Are you starting to panic over how to reward your team for another year well done? Should you show appreciation in the first place? Kiera gives advice on how to figure out those end-of-year bonuses, parties, trips, and more, plus how not to stress about it.
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Transcript:
Kiera Dent (00:01)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera, and I hope you're just having an amazing day. I hope you're loving your life. I hope you remember that, honest to goodness, this is such a blessing. We get to work in dentistry. How fun is that? And I just hope you remember that we are so blessed to give back to people. We're blessed to be in dentistry. Dental A Team's mission is to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. So that's what we're here for. And the job of this podcast is to give you tactical practical tips that elevate your mind, elevate your thinking.
help your practice be more profitable, more fun, more successful. That's what we're here for. So with that today, I just thought it'd be fun. Like end of year bonuses, trips, parties, like how do you even decide what to do? This comes up often in our consulting offices, like I don't know what to do. We had an in-person mastermind meeting and I remember the doctors, there were team members there too, so we had it. Doctors and leadership team members and the doctor was like, team members, just tell us what you want.
And the teams are like, we just want to be appreciated. And they're like, we know you want more than that. And so I just thought today it'd be fun to just kind of do a rift with you of what are some of ideas? What are some things you can do pros and cons? So doctors, you can work with your team of really what can I do for this end of year and what's the most powerful and hopefully just giving you some food for thought today, making this tactical for you. So when I'm looking at end of year bonuses, number one, ? I hate surprises. So me as a business owner,
I actually set a budget for what our end of year will be, whether it's bonuses, trips, parties, I don't care what it is, I try to set that. And right now I'm trying to release this early, so hey, you could be proactive on it, but for me, we actually have a budget for it. And then I don't like to do big expenses, that's just not my jam, I don't enjoy it, unless I'm buying like a big vehicle or something like that, that I can have an immediate write off. But even that, I try to keep my cash and just get the write off for it. So with that, when I'm doing end of year, like I said, budget it out, project it out, and then start saving.
whatever month this is releasing, however many more months you've got through end of year, let's say we're going to do $5,000. We'll break that up over the next, let's say we've got five months left, save $1,000. I put mine into a high yield savings account. That way the money's there, I can spend it it's not hitting me in December when everything else is hitting me. So that's what I'm going to do is whether it's a bonus, trip or the party. Like you can set a budget, doctors, you don't have to let your team decide what you're going to do. And oftentimes I like to set that as a percentage.
of what we're doing. So if I know that we're going to do XYZ and I know my overhead's at 50%, well, I could do like 1 % or 2 % of that. That way my overhead's at 51 or 52 % with this cost, right? That makes it really nice and easy. And then I'm going to be able to figure out the budget from there. So that's one piece. Or you can just say, I want to do $5,000 or I want to do this. Or like, let me look this up if we want to do a trip or a party, let me figure this out. So for our team, we figured it out. This is how much we spend every single year per number of team members.
I can then plug that into my projections for the next year. So I know based on the size of the team, where we're going, how much this is going to cost us, it's really going to help you then just budget it out. And I think knowing the budgets, putting it into our projections, then we're not getting these psycho surprise expenses. This is hopefully going to help you not cry in December, because so many offices are like, I had the worst December. And I'm like, well, yeah, we have all the holiday time. We're not doing as much dentistry. And we get hit with all the expenses. Double, triple, quadruple whammy.
not a super fun month. So let's cut the crying in December and make this easy. Now, how do I decide if it's going to be a bonus, a trip or a party? Well, that depends on your team, depends on what you're doing it for. What's our why behind your, why you're doing this? What do you want to achieve out of this is really something I want you to look at of why are we doing this? So for some people it's like, Hey, we set this huge lofty goal. So we're going to do a bonus of X amount. Again, looking at your numbers to determine that amount. I love percentages.
? or dollar amount so that way you just know what you need to do. So that could be a bonus system that you put into place of, hey, we crush it, we hit this. It could be for your leadership team possibly. It could also be for your teammates, whatever it is, but that can also, that could be a bonus. It could also just be, we want to thank you. ? Do we go on a trip? That's again, dependent upon your team. Is your team more bonus? Are they more trip? Are they more party? Is it a combination of it? And also what feels good to you as the owner? What do you want to do? What's going to help you celebrate this?
That's going to be a decision for you to make. And so when I'm looking at this, you can have an anonymous survey. Some people get so excited about trips, but then when you start to get into the logistics, it's like, well, how much is this going to cost? we do a plus one? How much time is that going to be away from the business? What is this really going to cost all the way around? And is that worth it? I tell teams, I'm like, rock on. If you want to do this, figure out the cost. Let's figure it out. Put it in our production. Let's add it into our monthly piece. That way we can pay for it. Awesome. Again.
I don't want these things coming out of craziness. I like to plan for them, prepare for them and have the whole team help you. Now, if you're gonna do a party, a lot of times I like parties over bonuses. And I know I might have unpopular opinions on this, but what I found is as a team member, like X amount of dollars doesn't weight as heavily as something that maybe I wouldn't buy for myself. So for example, ? those like red light masks, that's one of the things that are out there.
The Dyson and then if you don't know what I'm talking about, go check these out. The Dyson blow dart. Like that thing is insanely expensive. I'm probably not gonna spend it on myself, but it would be awesome if I were to get it. ? What other things? The Aura ring. A lot of people want the Aura ring. They don't wanna drop 400 bucks and they don't wanna pay the monthly subscription. ? Other gift ideas like a Roomba, a Roomba lawnmower, a fire pit, a, I don't know. We've done like AirPods. We've done the virtual realities. ? Like the Apple Vision Pro.
Those are the things people are not going to buy for themselves oftentimes, but that weights heavier than if I were to give you 500 or a thousand dollars. Now I understand that people like cash, but as a team member, what I will tell you is I had an office, give me an end of year bonus. We got it in our card. It was based on longevity. It was based on these pieces. That cash did not actually weigh as heavy because what I did is I went and spent it on bills.
And so instead, like getting an Apple Vision Pro, I remember the day I got that, I was like, oh my gosh, like this is so rad. I never would have bought it for myself. How incredible, or getting a KitchenAid, or getting a Louis Vuitton wallet. And I understand that not everybody's going to want these things. like, no, I don't care about those things. But what's fun sometimes on the parties is you're able to have this really fun time. We do a raffle in our company. That's what I've decided to do. And I picked this up from Midwestern University's dental college, is every year we did a raffle. We all got to do that.
all these awesome prizes. And then every year they gave us some type of swag and they gave us like a holiday party. So I didn't get an end of year bonus. And what I noticed was people enjoyed those so much. Everybody looked forward to it. Everybody got excited about it. Everybody walked out with these awesome gifts. Nobody knew what they were walking out with. We could see all the gifts. So was like, oh my gosh, who's going to get the huge TV? Who's going to get the MacBook Air? Who's going to get XYZ? And they like, all the gifts weren't super high end. All of them weren't low end, but it was something really, really awesome.
And then I thought they were so smart because they gave out branded swag. So it was umbrellas, jackets, ? just things that we would use like lunch bags that were super appropriate. But think about it, that's amazing marketing power. I was walking around with this swag. I still have it to this day. I have a lot of the stuff that I got from it. But that's what I decided to do because it would just be fun. So for us and our company for end of year, our team knows.
I do it on Cyber Monday, happens every year. We do a holiday party, we dress up, we have an ugly sweater contest, and then we raffle off. So we play fun games at the company. We all just get together. We're a virtual team. Otherwise I take everybody to dinner or we do an awesome fun experience. And then we raffle. And I go hardcore on these prizes. I go do fun things for our team. And for me, it's more fun for me to do this than to write them and just give out an end of year bonus.
That doesn't mean that I don't also have end of year bonuses for certain team members, certain players that we do put into place. We used to do trips, we used to have retreats, we used have those pieces. ? And then my teams are telling me that the retreats were actually not that fun, the trips, because they had to find childcare, they had to add another day on the road. We already are a traveling company. So could we just combine certain things and actually stop traveling? So when you're looking at your end of year bonus or you're looking at these ideas, how do you decide is one, know yourself and what do you want to do? Two, look at your budget of what we can do.
And then three, figure out what's going to motivate your team. And ultimately what we're trying to do with this is we're trying to show appreciation. I truly did survey a group of people, a group of team members, and they said, all we actually want is just to be appreciated. Now, I hear that, but I think that's something you can do consistently. So I have some doctors who have like literally rocks in their pocket and they like move it over for every team member that they compliment throughout that day. I have some team members who will write letters to team members.
I have some who just have genuine one-on-one check-ins. But I think overall, the ultimate goal is that we want to show appreciation throughout the whole year and then do something fun for end of year to celebrate, to get into the pieces. But what I will tell you is some people, they hate these end of year bonuses because it feels like it's met not with the appreciation that people were hoping for. So for you, I feel like figure out what's going to make you so happy. Figure out the budget based on your numbers of what you're willing to spend.
and then figure out what's going to motivate your team. And it's an easy way for you to figure out how do I decide? Well, here it is. And guess what? You're not going to get it right. But for me, I look forward to our holiday party every single year. I know our team looks forward to it. I know we have a ton of fun and we've paired it with our live to give. So we do a team portion and then we also go out and we give back to our community and we do that as a bonding thing together as a group. And I think it's so special and that's what we've chosen to do. And for me, that lights my fire. I know my budget. I know what I can do and I get so excited. So
really mull on this. Of course, we're happy to help you talk about these ideas. This is what we help our clients prep for. This is how they don't have those end of year like, my gosh, this is so hard. So with that, reach out if we can help you. But hopefully this gave you a couple of ideas. And if you have great ideas that you're doing or how you set up, email us Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. I'd love to hear your ideas. I'd love to hear what you're doing. I'd love to hear the successes because at the end of the day, this should be fun. It should be a celebration and team members. I just want to highlight for you, say thank you.
because your doctor and your owners don't have to do this for you. Not all offices do that. So if you have a doctor and owner who's doing that, it means the world to them if you'll just say thank you, because they truly love you. They want to take care of you. They want to surprise and delight you. so acknowledging that is always going to reinforce great behavior. So team members say thank you, doctors show your appreciation. Reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. Enjoy the end of the year. Start budgeting now so it's not chaotic. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on The Dental A Team Podcast.