It’s a common trajectory: Dental schools create great dentists, but they don’t create good business owners. Kiera shares three critical (but attainable!) tips for creating a profitable, scalable, and enjoyable practice, so doctors can continue doing the work they love.
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Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (00:00)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I'm excited to chat with practice owners, office managers, and to kind of just talk about like what every practice owner should know. But I think a lot of us learn that too late. Myself included, I feel like business owners, I feel like we are great at our craft, but at business we learn it a little too late. And so I think that like I looked at all of our students at Midwestern and they learned how to be great dentists, but they didn't.
learn how to become great business owners. And we hear this all the time. I'm not saying anything new. I just think that a lot of practices hit ceilings because it's not their clinical skills. It's the business outgrows their knowledge. It's like, hey, take me to the moon. You're like, I've never been to the moon. And so I think just being able to help practice owners today realize in office managers, like leadership systems and financial decisions really are like the core. That's why we call it the yes success model. So you, that's the leadership,
systems and earnings. Like that's really what makes up a successful practice. But I feel like that feels so easy. But I want to just walk through like what are three things that every business owner needs to know to have a profitable, scalable and enjoyable practice. You guys the Dental A Team like we work with hundreds of practices across the nation from startup practices to multi-million dollar offices. And what I realize is the challenges are all the same. Like it's fundamentally stays the same. It just gets bigger or smaller based on the size of practice that you're in. And so
I think so many people know how to work really hard. I think so many people outproduce their problems. I think so many people they just it I hear all the time when people are calling to work with us, like Kiera, I just don't know what I don't know. And so today I just want to go through like, let's just talk about three things that I feel like every single business owner needs to know and some tactical ways that you can implement this. So hopefully it takes you from being stuck to unstuck. If you've heard this in the past, maybe you're hearing it at a different time. I know for me these are three fundamentals that I go back to no matter what phase of the business I'm in.
No matter what size of practice I'm in, none of that. So number one is going to be your leadership is like completely the like growth of your business. And your business will never outgrow your leadership. And so your business is a reflection of you as the leader. I remember reading Jocko Willink's book about that extreme ownership. And it was like everything about your business is a reflection of you. And when so when I'm frustrated of the systems or the scalability or the lack of accountability, that's me. And so when we have that.
I hate this, but I love this. Is where can we get consistency? Where can we stop the firefighting? Where can we like make sure that we've got stronger accountability? And where can we make sure that the doctor's not carrying everything? Because I think so many doctors are like, I'll just do it. I got this. Like, I I'm a hard worker. I know how to GSD. I know how to get through this. But I'm like, okay, we've got to figure out how like being a leader is not just a title. How do we create more clarity and how do we create more consistency? And how do we develop leaders and owners within our organization?
And so for this, like when I look at our leadership and how for you not to get stuck in that, like being a great leader is being able to make hard decisions. Being a great leader is how do I create clarity and consistency for my team? Being a great leader is how do I make sure that my team understands the numbers and we use those numbers to guide our decisions. we were going through a whole list the other day of of topics of leadership. And I was like, gosh, I like leadership is
It's a journey. It's an evolution. It's not something that you just do overnight. and I think about Kiera as a leader when I first started and she was erratic. I was like, I was turbulent. I had so many pieces. but leadership is maturity. it's how do I get people to buy into a vision? How do I rally them and how do I get them to buy into a vision? How am I to be a CEO versus a manager and really understanding the difference of those two hats? How do I have time management where I
Truly focus on the most important things, not just because I'm capable of doing it, but because I'm the only one that can do it. How do I delegate and work through my team? How do I like learn people and work to their strengths and work to their superpowers? Working through my team, not just working with my team, using my team. How do I have the art of influence? How do I grow my team members into incredible people? How do I see that potential when I'm hiring? How do I hire better? How do I figure
like leading, managing, and holding people accountable. How do I have consistency? How am I an example, but not the one who has to do everything? how do I value my team? Do I see them as an asset or a liability? How do I help my team feel valued without being the one who does it all? Like there's a there's a there's a great quote over here today that says I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is try to please everybody. And that's by Herbert Swoop. And I thought about that as I was prepping for the podcast today of
That's I think in leadership where I'm not trying to please everybody. I'm going to make decisions that upset people, but I'm always going to make decisions that are in the best interest of the business. how do I own my mindset and make sure that I'm showing up with that clear, sharp mind? How do I have like mental health and grit and make sure I'm having that? What about creating culture, getting a team of ownership, having like my office manager, doctor, duo and having that relationship? What about performance management of my team?
So when I look at this and I think about this, like leadership, like you developing and growing as a leader. And I think that when I go back to this of like a lot of owners just think like I owned it, I got the title of a leader. But leadership is this evolution and this journey. It's becoming, it's evolving. It's all those pieces I listed off, and yet it's not a, it's not a checklist. Like, how do I learn to listen and not react? How do I learn to have my team come up with solutions rather than me?
So I rattled off a lot and all those can hit people at different phases of business. And I believe that I can check one of those off and then I can move. And then my team will double in size or our business will double in size. And I might have to go back to the beginning and the basics again of like, all right, I gotta figure out again how to work through my team. we went from having where me and our team was doing it to where now we're bringing on the C suites and the leader I need to become to manage a C suite versus the leader I needed to be.
Run when Tiff and I were just running the business together. The way I act and interact with my EA and personal assistant today versus when I first had one. It's an evolution. It's a leadership. It's an evolution of who you are. And so it's how do how do we become better at leadership? And I would say listen to podcasts, read books. some I I go back to fundamentals. I read the go giver constantly, I read traction a lot. It's so but boring. Like, sorry, Gino, it's very boring.
read the book, How to Be a Great Boss, Crucial Conversations, Discipline Without Punishment. Those are just some great books, but also look at great leaders and what do they do. For me, I'm a big mimic and mirror. So I talk to people, I talk to dentists that have really great cultures. This is why I love our mastermind group. I bring the best of the best of the best together. And I know because we work with all of them and I know our dentists personally, I have a lot of my great core leaders that I know are just dynamite leaders.
I have them share what do they do? How do they have it? How do they have performance reviews? How do they give cr like critical feedback? Some of the dentists early on in my career. I had them practice these conversations with me, like literally would have to send me voice memos. Practice your leadership skills. Use a consultant. Let's talk through how we're gonna have this conversation, how are we gonna talk to our team about this? But really I think like if I break it down to the nuts and bolts, it's how do I get a team to buy into a vision? How do I make sure that we hold accountability and ownership?
And how do I make sure that I maintain consistency and clarity? I think if I boiled it down and that's a rift on my own side, like not prepped, those would be the pieces I'd boil down. And so how do you become a stronger leader in those areas? And again, there's just indecision is worse than a wrong decision. And so just making those decisions, being more confident in yourself. someone once said like 2.0 is sitting here, and I think about Kiera 2.0, like she wasn't born, she was created.
Leaders are not born, they're created. You've got to like flex and strengthen that leadership skill because your practice can never outgrow your leadership. And if you want to get to the next level of growth, whether that's financially, whether that's profitability, you have to flex and become a different leader. If you've got pure chaos in your office, that's you. If you've got people who aren't falling through, that's you. And that doesn't mean you have to go fix it. I mean, that's you tolerating that. And that's the standards of your practice. Your business will always fall, not to what you say, but what you tolerate.
And so being that leader that raises the standards, I this year I was annoyed. I was like, okay, we're going for outcomes over activity. I realized I was tracking activity, but that's not moving our company forward. We need to be tracking outcomes. Our team is flourishing. But me as a leader, I need to be looking down the line and seeing, and I need to be developing myself as well. I go to the gym, I put myself into a complete fitness competition where I wanted to get to my best physical, like PRs, physical fitness. I went through
A cut. I've never done a cut before. I push myself physically, mentally, often because to me that's a a different pressure test that's gonna sh like allow me to show up better as a leader as well. So it doesn't even have to just be within your practice. Discipline at the gym, discipline in working out, discipline in how you show up, discipline in how you eat, those things are going to make you a far superior leader. I will tell you.
Going through a cut where I had the least amount of calories, I was the strongest, most sharpest leader I've ever been. And I was exhausted. But I knew I needed to show up and I needed to be stronger and I needed to think better ways. So those are going to be some zones hopefully that will help you on leadership. The other one that I found that a lot of people miss is we talk about so often, but systems truly do create freedom, not restrictions. And I think people think that they need to have really strong and lots of systems. And even our team was doing this, but realistically.
There's just a few core systems that need to be in place. There's not a lot of systems that actually need to be there, but they do need to be consistent. They do need to be scalable, and they do need to be followed through on. And so when we look at it, our team was going through and there's there's business fundamentals like core value, vision, mission, org chart, meeting cadences, figuring out our BAM, figuring out our projections, looking at our overhead. Like those are business fundamentals. And then there's systems. And we actually broke it down and we're like, gosh, if we just put into place like 10 core.
Most things are going to get better. Most things are going to get fixed. Most things are going to get resolved. But they're not sexy. They're not fun. They're not things that I'm like, my gosh, like, let me get on a podcast and tell everybody, like, let's just fix these seven items. But that's all it really is. But I think that what happens is we want to continue to scale. We want to continue to build. For me, I want to reinvent, reinvent, reinvent, reinvent. But that's actually not something that's going to grow us. And so it's like,
Just having KPIs that we track and monitor and we use those to make our decisions, having a solid morning huddle with an agenda, following set meeting cadences, having proper handoffs, having a proper scheduling protocol, having case acceptance protocols, having a collections protocol, working on new patients and referrals, having a period protocol, recare reactivation. Like those are really core items that if you have those systems where you follow them and we scale them and everybody's doing it the same way, 95% of your problems get fixed.
Of course, there's other ones. There's hiring, there's onboarding, there's leadership, there's all these other ones. But I think so many people don't want to just be at the basics. We want to reinvent the will. We want to do these things, like have job descriptions at the end of days. Like just do it. It's boring. It's not fun. People are like, wow, wow. We have to have a a morning huddle prep sheet. Why do pilots have checklists? Like the checklist manifesto. They create freedom, they create predictability, and they create systemization. That's all you need to do.
And I found that when offices follow it, when we have it in place. And for me, I also don't want systems to be something that people have to remember. How can I have it as a true system like Chick-fil-A where their burgers come out with three pickles every single time? How do I make sure that our schedule has the same system every single time? How do I make sure that our our handoffs have the same thing every single time? And I don't have to hope that 15 team members remember it. We're gonna put this in to where we have it consistent every single time, no matter who's doing it, no matter what new team member comes in.
That is scalability with systemization. And so have it documented, have it simple, have it repeatable. That's gonna get duplicated. So I think for offices, systemization really that that's the core. That's the systems. It's not sexy, but it is very, very effective. And then the third things that I think a lot of people don't realize, including myself, is you have to know your numbers better than anyone else. That's better than your CPA, better than your financial advisor. You have to know, and that's not just production, that's profit. Like I remember someone said,
production feeds the ego, profit feeds the family. And I think about this all the time. Like, you have to know your production. And I'm talking net, not gross, your collections, your overhead. Then within your overhead, like what is our payroll? What is our supplies? What's our marketing? What are our labs? What's our profitability? And then what's our billing and our AR? You know those numbers. You're solid. You can make so much stronger decisions. You don't, you have financial surprises, you make poor decisions, you're on reactive rather than proactive.
You grow, but you don't have profit. Like, I can't tell you how many offices I've that are singing the five, six, seven, eight million and they have no money. And I'm like, golly, you're making so much money, but you don't know how to keep the money. You gotta make the money and you gotta keep the money. All right. Like that's what we gotta do. So you have to make sure that our profit is there and we can't be willy-nilly. To me, you guys know I talk about the MMs. I do money and meditation in the morning. So triple for you morning, meditation, money. Look at it every single day. Look at your P and L.
If you don't know your overhead and your profit right now without looking, you gotta know it better. You have to. And that's a doctor and an OM. You must know this number. This number creates all the drive. Profit is the only number I actually care about. Like I can sit here, we can track all the KPIs, so many things, but if your profits down, everything else in your life is hard. Your profits up, most things in your life are really easy. Money solves a lot of problems. And so let's have profit. Let's have like I'm stressed out, I'm moving my hair around. Like
I don't enjoy this. This stresses me out because you've got to know your numbers better than anyone else. You don't sit here and lie, if your CPA is not delivering to you by the second of the month, like the second week of the month, get a better CPA. Like they work for you. You have to know your numbers. You have to be confident in them. And if things fill off, challenge it, question it until it gets right. Don't just sit here haphazardly. That is not a strong business owner. This one fires me up more than anything because I used to not know my numbers. My husband was like, Kiera, I don't get it. Why are you broke? And like,
I don't know. Well, I learned this great thing about AR. I had like a hundred grand sitting in AR that I didn't know about. We weren't collecting properly. You better believe I fixed that real fast to where I'm never gonna be in that situation again. And you layer by layer by layer, you get more and more and more financially savvy, but you have to know your numbers better than anyone else. You know your production numbers or so, I hope. If you don't know that number, but do you know your collections? Do you know your collection percentage? Do you know your overhead? Do you know your payroll percentage? Do you know your supply sip? If you don't,
You must learn that. So I'll get off my rant. But this was funny. They said production is a vanity, profitability is a reality. And I think that that's a good anchor line of yes, it is. Profitability is your reality. So your numbers are gonna tell the truth whether you choose to look at them or not. The truth is always there. Some of us don't want to like get on the scale and say weigh. I had a great trainer tell me, she's like, Kiera, that number means nothing other than giving us data and information. It's not my
Self-worth, it's nothing. Just like your profitability is just a number on a scale. It just gives us data. If we spend more money on payroll, this is the number that we get. We make better decisions if we know. But I will tell you, your success, your happiness, your stress is all tied to you knowing these numbers or not. And a lot of people are like, no, no, no, I don't want to. Yeah, right. You're sitting in stress constantly that you don't even realize. So know your numbers. Schedule a monthly financial review. Commit to knowing the story behind your numbers.
Like, do money meditation with me every morning. Just have your bank account on there. Just look at it every morning. Look at your PL every day. I don't care. Do not sit in excuses on your money. You're a business owner, you've got to know this. So I hope that wasn't too much of a rant. But I hope it gave you some good tips on how to have leadership. some good money books. I love Profit First by Mike McAllicks. I also love Money Master the Game by Tony Robbins. That was a long book, but it taught me a lot.
there's some great financial podcasts out there. there's also some really crummy ones. I The Psychology of Money was another great one that I read that was on financial. systems, the checklist manifesto is a great one. Come up for air is a great book. There's several great books based on where you're struggling. But if you notice, this is our yes success model. You as a leader, earnings and profitability, system structure and scale. That's what it is. And every single one of those will give you the yes success model.
You've got to take care of them. You've got to do leadership. You've got to do profitability. You gotta do systems. The yes success model follows constantly. So what part are you the weakest in? What part are you the strongest in? And where do you need to grow? This is the zone like you're not a great practice is not built by accident. It's intentional, it's focused, it's consistent. I had another great trainer. She said, Kiera, it's not about perfection, it's about consistency. That's I don't care if last month you didn't look at your numbers.
I do care if you consistently are not looking at the numbers. You aren't, I'm not expecting perfection, but we do have to have consistency. So how can you have more consistency? And if you're feeling overwhelmed, it doesn't mean you're failing. It just means that you've outgrown the current systems, you've outgrown where you're at, you've outgrown the knowledge. It's kind of like the Wi-Fi symbol. You're just popping up to the next level. And your next level of growth comes from working harder. Like it can, but it usually comes from knowing your business better, leading better, making better decisions with finances. So this is what we're obsessed with.
I love to help you. I love our team to help you. I love you to be a part of our community. We talk about this every single month. We talk about this in person. Come be a part of it. Like for me, I'm not going to get a six-pack without a trainer overseeing me. You might not be able to grow your business without a trainer overseeing you, an advisor helping you, somebody getting you out of the rut, somebody helping you get to that next Wi-Fi symbol. So let's help you out. Reach out. Hello at the Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. You guys, this is your life, your practice. And I feel like these things are not known. I feel like they're kind of known.
But knowing and executing are the difference between winning and losing. Are you just gonna know the facts or are you gonna actually execute on it? The challenge is there, the choice is there, and I hope that you choose to be somebody who executes. Reach out, let's get you out of the hole. Come on, let's do Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. And as always, thanks for listening, and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.