at the end and tell them good news. Mrs. Jones, because you were a great patient, because I worked very carefully, we were able to avoid that root canal that was on your treatment plan. So you’ll be able to save $1,500. And they love you. Brett Allen (17:11) Yeah, yeah, that’s a much better news to share than, hey, you got to pay $1,500 now because we figured out you need a Rukino. Dr Steven M Katz (17:18) Sure, and I learned that because I did a lot of sedation in my office. And so I would put a patient to sleep and I would be doing a whole arch of restorations. And if I had a root canal or two that was not on the original treatment plan, that was always a difficult phone call the day after when they were more alert, saying, you know, everything went very well, but we did have to do two additional root canals. And so it’s going to be another $4,000 as opposed to calling them up the day after. Brett Allen (17:22) Hmm. wow. Yeah Right, yeah, no we don’t see it. Dr Steven M Katz (17:48) a procedure and telling them that, you know, where maybe we said that there were going to be three or four root canals in that full arch of dentistry and calling them the day after and saying, Mrs. Jones, I have good news for you because we worked under ideal situation with you being sedated. I was able to be very careful. Everything went extremely well. And actually, I was able to avoid two of the root canals. And when you come in to have your case delivered, we’ll have a four thousand dollar refund for you. Brett Allen (17:50) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That’s awesome. I love that approach. So would you consider all of that? Would that all be bundled under standardizing diagnosis and case presentation? of like a, okay. Yeah, I like that you’re taking that approach. It’s proactive. It’s while you, you know, I think a lot of doctors may shy away from the challenging conversation of trying to sell somebody on something. Dr Steven M Katz (18:26) That would be more under the diagnosis. End of it. Yeah, and because Brett Allen (18:43) and maybe that’s why they avoid it. They just want to be conservative and say, yeah, we don’t have to do this. I don’t want to charge you any money. Let’s take it easy here. Dr Steven M Katz (18:51) And we also talk about the importance of using your diagnostics properly, making sure your X-rays are adequate, making sure there’s no overlap on the bite wings, those types of things. What I found in doing these with my comprehensive coaching programs, this was one of the biggest drivers of success and practice growth. Typically, if you do one additional crown a day in a practice, that’s $200,000 over the course of a year. Brett Allen (18:59) Yeah. Right. Big lift. Yeah. Dr Steven M Katz (19:20) And that practice that I mentioned in the beginning, where I questioned the diagnosis and we did this exercise, between the senior doctor and the associate, they started doing between four and six more crowns a day. That’s a million dollar jump for a practice in one year. And that’s a million dollars in one year. If you compound that over 10 years, which is the residuals of making a change like that, Brett Allen (19:39) Wow. Yeah. wow. Yeah, it becomes… Yeah. Dr Steven M Katz (19:50) That’s over $10 million revenue, additional revenue for a practice. Brett Allen (19:53) Yeah. And you’re not even considering also the potential referrals that you get by doing good dentistry and helping people with their oral health. Right. ? I love, I love that you, you mentioned about that because we have, we have one of our clients, we’ve been working with him for like eight years now. ? Great doctor, not a Phoenix Arizona, Dr. Dziaszorski. ? He bought his fourth practice and in that acquisition process, he realized the doc was being very, very conservative and not doing any treatments really. Dr Steven M Katz (20:01) Absolutely. And then what I saw… Brett Allen (20:23) It’s just hygiene operation. And he was really excited about it because he knew his patients were, you know, it was a disservice to those patients and he knew there was growth potential there and just, you know, diagnosing proper treatment. And so I think in the first few months, he just, he tripled production in that practice just by recommending treatment, not unethically, but treatment that was needed. Dr Steven M Katz (20:25) Mm-hmm. Sure, and it applies. Well, you we talk about numbers. I really don’t care about production. I don’t care about collection. I don’t care about receivables. I don’t care about those numbers. What I care about, how do we raise the standard of care? How do we get patients to appreciate the value of the care? How do we learn to communicate that value? And how do we create an exceptional experience? And when you do those things, Brett Allen (21:12) Hmm. Dr Steven M Katz (21:15) you don’t have to pay attention to the numbers. The growth comes organically. The numbers we refer to really are just a measurement of how many patients are making better decisions about their own health. And most people need help in doing so. That’s the treatment acceptance part. But with the diagnosis, when I saw that this technique was working, Brett Allen (21:20) Hmm. Dr Steven M Katz (21:39) this exercise was working so well with our clients, it actually became an a la carte offering that I’ve done where we can just do a Zoom meeting just to go over diagnosis criteria. And that in itself has, you know, if a doctor can increase one or two crowns even a week because of improved diagnosis, Brett Allen (21:48) Mmm. ? Mm-hmm. Dr Steven M Katz (22:06) That’s a huge, huge benefit. And the cost of that program is about the cost of a single crown. So the return on investment could be hundreds. Brett Allen (22:07) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Nice. Way, way good. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Well, let’s, I mean, you’ve shared tons of values so far. Let’s transition a little bit into, you’re not doing a lot of dentistry anymore. You’re doing more physical, ? physical training, right? You’re a physical trainer now. Dr Steven M Katz (22:36) It’s about 50-50 right now. I love the fact that I’ve been able to regain my health and regain some vitality. ? I love when I’m the oldest guy in the gym. In my race, in my shell of alumni, I’m the oldest one by 19 years. And I love the fact that I can keep up with them. Brett Allen (22:38) Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah. wow, okay. That’s awesome. Dr Steven M Katz (23:02) And ? I went into this whole thing with two goals, to row that one alumni race and not drown and not have a heart attack. And ? I’ve blown through those goals pretty easily. And ? I’m really just enjoying the return to fitness. I’m enjoying the competition. When I was seven years old, my dad introduced me to golf. He said, you may not like this game. Brett Allen (23:10) Well, I’m sure the health benefits have been great. Dr Steven M Katz (23:28) but someday it’ll be the only thing that you can play competitively. And I was starting to think that the last few years until I got back into rowing. Brett Allen (23:32) Ha you Yeah, for those of you who aren’t watching the YouTube or any of the videos we’ve got, Dr. Katz behind him has this wall of golf balls. And so you can tell he’s a golfer. In fact, that one above your head, you were just telling a story. Tell us about that one. That was a hole in one, right? Dr Steven M Katz (23:53) Yes, so I used to be a long driver. I used to enter long drive competitions and that ball above my head on the right side is my hole in one ball from a 326 yard par four. Brett Allen (24:02) Yeah. That’s awesome. That’s way cool. Dr Steven M Katz (24:09) I didn’t see it go in the hole, but I knew something was up when the guys who were walking off the green in front of us started jumping up and down. Brett Allen (24:17) that’s awesome. That’s cool. Dr Steven M Katz (24:19) I sprinted the length of that fairway to see it and then realized I had to go back to the T to get my stuff. Brett Allen (24:28) ? gosh, that’s quite a bit. That’s a good exercise. man. Well, this has been an awesome conversation. always, we’re about out of time, but I always close in tons of value. You guys, if you’re picking this up, this is great. And one more, one more question for you that we’ll close on. What’s one bit of advice you can give? One thing that if they could have this epiphany would have a huge impact for their practice or their life. What’s that one thing you can share with us today that would would do that. Dr Steven M Katz (25:00) What I see often is doctors with their associates, doctors with their hygienists, and it ends up being time after time after time, they’re giving instruction on what should have been, what could have been, correcting things that weren’t particularly right or could have been better. And I’m a firm believer, invest in the front end. Brett Allen (25:16) Okay. Reactive. Yeah. Dr Steven M Katz (25:28) so you don’t have to waste time on the back end. Spend time with your young associates and make sure that you’re on the same page with diagnostics. Do the same thing with hygienists. Make it to the point where they think like you think. Because if they’re thinking the way you do, you’re going to have less to do during your hygiene checks. Brett Allen (25:31) Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Dr Steven M Katz (25:56) You’re going to have less to do in development of these cases. With the hygienists in my practice, when they join the practice, aside from working with diagnosis, what I would do is I would have them sit in with me on my treatment planning sessions, when I would actually create my treatment plans. Because I wanted them to understand the scope of a comprehensive case, that you oftentimes have to open up the occlusion. You have to restore what is the proper orientation. Brett Allen (26:20) Yeah. Dr Steven M Katz (26:26) And when they started to understand how I thought through the planning of these cases, they were much better able to speak to a patient about the benefits of doing that scope of treatment. And I didn’t have to repeat it time and time again. And it ended up being over time that my hygienist could actually treatment plan a full mouth reconstruction for me before I ever walked into a room. Brett Allen (26:37) Hmm. Hmm. That’s way cool. Dr Steven M Katz (26:53) That’s not to say I do believe that the time of a doctor with patient is invaluable and should not be missed. It’s why I train my clients that the first appointment in office should not be in the hygienist chair. It should be in the doctor’s chair. Create that relationship because if you create a relationship that builds that type of trust, they don’t second guess you. Brett Allen (27:00) Right, right. Hmm. Dr Steven M Katz (27:22) If you have that relationship, they view you as a friend, and a friend makes recommendations based on the benefits to the party, not to themselves. Brett Allen (27:22) Hmm. Right. That trust. I love that. That’s so valuable. Some great leadership advice there, philosophy, work on the front end, invest in your team, transfer that knowledge and expertise onto your team, and then doing right by the patient, being truly invested in their oral health and building that connection, those relationships. think that’s, if you look at the practices that are knocking it out of the park, we work with several that are doing multimillion. Dr Steven M Katz (27:42) Mm-hmm. Brett Allen (28:02) They’ve got this down. They’ve got the great patient experience, the great team interaction. They’re leaders. They’re not just reactive with their team. Dr Steven M Katz (28:13) But look at the staff meetings that we have. Most offices don’t have them. Many have them and they become gripe sessions. But the really great offices have meetings where the doctor is just ? viewing it. And it’s going around with it. It’s a team-led practice. Brett Allen (28:16) Yes. Yep. Hmm. Hmm. The team is leading the practice. Yeah. Dr Steven M Katz (28:40) where everybody has their area that they’re going to report on, that they’re going to teach, and it’s just a sharing of information, that’s the practice that’s going to grow and continue to grow no matter what happens outside in the economy or in your geographical area. Brett Allen (28:47) Hmm. Hmm. Right. I love that. Well, there’s certainly a lot more I know you could share with us and there’s a lot more that people could get from you to grow their practice and even from a leadership standpoint, like we’re talking about at the end here. ? Best way for them to get in touch with you, send them to your website and they can reach out to you there. Dr Steven M Katz (29:10) Mm-hmm. Website is fine. ? Email drkatz at dentalexcellenceadvisory.com or feel free to text or call me on my cell 516-524-7573 and really take advantage of that a la carte diagnosis program. It can be very, very impactful. It’s very affordable. Brett Allen (29:19) Okay. Hmm Dr Steven M Katz (29:41) ? But it really can set the stage for a tremendous amount of growth very easily. Brett Allen (29:46) I love it. Thank you, Dr. Katz. Again, that website is dentalexcellenceadvisory.com. And if you’re driving, we’ll put all of this in the show notes. You can go back and get his cell phone later. ? But I always love it when our listeners can reach out directly through text. That’s the best medium, I think. ? Yeah. Thank you again, Dr. Katz, for coming on the show. This has been great. Dr Steven M Katz (30:06) My pleasure, Brad. It was really great, great meeting you at SCN and the relationship that we’ve built since then. Brett Allen (30:11) Yeah. Yeah, thanks again. Everybody until next time on the Marketing32 show. Have a great day. Take care.