Here’s What’s Changed About Practice Management – Episode 113

What’s the right balance of delegation and direct involvement? As the CEO of your practice, do you have enough information to be strategic, but not so much that it bogs you down? In this episode of Dentist Money™ Reese Harper welcomes Penny Reed who explains how practice management has evolved over the past twenty-five years. Penny is a renowned speaker and author and has coached dentists across the country to become more profitable through better delegation and accountability. In this interview, she discusses the true value of a good consultant, how your personality should play into business decisions and common mistakes that lead to poor office cultures.

Show notes:
www.pennyreed.com
penny@pennyreed.com

Book: Growing Your Dental Business

Podcast Transcript:

Reese Harper: Hey, everybody. It’s Reese Harper. Thanks for tuning in to the Dentist Money Show. We have another great episode planned for you today. You’re about to hear an interview I did with Penny Reed, who’s an author, speaker, and coach for dentists across the country.

Reese Harper: She’s been in dentistry for about 25 years, and she has a really good perspective on how practice management has evolved, and how dentists can get the most value out of a consultant. I think you’ll appreciate how she stays away rom the one size fits all approach, and focuses more on a unique set of challenges and personality dynamics found in different practices.

Reese Harper: As you listen to her, hopefully you’ll start to think about the gaps that might need to be filled in your own business, and the type of professionals who could make the biggest impact for you.

Reese Harper: Before we start the interview, I want to remind you that the Dentist Money Show is brought to you by DentistAdvisors.com. If you’re ready to have a free consultation with us, you can go to DentistAdvisors.com and click the link at the top of the page to schedule an appointment on our calendar.

Reese Harper: If it’s easier, you can just give us a call at 833-DDS-PLAN. We’ll schedule a discovery call to diagnose your situation, and then we’ll talk about the things we can do to help make work optional for you at an earlier age.

Reese Harper: And don’t forget to submit your financial questions for our next Q&A episode. We had a lot of great questions come in that we’re planning to answer on an upcoming show, and we’re making a push to get even more. You can send your questions to reese@dentistadvisors.com, or ryan@dentistadvisors.com. Thanks again for listening, and enjoy the show.

Speaker: Consult and advise, or conduct your own due diligence, when making financial decisions. General principles discussed during this program do not constitute personal advice. This program is furnished by Dentist Advisors, a registered investment advisor.

Speaker: This is Dentist Money. Now, here’s your host, Reese Harper.

Reese Harper: Welcome to the Dentist Money Show, where we help dentists make smart financial decisions. I’m your host, Reese Harper, here with a special guest today. Penny Reed, president of Penny Reed and Associates. Penny, welcome to the show.

Penny Reed: Well, thank you so much for having me, Reese.

Reese Harper: Yeah. I’m excited about this. I met you through a mutual friend, and I think it was through Clay Shubin at Dental Intel, and I was really surprised to kind of bump into somebody who’d been in practice management for 25 years who I’d never had a chance to meet, and so, for me, a chance to meet another great dental coach, speaker, and author … you’ve written the book Growing Your Dental Business, which has done really well.

Reese Harper: I’m just really excited, because I know you’ve got a lot of value to add after so much time in practice management, so thanks so much for joining us, and I’d just like to get started with a little bit of your background so that people can get a sense for who you are.

Penny Reed: Sure. I’d like to say that I’m an accidental, no pun intended, right, with the word dental, dental coach.

Reese Harper: Nice.

Penny Reed: And I never set out … I actually just made that up, just right on the fly.

Reese Harper: Classy.

Penny Reed: You can say Penny Reed made that up on the Dentist Money Podcast.

Reese Harper: Trademark.

Penny Reed: I set off to college and thought, “You know what?” I wanted to be a teacher. And my dad was like, “You know, that’s a great profession, but I’m not going to pay for you to go to school to be a teacher,” which doesn’t make any sense now that I think about it, so I knew I had a passion for teaching, wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do. I thought, “I’ll get a management degree.”

Penny Reed: You know, not really realizing that that had to do with managing people, but it just sounded good, so I actually got a business degree, and kind of thought about accounting, realized that those rules changed every year.

Penny Reed: I thought, “That’s not for me.” I graduated with this business degree, went to work for a little company you might’ve heard of called Wal-Mart.

Reese Harper: Okay.

Penny Reed: Yeah. Back when Mr. Sam was alive, and it was a much more, I don’t know, it was just a happier thought about company than it is now, but I learned a ton. Was very, very young.

Reese Harper: Well, that’s a great place to get experience from.

Penny Reed: Oh, absolutely. I learned more there than I did with my business degree.

Reese Harper: Yeah.

Penny Reed: And moved away, a little bit, and I’m from the south. I’m sure everybody’s surprised. No one can tell I have a southern accent, and decided that I wanted to come back to be near my family, back to the Memphis area, where I still-

Reese Harper: Oh, cool.

Penny Reed: I live a little bit outside of Memphis.

Reese Harper: Right on.

Penny Reed: And so, I happened to be … I know you said we weren’t going to talk about religion, but I happened to be at church and bumped into my dentist, and we were just talking about things. He said, “Well, what are your plans?” I said, “Well, I went from the distribution center in IT, into the store, to find a way to transfer back to Memphis.”

Penny Reed: I said, “So, right now, I don’t have any other plans than Wal-Mart.” And he said, “Well, I would love for you to consider coming and being my office manager.” You know, dental office manager, to which I replied, “Wow, that’s an honor, and I really don’t know anything about running a dental office.” And he said, “Well, I’ve been in practice for 11 years, and truly, I don’t either. Nobody trained me how to do this either,” he said, “but I know who you are, I know what a hard worker you are, and you’re the type of person that I want to have.”

Reese Harper: You’ll figure it out.

Penny Reed: Yeah. “In my practice.” So, that was how it began, in 1992, how I got into dentistry, and back in 1992, if the internet existed, we didn’t have it yet, if dental economics was being published, I don’t know that I’d ever seen it, like, there were no books.

Reese Harper: Resources. Yeah.

Penny Reed: No resources, and so I remember saying, “Do you have any manuals?” He gave me this big, red book. In the yellow pages hey-day, it was the size of a big, thick yellow pages, and it was on Pairio, I think, and so we began to seek out some experts, because we did. I mean, he and I put our heads together, and we just tried really hard, and we were tracking the numbers, but we didn’t have a clear plan, and we really didn’t have all of the team engaged.

Penny Reed: I got hooked on dental consulting because we hired a consultant.

Reese Harper: Interesting.

Penny Reed: And I thought, “Holy smokes, there’s a recipe for how to grow this thing beyond just being nice to people, and coming in everyday, and working as hard as you can.”

Reese Harper: Tell me a little bit about … one of the things that you talk about in your book is how a practice owner needs to delegate responsibility, but that they also need to understand what’s happening in the business, so it’s kind of this hybrid between delegating responsibility, but also being engaged.

Reese Harper: Can you talk to me a little bit about why it’s so important for a dentist to stay involved on the management side, as opposed to just delegating it all over to another office manager? Why do you see that being more effective?

Penny Reed: Yeah, and I think you hit the nail on the hit, because it’s about balance, right? You’ve got to know it, as the business owner, but if you’re the only one that knows it, and you don’t have other people engaged in the process of making it happen, that’s going to hamstring you and limit your growth.

Penny Reed: But if you say, “I don’t want to know it.” Right? “I want other people to know it and take care of it,” then you’re in that danger zone, because nobody’s going to look after your money the way that you look after it, and it’s kind of funny that you mentioned that. I’m actually speaking to the local dental society here, tonight, and the topic is the dentist as the CEO, leader, and coach, and that whole evolving … it’s been an evolution, actually, that I’ve seen happen.

Penny Reed: I think it’s more important than ever to keep a handle on the numbers. It’s actually easier, I think, for if there are members on a team that are going to take advantage of the doctor, I think it’s easier to hide it now with the computer, so I think the distinction is make that intentional time, whether it’s once a week or once a month, to look at specific things, and stay involved in that.

Penny Reed: And yet, also, have team members that understand certain aspects of that, and are actually engaged in making those things happen. But yeah, you definitely don’t want to be the least informed person on your team about the numbers when you’re the business owner. The industry has changed so much, right?

Penny Reed: It’s not only the makeup of the average dental practice that’s changed, but I recently did another podcast interview with Dental Town, with Howard Farran, and we titled it Practice Management is Dead. And now, it’s not completely dead, but you’ll know what I’m talking about here.

Penny Reed: It used to be that, as a coach, as a consultant, what I felt and I think that it was true, that most people hired me for, was information that they didn’t have.

Reese Harper: Yeah.

Penny Reed: Penny Reed has a better system, right? Or Penny Reed has information that we’d never heard. Well, now, that is still true, but I would say 80% of the time, Reese, they’ve heard it, and it either didn’t make sense to them the way that they heard it, or they didn’t take action on it, and so the whole information delivery consulting piece, that’s not what we’re needed for.

Penny Reed: And I don’t think that’s the call to action in the marketplace, as much, either, going back to, “Does the dentist need to stay involved in the business?” Absolutely, and as these businesses evolve into larger groups. Right? I mean, the team size has gotten much larger. I might’ve had, years ago, someone that had two locations.

Penny Reed: Now I’ve got clients that have seven. You know? I mean, it ranges from one to seven, multiple doctors, and so if that organizational structure isn’t in place, it’s like now we have this whole true leadership, not just the whole leadership as a fluffy concept, right, but the defining the expectations, who we’re attracting, who we’re hiring. The knowing what to do truly becomes minimal, because 90% of it has to be done through people.

Penny Reed: It’s the whole dynamic has changed, so.

Reese Harper: Totally.

Penny Reed: Yeah, I’m seeing more-

Reese Harper: If I’m not hiring you for information, how would you summarize it? I’m not hiring … I mean, what is the other thing that, probably the most important thing, that I’m hiring you for, if it’s not to get information about … ? Maybe, in the past, like you said, as the Internet’s come around, I get information. It’s a little more openly available. There’s 100 podcasts out there for them to listen to.

Penny Reed: Right. Oh, right, right. And it’s all free, right?

Reese Harper: Free. Yeah, so why-

Penny Reed: I mean, it would be really easy for a consultant to say, “Hey, I just may as well pack up shop.”

Reese Harper: Yeah. I have a strong opinion on this, but I just want, why am I hiring you, Penny, then, for?

Penny Reed: The Growing Your Dental Business book, that’s probably most of the information that a practice would ever need to grow, so the whole, “Why are you hiring me?” The information’s still important, right? We’ve got to have it, and I would say, as a consultant, it’s raised the bar for us, because we’ve got to have the information, we’ve got to be on top of it, but the other is what would you hire a Penny Reed for is to be sure that you’ve got the environment, the culture, in place, that those things actually happen.

Reese Harper: Yeah.

Penny Reed: You can have all the information in the world, and I use the example of a Petri dish, right? Because I’ll ask people, “What do you think of when you think of culture?” And you know, these medically minded folks, they’re thinking about, “Well, I’m thinking like a Petri dish, like, what’s growing in there.”

Penny Reed: In a healthy environment, where the business owners are invested, they’re paying attention to what’s happening in the practice, they’re modeling what they want. They’re not only sharing their expectations, but they’re being sure that they’re overshared, because if something’s really important, it gets repeated, and so if the environment is the way that it needs to be, and we’re being intentional, then whatever the knowledge is, right?

Penny Reed: It’s going to stick, so again, yes, there are some better systems out there, and I love the 80/20 rule. It just makes things easy. I think it’s 80% about the leadership, clear expectations about what we want to have happen, great communication skills, and 20% about what dental software are you using? You know, what type of sensor do … what version of the route slip do you have?

Penny Reed: We get so caught up in some of those other things that we really forget that it’s the, “If I know all these things, and I don’t have the systems in place to implement it?” And that’s why the team engagement’s so huge. I mean, it’d be great if you could just say do it and they would do it, but they won’t.

Reese Harper: Yes. You said, earlier, something I liked, which was make sure that it happens. That was kind of one of the things that you said, and for me, I think, if I had to just say, “Why would I hire Penny Reed today if it’s not about information that she has?” It would be like, “Well, she makes sure that things happen. She’s the accountability component to me ensuring that all of these things that I know, these information that I know,” I mean, we’ve all heard, every dentist has some understanding that there’s something wrong with insurance.

Reese Harper: There’s something wrong with his fee schedule, or her fee schedule, there’s something wrong with case presentation. There’s something wrong with team, staff, culture, huddles. All this stuff, but it’s like, if you don’t have someone outside of your practice looking in, and trying to make sure that the activity, and culture, and behaviors, and team, and goals … if no one’s there providing any sort of accountability, I do think it becomes much harder.

Penny Reed: Oh, it is.

Reese Harper: At least until you have someone internally who can become a little bit more of that Penny Reed for the practice, and I’m sure that’s your goal, is to try to leave behind the right accountability in a person that lives and breathes the practice day to day, but sometimes you can never get to that point, especially when you’re rotating through staff, and you can’t control that all the time, and your turnover isn’t something you always have control over as a dentist, and so it seems like accountability is something, it’s kind of a negative word.

Reese Harper: It kind of feels like Big Brother-ish, you know?

Penny Reed: Yeah, I know.

Reese Harper: But I really value it. Like, in my own life, I really want-

Penny Reed: Oh, I do too.

Reese Harper: Someone else to be there, and say, “Hey, Reese. I have invested a lot of time into our relationship. I totally am here for you. I’m your friend. I’m not here to judge you, but this is how I feel about what you just said, or the way you’re doing this, and I just wanted to give you my feedback, because I’ve known you for a while, and I saw you do this like seven months ago. You remember? And then we did this, and fixed it. I think you’re doing the same thing again right now, just from my perspective.”

Reese Harper: It’s so helpful to have someone who’s invested time in you, who cares about you, and has gotten to the point to where they can, in a kind way, kind of guide you towards the right answers. Because you’re sometimes incapable of doing that on your own, because you’re just in the thick of it, and it’s very emotional to be that business owner. Right?

Penny Reed: And you can’t see it when it’s you, right?

Reese Harper: Totally.

Penny Reed: You can’t see it.

Reese Harper: You can’t, yeah. That’s awesome. Okay, so let’s move onto a different subject. I kind of want to go onto something that I call the lightning round, and I want to get as much kind of one-minute pieces of advice as I can out of Penny before we let you go, and I’m going to ask you some of the questions that are most commonly asked to me, by dentists that are in the realm of practice management, and I just want to get kind of short, kind of, if you can, just quick responses to these so we can hit as many as possible.

Reese Harper: Does that sound okay?

Penny Reed: I wish I had a game show button. I’m highly motivated.

Reese Harper: Yes.

Penny Reed: Let’s do it.

Reese Harper: Okay, good. Let’s do it. Okay. If I said, “Penny, I’m debating on whether I should continue to outsource to a lab, or whether I should bring in a CEREC, and/or whether I should continue to focus on my CEREC more? Like, is it CEREC, or is it lab? What’s the answer for me?”

Reese Harper: I know you got followup questions, but if that’s what I told you, what’s our conversation?

Penny Reed: Off the cuff, how many units are you doing? I mean, that’s the first question that comes to my mind is how many, because it’s usually singles, and I know the bridgework is coming, but what’s your volume? And what are you spending with the lab? In other words, what would it take for it to pay for itself?

Reese Harper: Okay. And then, is there anything else that would come up as you analyze that besides what it would take-

Penny Reed: I mean, it’s a definite … okay, here’s the Penny Reed: I love it as a patient. Right? I love going, and only having to have one visit. From a scheduling and profitability, what you save in lab … this is a difficult one minute answer. You often elevate, because you’re taking up more chair time.

Reese Harper: That’s awesome. Love it, love it. Okay, beautiful.

Penny Reed: That’s the answer.

Reese Harper: Okay. Number two is, “I’m a single practice, one location dentist that’s trying to figure out how to make more money, and I want to grow, and I want to get bigger, and I’m debating bringing on an associate. I don’t know if I should or not. Should I bring on an associate?”

Penny Reed: Probably a good idea. The question would be timing and how you would know that is new patients and hygiene. Are you willing, do you have more than 25 comprehensive exams a month? Not just new people coming in the door. And are you also willing to have them check some of your hygiene patients?

Reese Harper: Okay.

Penny Reed: Associates can be a great idea, but if there’s not enough … just think: if there’s not enough food to go around, people get cranky.

Reese Harper: How do you pay them, then? How should I pay them? Do you have any advice for me on that? If I feel like I fit that criteria.

Penny Reed: What I’ve seen work the best is a guarantee for a minimum daily rate for a period of time, whether it’s 90 days or six months, and then a percentage of either collections or net production. Net production would be the fee you actually can collect if you have PPOs.

Reese Harper: Great. Awesome. Okay, that’s awesome answer. Number three would be, ‘I’m thinking about opening a second location, and I’m really excited about it, and I think I’m going to be able to make a lot more money. Should I do it?

Penny Reed: Could be true. It’s like, if you think about what’s happening in your current office, number one thing I would look at is have you made the most out of the current facility that you have, and is expanding that an option? Because you see everything that’s going on in your current business.

Penny Reed: The second location can be fantastic, and all of a sudden, now, if you’re dividing this existing team that you have in half, in other words, who’s going to be putting all of those systems in place? You will want to have a presence there.

Penny Reed: A lot of things to look at. Second location, I’m all for it. I would be sure you’re making the most out of your first location first because it doesn’t matter if … the geography, really, isn’t near as relevant as it is looking at your chairs, or your current chairs at capacity in your location.

Reese Harper: Okay. This is a question for a young student, or a younger dentist. “I’ve been accepted to three dental schools. One costs 550, one costs 300, and one costs 425. How do I pick between these dental schools? Should I pay more money to go to a better school?” There’s not a right or wrong, here. This is just Penny Reed’s opinion.

Penny Reed: If your family is independently wealthy, and money is not an option, I would go to whichever school was your favorite.

Reese Harper: Okay.

Penny Reed: I would still pick the one where you feel like you’re going to get a better education, and if you, you know, based on … talk to some of the recent grads, and if all of those things were equal, that would be when I would look at, “Do I want to spend more money if I’m getting all of the same things?”

Penny Reed: But the number one thing would be education. I would evaluate that first.

Reese Harper: Okay. If I asked Penny Reed, if you work with a practice owner in their first five years, do you see a difference in quality of dentists based on where they go to school? Does that ever come up in your interactions with dentists? Do you ever look and go, “This person went to this school, and it seems like they didn’t come out with quite as much skill as this other client I’ve consulted with.”

Penny Reed: I see less of an influence about where they went to school and more of an influence of if they did a residency.

Reese Harper: Interesting.

Penny Reed: If they did a residency, they come out much better prepared to at least handle the speed, and the pace. Maybe not so much the human resources aspect, which, that’s a whole other animal.

Reese Harper: Yes, different animal. School doesn’t prepare you well for that, it sounds like, from your opinion.

Penny Reed: Well, I think some do more than others, but primarily a residency, to me, based on … and I’m not a dentist, not clinical, so I’m not answering it from that, but as far as the ones that are more successful, they’ve done a residency somewhere or they’ve done an associateship at a high level practice, and not that I’m slamming corporate, but I’m just saying a practice that’s a little bit more like private practice, instead of just coming right out of school and becoming an owner, or starting a practice from scratch.

Reese Harper: Great advice. Okay, “I’m going to join a DSO, or I’m going to start my own practice. I don’t know what to do. What’s your opinion?”

Penny Reed: I think it goes back to your initial comments about the personality types. How do I feel about managing people? If I want to manage people, if I don’t mind that, if I am happy to tell somebody my expectations and to give them quick feedback when they first start deviating from that, instead of waiting until it just becomes an agony, if I don’t mind doing those things I might want to start my own practice.

Penny Reed: Again, depending on the timeline, what’s the harm in working for somebody else for a year?

Reese Harper: Yeah.

Penny Reed: And getting an experience with that to see what you like, but if you’re conflict avoidant, you probably would be happier if you didn’t own a practice. One of my daughters, if she were in dental school, I would recommend that she go to work for somebody, because she’s the type personality, loves people, she would want to work really hard for three days, and then she wouldn’t want to have to worry about it after.

Reese Harper: Yeah. That’s great advice.

Penny Reed: She’d want to be done.

Reese Harper: I love how you’re just highlighting that it’s very context specific, the individual really drives … and I bet you give that same answers on how people maybe integrate an office manager, or the leadership role they take. I mean, a lot of the advice you give to a seasoned practice owner probably has to do with their personality, and I think that’s what’s so important about a good consultant, is that they’re looking at you, the person, as opposed to just a prescribed set of advice that they’re going to give to everyone no matter what, so.

Penny Reed: Sure, because let me say this: it’d be a whole lot easier if I could give them all the same advice.

Reese Harper: Yeah, yeah. Okay, tell me the number one mistake that you see in the front office. The number one mistake that you kind of … maybe you can’t give one. You might have to give two.

Penny Reed: Okay, the first mistake that I see in the front office is mismanaging the schedule, and I would say primarily what I mean by that is instead of marketing the next available appointments, I’m asking, “When’s a convenient time for you to come?”

Reese Harper: Okay.

Penny Reed: And so, all of a sudden, I have no control of the schedule. That would be one, and the other would be that every single conversation, telephone, face to face, it’s all positive, and it’s all focused on the patient.

Reese Harper: Okay. Because you see-

Penny Reed: Because the driving of the schedule, and then just the whole attitude and patient focus.

Reese Harper: What’s the opposite of that positivity? What do you typically see?

Penny Reed: The opposite is telling them all the things we can’t do, or creating barriers, so for example, on the phone, kicking off that phone call with, “Oh, well, what insurance do you have?”

Penny Reed: That, in itself, is not heading in a positive direction, so the positive would be the relationship, “Oh, we’re so glad you called.” Even asking, “Well, if you don’t mind me asking, what had you call, or what would you say is most important?’ Focusing on that as opposed to asking all those trigger questions that have people wanting to know if you’re in network, out of network, what’s that going to cost?

Reese Harper: Yep. Makes sense. Number one problem of the back office. What would you say that is? Number one or two. If two comes up. One’s fine if you can only think of one.

Penny Reed: Well, one of the first things that I think of, and this goes back to hiring, is bringing people on board because we think they have experience instead of looking for the longterm, as things change, who’s going to be the most adaptable, but I mean, just look at what’s happened in the last 20 years.

Penny Reed: Relying more on people that we perceive to have that technical experience, instead of looking at the people that are adaptable, and that have the ability to make your patients feel like they are the most important people on the planet.

Reese Harper: That’s great. Yeah, that’s really good insight. Man, this has been great. You got through 10 awesome ones. Tell me, before I let you go, what I’d like to just ask you to share is any parting thoughts or wisdom or advice you’d like to give to dentists all over before we let you go?

Penny Reed: Yeah, well, and I think, to summarize, the knowledge is still just as important as it ever was. It’s just that that’s not so hard to find anymore, right? And I see people hop from, “Well, this didn’t work, so we need a different system. This isn’t work, we need a different system.” When the reality of it is, if they’ve tried four systems, at least three, without me even looking at them, I can tell you, would’ve worked.

Reese Harper: Yeah.

Penny Reed: It’s that taking the step back and especially if you worked with someone like me before, and for whatever reason you didn’t get the result. Before you take that next step forward, whether you’re looking for a coach, or going to a course, and trying to pinpoint, “What is it that we need to do differently?” It’s not necessarily the massive amount of knowledge, but spending just as much if not more time with your team on that action plan, and not just setting it, but following back up on it.

Penny Reed: I think being intentional to be sure that what it is that you want to do , this new knowledge, or old knowledge, that it’s actually getting done, and I think that a lot of dentists don’t realize is it doesn’t happen and then they get frustrated, and they think, “Well, something’s broken?”

Reese Harper: Yeah.

Penny Reed: The biggest message is, if you want to have that championship practice, or that championship team, yes, you have a dental practice, but how often are we practicing? Like, in practice, I’ve thrown the terms role play away, because it just makes everybody a nervous wreck.

Penny Reed: But we say practice makes, what?

Reese Harper: Perfect?

Penny Reed: Perfect, right? Practice makes permanent. If we’re not doing what we want to do, the way we want to do it, consistently, we’ve got to be willing to … you know, we all have to be coachable, and work with yourself, first, as the leader, and then with the team, also, it’s easy to practice. It’s just all about the mindset.

Reese Harper: Yeah, that’s great insight.

Penny Reed: Hopefully those were some of the parting terms that you were looking for.

Reese Harper: Yeah, those were awesome. Well, Penny, you do an amazing job, and I just love your attitude, and kind of the perspective you bring. It’s really positive, and really-

Penny Reed: Thank you.

Reese Harper: I think it’s really insightful, and I’m excited to have got to know you, and look forward to be able to connecting our listeners with you as well. How would they reach out and get in touch to get an introduction to the kind of work that you do? Could you leave us with some contact information?

Penny Reed: Absolutely. Absolutely, so, easiest would be my email, which is pretty easy to remember if you can remember my name. It’s Penny, P-E-N-N-Y, at Penny Reed, P-E-N-N-Y, R-E-E-D.com.

Reese Harper: Perfect.

Penny Reed: They can do that, or if they go to PennyReed.com, there’s a contact form on the front. You know, that would be the best and easiest way to get in touch, and Reese, I just wanna say thank you so much for what you do, because you make what we do as the dental consultants and coaches … if we work with these doctors to increase their income, and yet they reach that point where they’re thinking, “Okay, I should be able to retire,” and they can’? Then, I feel like I haven’t really done my job.

Reese Harper: Wow.

Penny Reed: I’m grateful that there are people out there like you to help them. It’s like, okay, my goal is to help them make the money, and it’s great that folks like you are helping them make smart decisions, because ultimately I want them to have a successful career and be able to not have to work and enjoy life.

Reese Harper: Yeah, well, that’s great, Penny. Thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate you sharing your thoughts and insights, and if anyone wants to get in touch with you again, PennyReed.com. It’s P-E-N-N-Y, R-E-E-D.com, and Penny, we’ll be getting this episode out to listeners soon, and I look forward to having you back on the show within the next year.

Reese Harper: That’d be awesome, if we could.

Penny Reed: Awesome, awesome. I would love it. Thank you again, Reese. I appreciate it.

Reese Harper: Thanks, Penny. We’ll talk to you soon.

Penny Reed: Okay, bye-bye.

Reese Harper: My thanks once again to Penny Reed. It was a pleasure talking to her and I hope you’re inspired to be a little more coachable, and a little more deliberate about the way you build your office culture, and now anytime you hear the word culture, you’ll probably think of a Petri dish.

Reese Harper: I also thought the distinction she made about information and accountability was really profound. Information is still very important, but since information is so accessible in today’s world, oftentimes, the value of a good coach has more to do with holding you accountable, which is hard for most people to do on their own.

Reese Harper: Great stuff from Penny. I really appreciate it. For those of you who are interested in reaching out to Penny, or if you want to check out her new book, we’ve put all her information in the show notes. Be sure to check out the Dentist Money Show YouTube channel and send us your financial questions so we can answer them on an upcoming episode.

Reese Harper: Just email me at reese@dentistadvisors.com, or ryan@dentistadvisors.com. And if you’re ready for a free consultation, go to the DentistAdvisors.com website and click the link at the top of the page, or just give us a call at 833-DDS-PLAN. Carry on.

Practice Management