Kiera goes into the key pieces for a worry-free practice, including systematizing your stress points, providing boundaries around time and energy, and leading proactively.
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Transcript:
Kiera Dent (00:00)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and I hope you're having an amazing day. I hope that you are excited for today's podcast. I am, because like, why don't we create a stress-free practice? That sounds like, sign me up. Yes, please. Thank you. Happy to take you guys through that and how to create a stress-free practice, at least at a base level, at least certain tactical tips that you can put into place today to start exploring that, experiencing that. And honestly, I just love, I love the game of business. I love the art of business. I love.
? I love the impact and the change we're able to make. And I truly just love human beings. I love helping people just experience their best life, whether it's my sister or my friend or my neighbor or our community or our podcast family, whomever you are, wherever you are, I'm just so grateful and honored that you're here with us today. So if you love our podcast, if it's changed your way in any way, shape or form, do me a favor today and just share it with somebody that you think this could make their day better. Whether it's today's podcast or another podcast.
Go to our website, TheDentalATeam.com, click on our podcast tab, search any topic that you ever could want, make sure that you're able to access all the free resources that are available to you. And if I can help you personally or professionally in any way, you guys, truly like, I built this company to be a friend in the industry, to be somebody who has vetted all the different people out there to help you out. And it's so fun because I used to work at Midwestern University's dental college before I started consulting. And it was so fun. The other day I was on a call.
and my phone, like I was on a video call and my phone lit up and I looked at it and it was literally a dental student. we're talking throwback to the past, shout out to my Midwestern family. And I was like, oh my gosh, I've not seen that name on my phone and we're talking eight plus years. And so as soon as they finished the call, I called them back and I was like, dude, it's been so long, how are you? And it just like, my cheeks hurt from smiling so much right now.
It made me so happy to be able to have been in the industry long enough to have worked with so many different clients and have so many different resources that no matter what has been thrown my way with different clients, this student that I haven't talked to in eight years who's at a pretty awesome crossroad of their practice and their life and what they're doing, to be able to truly give them ? advice, to give them resources, to help them out. And I realized once again,
that that is why this company exists. It is to truly be that friend in the industry. And he's like, Kiera, like, your time is valuable. And I was like, are you kidding? Like, this is what my time has meant for my time is meant to help and to serve and to be that resource and advocate. Whether you work with us as an active client or whether you're an massive advocate of the podcast, ? or if we're just someone who have we met in passing, just know that you have somebody out there who is truly committed to making you the most successful, the happiest.
all the best resources I can possibly bring to you. That's what this podcast is about. So share this with somebody who needs this. Make sure that you get this into the hands of all these dentists that need the help, that need the resources, because this is a free resource. There's no strings attached other than just asking you to truly give back to those around you, in your community, in your study clubs. Make sure everybody is a raving fan listening to the podcast, because my job is to help you become the best that you can possibly be.
So with that today, like I said, I teased it out a little bit. We're gonna help you figure out how to create this, you know, stress-free practice. And it's honestly going to be through nothing sexy, nothing hard. I hate hard things. I like it to be easy. One of our core values is ease. So everything I bring to the podcast, everything we do in consulting should make your life easier and not harder. like honestly, stress-free practices come from systems and leadership. That's the bottom line. It's systems and leadership all day long.
And it's the discipline to follow through on both of those. That's what it is. So this is something where it's like, we're going to reduce the chaos. We're going to protect your energy and help you truly feel so much better in the practice because this is what we're about. Like this is how we're able to get you guys there. And so the systems and the leadership done with consistency will help you have stress-free practices. Now, a lot of times it's, know what you should do, but you don't do it or you don't consistently do it. It's like parents, it's like, I know I shouldn't give my kid candy, but I do it because they're screaming and I just want the screaming to stop.
Well, is that a temporary fix or is it a long-term solution? And so for this, making sure that we're systematizing. Now systems for point number one are going to be exhaustive. You will never be fully systematized. You will never be fully done and perfect in all the pieces. There will always be an evolution. And I just want to like get rid of the hope and the wish that, my gosh, like maybe I could do this or maybe it would change or I will one day reach this mountain. You won't. So when I work with offices, like how do you get them systematized? How do you do it? What's your magic diet pill? And I'm like,
Well, I systematize the stress points. I systematize what's causing the most pain that's going to give me the most gain. And I do that immediately because then the screaming stops, but it stops forever. Did you hear the difference? The screaming stops, but it stops forever rather than just feeding my baby candy. So they stop screaming temporarily. Well, then they're going to start screaming because they get a tummy ache and then they're going to throw up on me. And then that's a whole nonsense rather than just giving them the food that they actually need and want and doing that consistently to help my baby out.
So for your practices, we're gonna systematize those stress points. So what happens from this is, I usually when I go into a practice or our consultants go into your office or we're working with you virtually, we're going to look for the top three pain points that you tell us are the pain points. Then we're gonna use the data to actually tell us additional pain points. And then we're gonna look at those two things combined and we're gonna pick out the top three things that are going to move the practice forward. Like literally this is what we do.
So sometimes it's a scheduling and efficiency. It's a communication like that happens all the time. It's a billing, it's a profitability, it's a lack of production. It's a, don't know what my next step is. It's whatever your pain point is, like, my gosh, like I was talking to an office the other day and like, I'm so sick of the like time off requests and people calling out sick coming to me as a doctor. And I said, that's funny. Who's your office manager? Like what's your office manager doing? Because that should never be coming to the doctor. Should definitely be going to the office manager. That right there.
is a simple, easy fix. We put up a system, we put up a process, we just tell the team, here's the new organization chart, here's who goes to who, boom, pain point gone and resolved as long as you stick with it. So what we wanna do is we wanna look at what our top three recurring pain points are. Again, we talk to the team and then we look at your data. What do your numbers tell us are truly the issues that you're having? And then what we do is we create systems, SOPs or protocols, and then we have accountability with it. So like when I go into a team and,
there's an issue of our scheduling. Well, great, let's put a scheduling template in. Let's roll it out to the entire team. Let's let everybody know what the rules of the game are. That way everybody can play the game. And then we put it into place for six weeks and we reassess and we refine and we change it up as need be. And when you start to do this and you start to systematize, and for me, I don't like systems that you have to remember. I like systems to just be in place. So a scheduling template just goes in place and everybody can follow it. We tell them the rules of the game, but it's very easy. Like don't make it where it's like,
This green block is for just treatment, big treatment. Well, what the heck is big treatment? Let's do this green block is for a $2,000 and you can have X, Y, or Z that can go in there. Fantastic. Well, now I know when I'm looking for green blocks, any person who's a crown or quads of fills or endo or implant, like anything 2000 or above can go here and I can stick it in. Now, now that's easy. I know it's $2,000 instead of big production. That's so much easier. Then what happens if I can't fill that?
Well, great, 24 or 48 hours, whatever we decide as a team that feels good to us, we hold that block for that long and then we can go and change it. Now what happens is somebody is like, but Mrs. Jones just wanted to go in that spot. I know I'm not supposed to. What happens then? Well, great, the person who's scheduled gets to call Mrs. Jones and move her. We don't play the game. We don't get to do this. Like unless it's 24 or 48 hours, that block is held for that exact procedure. And I checked to see whose name did it and they get to call that patient with me.
awkwardly sitting there with them, supporting them, so we don't do this again. I want to make it so uncomfortable that you would rather follow the blocks rather than have to deal with the consequence. But it's fine, you know the rules of the game before we start the game. So that way no frustration occurs because expectations have been laid out. Fantastic, we follow the blocks. People are like, Kiera, we're hitting higher production. We're getting out on time. We're getting our lunches. Patients are happier. Isn't that funny? That was something that was such a big pain point for you.
And with simple little steps that we put into place that all of us like agreed to follow, the whole team's on board, we all know that. We instantly fix the problem. This is what I'm talking about, systematizing your stress points and making it to where everybody can follow it. We hold it accountable. But like once you put it in there, now there's really not a lot of like remembering what we have to do, because it's all in there spelled out. Like NDT or handoffs, if you're struggling to get your case acceptance up, put that in place.
phenomenal, it's on every single route slip, it's in every single note template, then all you really have to remember is to fill in the boxes. And we have a tee up to where the team members prompt the doctor if the doctor forgot to say it. That's great. And now you're like, Kiera, you just added $25,000 to my practice. You're welcome because you did the work. You followed the system. You systematized the pain point and we looked at the numbers to tell us based on what you're telling us, based on what the numbers are telling us, let's put this into play. So if we can solve three of those issues for you,
That would be amazing. So looking at your practice, look to see what those pain points are and commit to systematizing those, those hot points, those stress points that are going to move the needle forward the quickest for you. Then the next piece to make the stress fee is you've got to make sure that there are boundaries around time and energy. So with offices, a lot of times like burnout doesn't come from working. Burnout comes from having poor boundaries and overworking and committing to everything to where you feel like you can never catch up. So what this is is like, I love to build with doctors your ideal week.
And we're going to, guys have heard me talk about this constantly. I cluster likes with likes. So we have our admin time. We have our doctor time. We have like when I'm building out a block schedule, we have it to where you want your crowns and we have what you have at the end of the day and right before lunch. So that way we can actually batch all of this along. You can get a lot more done when it's batched and it's clustered and it's connected. And then we protect that. Like doctors, I tell them, like, here, I can never get out of here on time. And I'm like, great. So here's the deal. You get out by like, what's reasonable.
Let's say you end patients at five, you're out the door by 530. For every day you're not out at 530, I'm gonna let you out of a four day work week, if you have three days, you gotta get out one day, that way you don't have to be perfect. Three days you gotta be out by 530, and if you're not out by 530, you owe me a thousand bucks at the end of that week. my goodness, guess what? They instantly get out at 530, how? Because we made it a priority, we had a strong boundary on it, and we said this is what we're doing, and there was something on the other side of it.
Or it can be like, okay, you follow this for the next two weeks and you get to have a pedicure or a massage or whatever you want to do. We attach something fun to it. But what's wild is just changing how we're working. It's changing how we're setting this up, but we're making it a, like it's a, it's a no go zone. We don't go past this and we say no to what doesn't align in those blocks. So for me, I know I've got podcasting days. Tiffanie was like, Kiera, can you wait? And I said, no, Tiff, I've got podcasting. Like I gotta get there. And she's like, that's okay. I can take care of it in another time.
Or I could have been like, absolutely, Tiff, no worry. Like I'll push the podcast. Like not a big deal. Well, when I do that, yeah, then I'm to be working on podcasts later. Everything goes down. Nothing works well because I didn't set boundaries around my time. And I didn't make a commitment that I was worth it because saying yes to something is saying no to something else. And I say yes to Kiera because I know at the end of the day, my greatest asset in life is my body. It's my time. Like that's my greatest assets. And so I've got to be so, so, so strict on it.
Everybody will try to take it. It's my responsibility to be consistent with that. So we protect that. We say no. And what's wild is when doctors will do this and they set up their ideal weeks, when they set up their admin time or their CEO time, their deep work time, and they actually commit to it and they stick with it, they literally start to grow the practice exponentially. They start to feel so much happier. They start to get out on time. They start to have more time with their families. I had one doctor and she was just burnt to a crisp.
Hated her life. I will tell you this woman now is since working with us has added over $450,000 to her practice She's got a 24 to 1 ROI of her consulting to her amount that she's paid in consulting to what we've brought to her practice Pretty good ROI that's better than the stock market if you ask me so a great great odds to bet on if you're looking for something And I remember she was just burnt out and she's like here. I have to like keep working every single night I'm exhausted and I said great. Here's your
Here's your task, every night I want you out the door by let's commit to a time, 5.30. And I said, and you're gonna go home and you're gonna give yourself and your family a gift and there's no work, it doesn't come with you. It doesn't like, you don't get to take home that backpack. Like I think schools have mistaught us that we go to work all day long, AKA school, and then we come home and we work all night long. And I'm so anti this model. Like, whoo, get me on a soap box.
because then we do that at work and we're working 40 hours and then we're taking it home and then we're not showing up for our families and we're not showing up for ourselves and then we wonder why we're chronically tired and we're not working out and on and on and on on and And I'm just so sick of it that I'm like, awesome to this doctor. said, great. So tonight's a gift. I want you to leave everything at work. It's gonna be here for you tomorrow. Like you go home and work on it for two more hours. Are we really gonna move the needle? And she's like, no, probably not. I was like, I want you to go home tonight and I want you to go have fun with your kids.
I want you to go be with your husband and I want you to like, let me know how you feel tomorrow. And I got a text and she's like, Kiera, like I played a game with my kids and it felt so good to be a mom and to show up. And we consistently started giving her her life back. And we started to have helping her see like at five 30, you're out the door. We don't take anything home with it because when we have those parameters and those boundaries, what happens is you naturally find ways to actually accomplish the work because you know, it's a hard no. And I used to take work with me all the time and it used to be this
And then I was like, absolutely not. So for me, my boundaries are, I do not work at all, like ever, non-negotiable on Sundays, period, nothing. And I don't work on Saturdays. Like there might be an emergency here or there, which that's fine. And it is a true absolute emergency. Like we're talking, someone's quitting and we've got to figure out what we're gonna do. Like Sarah is something that we, there was no planning for it. Like those types of things, absolutely. But 99.9 % of things do not need to be resolved on a Saturday.
clients text me on a Saturday and I love them and hey, I'm here for it. I'm not here for it on Saturdays. So great. And I tell clients text me all the time. And if I'm busy with family or I'm not available, I will not respond to you, but you get it out of your head. You get it over to me. I will take care of it when I'm back in the office. So fine. I don't care if clients text me on Saturday. That's fine. It does not bother me. It does not disrupt me because I know that Saturdays I don't work. That's my free day. I also have a CEO day that literally I block. And I know because if I have white, white noise time, deep work time,
So much more happens in the business. I also have workout time for myself. I work out three to four times a week. That's a non-negotiable. I have my morning routine every single morning, non-negotiables for me. That did not start as a day one. It became a process. But I started realizing if I don't take care of me and I don't have this future vision of 90 year old Kiera who's still super, super, super sharp. She's got time. She has energy. Her body's strong. She took care of herself. If I don't prioritize that version of me.
Today, she's not gonna be here at 90. So this is for you to predict your boundaries, to set it out. And I promise you, I promise you, the stress in your practice will actually decrease because you will be better balanced, you will be better focused, you will be better, like just cognitively, you will feel like you're not exhausted all the time and you can make better decisions. So your leadership will actually rise if you start to set those boundaries around your time and energy. And then number three is leading proactively and not reactively.
So for that, like once again, this comes to you as a calm leader and you taking care of you. So it's tying to the top of yes, we've got these boundaries, we know where we're going to be, but also at the same time, like you have these pieces where we actually have structure in there. So like we use morning huddles and we have one-on-ones. So we prevent problems from stemming in the future. ? We have set meetings where we make decisions instead of it being on the fly decisions.
We have set time that we get all those ortho checks back to our team. We have set times that we actually review pieces in the company. ? We have debriefs. We have a same page meeting with our office manager. ? We have set date nights with our spouse. We have set workout times with ourselves. But all these little set points, they feel like, as I say it, I'm like, gosh, that might feel like a lot. It's like, hey, block your whole life. So you've got all these color blocks.
But the reality is when you've got this structure, you're very proactive, not reactive, and you actually have a lot more time in your world. People are like, Kiera, how do you get so much done? How do you podcast three times a week, guys? You're welcome. And it's been going on for almost six years, thousands of episodes. People are like, how do you do it? And how do you have clients? And how are you a CEO? And how do you have time for your husband? How do you work out? And I'm like, honestly, it's because you're very proactive and not reactive. I used to be very, very reactive when I first started the company. And then we moved it into a space where it was a phenomenal.
we can take care of this. We don't have to have answers right away. I grew up as a CEO. I grew up as a leader, but it was leading proactively and not reactively. So looking to see where are quick areas that you might be a little reactive and how could you be a bit more proactive on that? ? Like I said, what things can we put into place beforehand to make sure they're not there? So when we look at this, this is how you're able to build a stress-free practice of you systematize the top
priorities, like we systematize those stress points and we get those dialed in. Then we protect our time. have boundaries around it. And then we lead proactively and we put things into place. So that way in our team, bubbles and issues are arising constantly. We teach our team how to have effective meetings, how to have issues lists, how to solve things like, Oh, I have a team like on this leading proactively. They have so many issues all the time. I'm like, I have never in my almost decade of coaching how to practice have this many fires all the time.
And I'm like, all right, you guys are like a spinning top. So you need to build an issue. Listen, we need to stop having like, stop answering and solving problems every single day, all day long. Cause what you're teaching your team is they can just like vomit on you and you're going to like fix it constantly. Like it's like a child throwing a temper tantrum. Like, let's like, no, sometimes timeouts are necessary. Sometimes a calm and a shutdown time is good. ? I've read a lot of books and they're like, people will say, Hey, when can I get that decision? Like,
At nine o'clock on Friday is when my thinking time is and I'll have a decision made by then. Like how incredible and people are okay with that. So it's this proactive rather than reactive. And we've got this team to where they now have their issues board. They only make decisions on their leadership days. They're not having to go through the fly constantly. They have set times. I had to do that too. And this is how I know that if you do this, this is how you can create stress-free practices because it's not perfect, but it is prepared.
has a lot of pieces in there I will tell you that's how you're able to literally like shut the phone off at night, able to disconnect, able to know that everything's being taken care of. I still feel like there is always this like hum of nervousness, ? but it does, the noise of that nervousness goes down to where you're able to not feel like it's constantly there. So if this is something that you feel like you're constantly putting out fires, this is literally what we do all the time. ?
And so this is where I'd love for you guys just to subscribe, ? to share, to like, to follow along, to help you guys and to share this with somebody who deserves more peace of mind. And that might be you. And if that's the case, then like, let's help you build your practice this way. Let's help train your team this way. Let's help train you as a leader because leaders aren't made, they're created. And I feel like so many of us just think that we're born out of the womb, a great leader. And it's like, no, a great leader is created. It's formed, it's evolved.
And so for you to realize like that is part of it, this is where it's going to be for you. So take the challenge, let's help you get that stress free practice. does like go for this systematize, set boundaries around your time and lead proactively and reach out Hello@TheDentalATeam.com at all, if we can help you in any way, or form, because I want you to be living your best life. I want you to not be stressed. I want you to know that success doesn't have to be a hope and a wish, but it can be predictable for you.
And this is how I love to help practices. This is what our consultants are obsessed about. They're brilliant women ? who just know how to lead teams that have done this successfully many times over. So reach out, do yourself the favor and commit to like, I'm not gonna be stressed anymore. And there's a better way to do it. And I'm going to commit to doing that and reach out. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.