4 Tips to Stay Ultra Productive During Quarantine – Episode 226

Have you ever thought, “If I only had some extra time, here’s how I’d improve my practice!” Well, you’ve got the time.

On this episode of the Dentist Money™ Show, Ryan interviews Kiera Dent of The Dental A-Team. A well-known dental practice coach, Kiera has numerous ideas for what you can do today to make your practice better tomorrow.

Get to know The A-Team’s four buckets for dental practice success as Kiera takes Ryan through her extensive list of things you could be working on. “This is your time for a mindset reset,” claims Kiera. Find out what you can do to improve your practice today.

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Podcast Transcript

Ryan Isaac:
Hey Dentist Money Show listeners. Got a great show for you today. Today on the show we have Kiera Dent, dental coach, business owner from the Dental A-Team. They are literally in hundreds of offices every year, all over the place working on manuals, and teams, and processes.

Ryan Isaac:
Today on the show, Kiera shares with us some things you can start working on today from home to improve processes, and teams, and systems by the time you get back, and some ways to make the practice more efficient and a better version of the practice when you get back to work after all this stuff blows over. So we really appreciate her taking the time to be with us today.

Ryan Isaac:
If you have any questions for us, you can go to dentistadvisers.com, click on the book free consultation button, and schedule a call with one of our advisors. We’re happy to chat with you. Or if you’d like to just post a question in our Facebook group, it’s dentistadvisers.com/group and we will answer it right away. Thanks again for tuning in everyone. We hope you’re all well and enjoy the show.

Announcer:
Consultant an advisor 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. This is Dentist Money. Now here’s your host, Ryan Isaac.

Ryan Isaac:
All right, welcome to the Dentist Money Show, where we help dentists make smart financial decisions. I’m your host, Ryan Isaac, joined by long time friend and big helper right now, Kiera Dent from the Dental A-Team. Kiera, thanks for joining us. How are you doing?

Kiera Dent:
Hi, I’m doing well. Thank you so much. It is fun when you enter that and we’re on this, and Ryan, we really have become such good friends through our careers and the things we do. We are always calling each other for help, so it’s great to be here. It’s great to connect together. I think right now it’s called, let’s bring all the resources from all the different people we can and help as many people as we can. So, that’s how I’m doing. How are you doing?

Ryan Isaac:
Crazy time. The world’s really scary right now, and as of right now, offices are closed, everyone’s battling laying people off, not laying people off. Lots of people are going to be hurting and there’s just so many unknowns. So on one hand, all of our hearts and thoughts go out to everyone. We are just hoping everyone can pull through. On the other hand, I’m trying to keep it light, trying to stay positive and like you just said, the world’s really scary right now, but it’s also super cool.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s one of the best things on the internet right now are all these innovative ways that individuals and companies, especially small businesses are coming together and everyone’s bending a little bit to just do whatever they can for the greater good. It’s really encouraging to see. So speaking of that, thanks for spending time. I’m sure you are really busy. So just a quick intro, if anyone doesn’t know, Kiera Dent, just a little odd to me, you probably should by this point. How about give us a little background. Who are you, what do you guys do? We’ll go from there.

Kiera Dent:
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. I am Kiera Dent. Dent really is my last name. I think Ryan, when I was on the podcast for the first time, I think Reese was the first person in my career to ask me if Dent really was my last name. So I get that a lot. Dent really my last name and we have the Dental A-Team. So we are the traveling coaches. We come into offices, we also do virtual coaching for all things teams. So doctors, all those systems, all the, how do I get my team to do this? Morale? Even right now we’re working with a ton of doctors. Even in the crisis right now, I don’t like the word crisis, I’ve tried to spin it to a mindset-

Ryan Isaac:
I don’t know what to call it now. The word social, I don’t want to hear social distancing ever again in my life. I’m so tired of that phrase. Very important. Practicing it, we all should, but I’m tired of hearing that word.

Kiera Dent:
I agree. It’s a little wild. So I’m changing it to a mindset reset. We were talking the other day, right? How many times have we all said, I wish I would have a week or two weeks off? If I didn’t have any patients, what would I do? I’m like, guess what guys? Life just gifted us this time. I think when we can spin it, and I go through, I feel like I’m on this pendulum of, I’m so positive, I’m ready to go. Then I’m like, the world’s going to fall apart.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s like hour to hour. You just had an earthquake where you live too. On top of all this, it was like an earthquake.

Kiera Dent:
I think my favorite meme I’ve seen out there is somebody posted like, hey, whomever started Jumanji could you hurry up and finish the ending?

Ryan Isaac:
Just stop.

Kiera Dent:
Come on, the things happening. But I also feel it’s one of those things to revisit what you’ve been doing, why you’ve been doing it. You’ve just been pulled out of life and I’m doing the same thing. What are we doing? Why are we doing it?

Kiera Dent:
This is an opportunity for us if we want, we’ve just been gifted time that we don’t have, and when this is over, time’s not going to be our commodity and so what can we do today to make sure that we are maximizing and really using this gift of time that we’ve been given.

Kiera Dent:
Even though it’s scary and I look at my bank account and it’s terrifying to see it like, okay, how much is going to drop and how much can I do this? I think it’s also one of those things, I can sit in the spirit of fear or I can look at this as, what can I do today? I think it’s the short term and the longterm things that we can be doing. What things do we have control over today, and then how is that going to prepare us for the future as well.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, I think that’s awesome. How about a quick recap or heads up on what’s a normal life for A-Team Dental, A-Team Kiera Dent? What do you guys normally do in a given month for people all over the country for dentists?

Kiera Dent:
Sure, yeah. So we actually travel to offices. That’s our big thing. People know us as the Dental A-Team that goes into your office. We’re boots on the ground. We come in and as soon as I work as office manager, treatment coordinator, scheduler, biller, I own practices. Since I did that I realized I don’t want somebody to come in with like, here’s point A, start here.

Kiera Dent:
So all of my coaches, every one of the people that go to your office, they have worked in your shoes. So we don’t just understand you, we are you. So our coaches go in, we look and assess where your practice is, from the business standpoint, to the team standpoint, to your financials, looking at all those different and then pulling all that together, making a customized process for you and your team. That way you can reach the goals together as a team.

Kiera Dent:
I believe that docs, you can be pulling that chariot by yourself, or you can get that whole team headed in the same direction and it’s much easier, it’s simpler. We can do less and create more. That’s really the goal of all of us. So we go to offices and then we’ll come home, we’ll do remote training via Zoom, coaching calls, online training. The goal is to get you guys within one to two years no longer a client. We want to pass it off, fly away from us and help the next batch of clients. So, that’s an average day in the life of the consulting world.

Ryan Isaac:
Hey everybody, here’s a few reasons why you should listen to our next webinar. First of all, the webinar format allows us to teach financial principles in a more interactive way. You get to see live graphics on your screen, sometimes I draw pretty pictures, and we have a live discussion that helps explain financial concepts in more detail. You can even send in questions live during the webinar and get an answer. Then we always do a Q and A after. So join us next time, go to dentistadvisors.com/events and sign up for the next webinar.

Ryan Isaac:
Let’s say everyone goes back to work 30 days from now, what would be the outcome you would like to see for dentists, and practices, and teams? Then what kind of breakdown, like how to achieve that?

Kiera Dent:
Yeah, awesome. I think it’s going to be, just like you said, and I actually when I was preparing for our podcast today, I put up four buckets of success that you can be doing right now. On those buckets of success, basically I was like, okay, bucket number one right now is business focus. You’ve got to get your CPA, your attorneys, your unemployment, that’s coming. Hop on the ADA.

Kiera Dent:
There is a petition right now to help dentists, so make sure you sign that. There’s links on the Dental A-Team on our website for you. So if you don’t have access to that, click there. We’re trying to keep a ton of resources coming for you, but that’s bucket number one. So get your business where you want to be. But also again, going back to short term and longterm, what’s the short term business focus and what’s the longterm?

Kiera Dent:
I actually have a client right now and we’re setting up profit first buckets. I had to reach out to you, Ryan. She’s looking to see how can she set this up so she’s strategically ready to go when this has passed and she’s back in the practice. Those things are super important because that’s a short term. Let’s figure out what’s going on in the longterm. Then bucket two is systems, systems galore. There are so many systems right now. Revisit the systems in your practice, revisit your flow, revisit your new patients, revisit your forms, your online forums, revisit how you’re doing these things and how could you simplify those processes. I think oftentimes it’s kind of like when you move and you have all this stuff in your closet, and then you’re like, why do I have this? We purge. Right now is the purging time and so purge.

Kiera Dent:
What systems could you revamp or like really? We’re all back in the office in 30 days. There is no reason you shouldn’t have an operations manual done, videos made, because you are just getting a ton of time. So that was bucket two.

Kiera Dent:
Bucket three I said personally for you, who are you as a person and what things do you want to keep going during this time? I think about what got us here. A lot of us were the gladiator. We were out there worrying out there, but maybe we need to take a step back and be more of a queen or king that’s more poised, that’s looking at the overall instead of like gladiator to the field, like running, killing ourselves over. What are those personal things? So for me, really diving into my Miracle Morning, meditation, I got an app called FitOn. What am I eating? Can I eat cleaner eating? Those types of things personally and what do you want that to look like?

Kiera Dent:
Then bucket four was your future office planning and strategizing. What does that actually look like for you? How do you want that to run? Have you always wanted to do fee for service? Have you wanted to add more sleep apnea, or have you wanted to bring in implants? Now you can take CE online. There’s teledentistry. Teledentistry might honestly change your practice. The Smile Virtual.

Kiera Dent:
You were just doing a podcast, Ryan, with somebody like that. But I think right now, this morning I said the phrase, I feel like I’m so paralyzed by fear that I don’t even know which way to go. Like that’s great, there’s four buckets, and that’s why I wanted to simplify it down into four buckets today of, okay, what’s my business focus, short term and long term, what are my systems short term longterm and what can I get done today? There are so many ideas that I’m happy to share. What about you personally? Who do you want to be? I can tell you today, Ryan, I don’t want to be the girl that’s traveling 265 days a year anymore. That’s not the life.

Ryan Isaac:
What was your record by the way? What was your record year? How many days? Was that it? What was your record?

Kiera Dent:
I think that was my best record of 265 days in a 365 day year. It wasn’t a leap year. I didn’t get that extra day in there. Then what do you want your future office planning and strategizing, what does that actually look like? Because if you can simplify it into those four buckets, and that’s what I’ve had to do myself of, what’s my business focus today? What do I want it to look like? Who do I want to be today and in the future? Then what are the systems I need to be putting into place?

Kiera Dent:
Think of what your patient is going to need when all this is over. They’re probably not going to have as much sick time. They’re not going to have as many days off. You also might not have as many team members, and you might realize there could be some different ways to strategize your practice. Those types of things I think right now, if we actually can maximize our time, and again, I’ve got ideas, Ryan, you and I work from home.

Kiera Dent:
I think that’s probably the biggest kicker for these people, is learning to work from home. If you can master that, Ryan, you told me something that I’ve thought of so many times. You told me Kiera, I don’t just let life happen to me. I actually create life. I’ve thought about that because it’s not like I think of Star Wars and just like creating life around me and are people willing to do the same thing right now and create your life even in the midst of this gift of time, whether it’s tumultuous, or a blessing, or a gift, or a pain, whatever it is, what are you willing to do with it?

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, okay. Well, I mean there’s so many things that we can do. I think you have some things you wanted to hit, like any of those categories, however you want to break it down. Let’s try to spend the next few minutes just going over what are some tangible things people can be practicing? I think the team thing and processes in the business. I mean it’s just like I cleaned the garage for the first time in living in my house in a year. It’s been a year since I’ve lived here. I cleaned the garage the other day because I had time. So we all have these garages we can clean now and we can come back, it is kind of a little bit of a fresh start in some ways. So I’ll let you take it from some of the tangible things that people could be working on and feel free to let us know about what resources, where they can find this stuff, and how they can work on it.

Kiera Dent:
My girls are really awesome. On the Dental A-Team, if you go to the dentalateam.com/strategy, we have a ton of free resources on there. Some of the things I’ll dive into, in those buckets, so I think Ryan is your go to guy when it comes to business. I’m not even going to touch that. Like teledentistry, CPAs, lines of credit, SBA loans, that’s not my zone of excellence. I’ll share what I’ve heard. Teledentistry I would get into a lot of offices are charging out, I heard $65 an exam. You can do it via Zoom, they can just call your office, schedule, doctors, you can be doing it. So I do think you should absolutely get on that and also signing the ADA. Those are the-

Ryan Isaac:
I was going to say, too, I think that’s awesome. The more I see teledentistry and virtual consults happening, you just said this, when this is all over, a lot of offices might not have full staff. Patients will be short on money and time. So maybe you’re not able to open the physical building up extended hours to accommodate patients who no longer can come to normal hours, but over the internet and Zoom conferencing and teledentistry, you can accommodate a lot of people with cramped schedules when this is all done pretty nicely. People will remember that too. Like, oh yeah, I got my dental stuff, my dentist told me what I should do at 8:00 PM at night on a video, you know? Oh, how neat is that? That’s really cool. A lot of opportunities for that.

Kiera Dent:
It’s so cool! Like I think it’s as scary as it feels, I always think, I remember I went to a conference and one of the speakers told me, I remember this, I took it out of it, and they said, when the pain gets so bad, that’s when new innovative ideas arise. I’ve shared the example, I think of this so often. I’ve shared examples of my own personal life. I felt like at a time my soul was a charred black forest. Like, you know how you see those burnt fields from like Mt. St. Helens or whatever and just black. That’s how I think some of us feel. Then all of a sudden you’ll see these little sprouts of green popping up of new ideas, innovative ideas. Honestly, that’s how I felt my soul was many times. I think if we so often can remember, life will spring again and life will come and it’s going to look different.

Kiera Dent:
I think when we can let go, like we’re going to go down the river guys, like we’re going down. Either you can be holding onto the branch and begging not to change, or let go and flow with the river. So many awesome things are changing and updating and innovating, and how cool is that? Think about being able to just crank through a ton of exams from home on teledentistry or being able to do smile makeovers from a Rubo when you’re sitting there sipping on pina coladas. Those types of things are so cool that we haven’t ever had something to force us in that direction.

Ryan Isaac:
I’ve been forced to, exactly. That’s so true. There’s a piece of behavioral psychology that gets studied, especially a lot in behavioral finance. It’s a mental bias called anchoring, and it’s where we as humans, we’re fixated, whether or not it’s rational, we’re fixated on something the way it is, and when things change we’re just stuck that it has to go back that way. I think that’s going to be a challenge for a lot of people. That happens in stock markets. It was at a certain point and people anchored to, it has to go back there, and it’s like, no it doesn’t, you don’t have to go back there. It can go bigger or smaller, and same with businesses. I think a lot of us are going to get stuck in like we got to get back to the way it was.

Ryan Isaac:
That might be true in some ways for sure. But we got to kind of check ourselves and be like, am I stuck on an old thing and the world’s different now, and now I have to innovate, and I have to change? I think that’s cool that you bring that up because everyone’s dealing with that. I mean, our company is dealing with that. Meeting every day is the executive team going, well, what should we change now? What should be different because we’re learning some things. So anyway, you go ahead, you can keep going. I just think that’s such a good point you brought up.

Kiera Dent:
Well, I like that because all teams are innovating right now and they say innovate or die. I think of that phrase so often. If we’re not willing to innovate, we will die. So are you a survivor? Are you a thriver? Are you the one who just says, no, I don’t want to. It’s okay, I don’t think there’s any judgment right now, but determine who you want to be. You might go on the pendulum of swinging all day long. Like, I’m a survivor, I’m dying. That’s okay.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s hourly.

Kiera Dent:
That’s okay! Hourly, daily, minutes. But I think it’s more important too, people in a lot of teams like to find a way to control a situation of chaos, and so what can you control right now and look to see what do you want to do. So I would suggest you guys jot down all the systems in your practice right now. I’m talking from new patients coming in, them calling on the phone, your handoffs, the way your rooms are set up, the way you do your billing, your AR.

Kiera Dent:
I will be completely honest, me, since I’ve got time at home, I dug into my AR today. We were looking at some different things and I was like, holy! One, I don’t even know how to find this information. That’s for starters. Where is this information even kept? Two, why are we billing certain things the way we’re billing? And three, I need to even understand this process. Docs, you’ve got time. I know it sounds silly, but if you can learn these things right now, those processes, you can probably figure out how to simply run these in an easier way, or at least understand the concepts. So write down all of the systems you have.

Kiera Dent:
What I mean by writing these systems down. These are the main, let me see, I have about 28 systems. So when I walk into a practice, I’m saying your overall system, they don’t have to be that in depth. They can be in depth, but just write down the systems you have. So for example, I’ve got morning huddle, your handoffs, route slips, charting, treatment planning verbiage, your cancellation policy, your end of day protocols, perio protocol, rescheduling appointments, tracking stats.

Kiera Dent:
So your KPIs every month, how you track that, how’s reported to you. Your weekly meeting protocol, your monthly meeting protocol. Is your operations manual complete? Then is your team using it? Onboarding, offboarding, hiring, firing, recare, unscheduled treatment plan, bonuses, your treatments are accurate, your AR, all things billing. So submitting claims, denials, predeterminations, all the processes within billing, your statements, Google reviews, referral protocol, insurance verification, KPIs, doctor OM meeting and associate calibration.

Kiera Dent:
That is not everything. That is not all systems. For me, that’s a pretty smooth operating office when I look for those things. When I work with an office, we have a whole black belt scorecard is what I call it, and I’ll jot down if you’re doing it or you’re not doing it. But overall, those are the 29, 28 systems that I look for when we’re in a practice.

Kiera Dent:
So for you offices, write down the systems you’re doing. I think the easiest way to do it is just to think when a patient calls in, what’s that system? When they get to the practice, what’s that system? When they’re leaving the practice, what’s that system? You need to figure out what all these systems are to make sure one, we have a protocol written down or video documentation. If not, let’s get there. That’s your operations manual.

Kiera Dent:
Now back that up. Every day, I want you to take at least 15 minutes at the beginning of your day and strategize what you’re going to do that day. Set three goals that you’re actually going to accomplish that day. So I usually will write, I need to get this course revamped. Maybe you’re going to say, I’m going to have from start to finish my new patient protocol updated, revamped with videos in place, and that’s all you’re going to get done for the day. I’m going to call Ryan, we’re going to figure out our finances, and I’m also going to check into teledentistry. Those are the three things that are my musts to get done.

Kiera Dent:
That’s going to help you actually strategize. Then we’re so used to running on schedules, so make sure you block schedule your time, meaning you’re going to actually pull out your planner or you’re going to look at your Google calendar and you’re going to say from 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM I’m going to work on this project. Then from 10:00 AM to 10:15 AM I’m going to take a break. From 10:15 AM to 12:00 PM I’m going to do this project. When you block schedule your time, you’re going to get a lot done. You’re not going to look back, think about this, this is what I think of, I’m going to be so sad if in a month from now when everything’s back up and going and I look back and I’m like, I had a month off. What did I do?

Ryan Isaac:
I watched so much Netflix. I’ve watched four shows.

Kiera Dent:
Which is great! Have some R & R. There’s nothing wrong with it.

Ryan Isaac:
No, but I get what you mean. It’s a rare time to have this much forced free time. Totally.

Kiera Dent:
Yes. So that’s what I’d say is write down those systems, see what you have, and then look to see. You’re not probably going to get all these done. These are the things that need to be put into play. I listed off 10 systems that I think could be really beneficial for you guys to implement today to get these things down.

Kiera Dent:
So I just listed off 25 systems. So in case you haven’t thought about that, put that on your list, but don’t just check these off one by one. Look to see what system can you simplify that’s going to push your ball forward the most. So when your practice, you get back into it, it’s the actual practice you want to be a part of. Don’t just check it off cause Kiera says this makes the dream practice, check it off and do it because it’s actually going to move your practice forward and make it more simple when people come in.

Ryan Isaac:
Okay, so these are 10 really common ones that the average practice might not already have, from your experience, and should emerge from this time off having worked on.

Kiera Dent:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Cool. I was going to ask that. Great.

Kiera Dent:
Yep. So this is what I would say, and these are not in any particular order. I’m just going to list them off. I’ll explain why, and this way you guys can really just sink your teeth in. So first and foremost, AR. Get that billing because that’s going to be cashflow you can come in. I think you should go after insurance AR.

Kiera Dent:
There should be no reason at the end of 30 days that you don’t have your insurance AR cleaned up. Insurance companies are still working. You can get all those submitted, you can get all that done. I would also look to see how you can simplify that. So get a billing spreadsheet right now, daily, weekly, monthly. Your team could be working remotely from home on a set schedule that you’ll then reintroduce when people are back in the practice.

Ryan Isaac:
You’re just saying put it in a Google Doc where everyone could work on it simultaneously. Share it with your team who’s going to help you work on it and keep these notes updated and keep working on it.

Kiera Dent:
For sure. Exactly. It’s exactly what it is, and insurance AR, a lot of people have asked me, patient AR, do we send it off because we don’t want our patients then not paying their balances in three months when we’re back in the office. So I say tread lightly on patient AR. I would review every account and if you choose to send them a statement, I would write a handwritten note on that AR for patient AR. So insurance AR, there’s no reason you should have anything hanging out-

Ryan Isaac:
Don’t feel bad for them. It’s okay

Kiera Dent:
Get them to pay you! Get them to pay you right now.

Ryan Isaac:
Demand your money.

Kiera Dent:
Yes, exactly. So, that’s going to be something that I think you guys could use.

Ryan Isaac:
As you’ve listened to our podcast, maybe there’s a question about your finances you’ve wanted to ask. It’s easy to get an answer. All you do is just pick up that phone, give us a call at 833-DDS-PLAN to set up a consultation. Or if you don’t want to call us, you can just go to the website at dentistadvisers.com, click the book free consultation button and set it up. It’s free. Do it today.

Kiera Dent:
So ops manual. Operations manual is going to be a huge project that shouldn’t be hard. I’ve mapped it out. If you guys want, I have a whole list of table of contents, and the way I break it down is have every team member write down what they do on the daily, the weekly, the monthly, the quarterly and the annual. So they’ll write down literally like, I’m a dental assistant, so my day to day flow looks like this. That is going to help you start to build protocols because then you look at that and if it’s, I clock in, then I set up for an endo, then I set up for a crown. Well if you have a new person coming into your practice, could they do all those pieces for you? Yes or no? If not, that’s what we need them for.

Kiera Dent:
So I’ve been telling offices think in the terms of, could you train somebody in two weeks from home virtually on these processes, and if not, get that in place so that way you could. So make videos, go to the office, do trace setups, pictures, step-by-steps, that’s your operations manual.

Kiera Dent:
So an operation’s manual doesn’t have to be hard. It doesn’t have to be time consuming. That’s why you write down all those systems and this way you can dive into your operation’s manual right now.

Ryan Isaac:
I was just going to say too, is this an opportunity for offices to, maybe there’s an owner who didn’t love this part of the business before, didn’t feel like they were very organized or knew how to get a handle on this stuff, to then now have everyone come back, even if it’s the same employee and go, hey, now I have these scorecards just to help us stay more organized and accountable. Understanding what everyone’s working on. Maybe it’s just a chance to implement just that little tiny piece of organization with teams that you didn’t have before.

Kiera Dent:
Yeah, absolutely. I love that you said that because so often we think there’s no way we can stop the train and rework it and-

Ryan Isaac:
Oh it stopped!

Kiera Dent:
The train stopped guys. You can put in new protocols, whatever you wanted. Like if you heard Ryan talk on podcasts, or you’ve heard the Dental A-Team, or you heard Mark Costas or any of the people out there and you’re like, I want my practice to look like this. Well guess what? Today’s the day to day to do it. You can do that. So ops manual, AR, I put on here room setups, get pictures of those or videos of those.

Kiera Dent:
Trainual is a fantastic resource that you can have these on. We use Kajabi, so all my consultants go through an online course. I can check to see where they are. It tells me how much it is. I can upload videos, have quizzes, they can take it. Trainual is very similar. So I would get it on there because think of if you can hire them and train them in two weeks, what do you need to have for that? Yeah, this might be a pretty hefty project. You’ve got time on your hands. Put in the time today to make a better day tomorrow. It’s going to save you so much time.

Ryan Isaac:
Even a few of these things would just be a huge improvement. If they didn’t exist before they’re going to make a big difference. Again, as a reminder, we’ll be able to link a list of where to find these resources and find this list on the website.

Kiera Dent:
Yep, exactly. Other things you guys can do, videos for patient education. I have a lot of docs who do implants, sleep apnea. Guys, get your cell phones out. You can literally set it up there. I’ve heard white walls are best, which is why we just painted ours white. It’s okay, you can have yellow, no big deal, do whatever’s in your house. You can literally make patient education. You could go on YouTube, you could link it. This is the time to make patient videos.

Kiera Dent:
Then you could also double that and use that for social media because you can do 52 weeks of social media, and I’ll talk about some ideas for social for you guys. Your new patient flow. What about forms? If you always want to have them online, get your website developer to get online forms. Flex is fantastic for open dental. They’ll have all forms online, they’ll sync right into your software for you. So those would be some things.

Kiera Dent:
Look to see like how clunky is that for your new patient calling you? What could you improve? How could you make it simpler for them? Because we’ve got to get our patients into our practice. Even teledentistry patients right now, that new patient flow, the forms, your online forms, all your patient forms could be updated right now as well. Get your new logo on it, update your website. Now’s a great time to do that.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s a ton of stuff. There’s so many good things there. Thanks for bringing that up.

Kiera Dent:
Yeah, you bet ya. So I’m going to go through the last five and then you can do whatever you want from there. Phone calls scripting. Back on the strategy webpage with the girls, what they gave you on the strategy page. We even have on here the free resources for you guys. We have front office verbiage, so we have verbiage we have working from home, a billing flow charts. If you don’t understand how AR works, I’ve made a flow chart so you can literally see the process of how billing works for you.

Kiera Dent:
Think of all the different types of phone calls coming in. How do you want it to sound? Those things can help you. Also, if your teams are still working, get them on Zoom. You guys could do role play. I know that sounds silly, but people really, practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes permanent. So you could ask them, okay Kiera, your job is to do a new patient phone call. How would you answer and do like a ring ring, a practice. Role play, some of these processes through, even via Zoom or Google Hangout, you’ll be shocked. But what’s really great is if you do it on Zoom and you hit record, you could actually double these training videos with your team as videos for your online training process.

Ryan Isaac:
You know something you were talking about a few minutes ago that I think would be so powerful and impactful is, I mean you’re just saying like get out your cell phone and record a video to your patients. Put it on your social media, put on your website, email it out to your patients. As a patient of a dentist I don’t care if there’s not a professional video shot, like I don’t even want to see that.

Ryan Isaac:
I want to see my dentist being his normal self and fumbling through things and misspeaking and just being like a candid, normal, real life human, but taking time to send me a video and letting me know what’s happening in the practice, with his staff, the things that are still working on, what they’re still open for, what they’ll be focusing on when they do open. That would mean a lot to me as a patient and I wouldn’t care at all if it was a cell phone sitting in a office or bedroom at home. Do it in your kitchen, it doesn’t matter to me. That would mean a lot as a patient though, I would just be like, oh, this person really cares about their practice and their patients a lot.

Kiera Dent:
I think one of the biggest things you can be doing right now is staying active on social and where all those patients are. To your point, Ryan, they don’t care. They just want to see where you’re at. We all think it has to be perfectly polished and perfected. Because people want to know you’re just like them. They want to know that you’re sitting in your bedroom because you had to throw your wreath on your door because that’s real life because it’s being painted out there and your computer sitting on your bed.

Kiera Dent:
That’s literally what’s happening right now. That’s real life guys. That’s real life. If you really want to know, yes, I have yoga pants on and slippers because I’m freezing in my house. Those are real life things that are happening. So that’s the type of stuff and I put up here, I have on here a social media calendar that you guys can do with your clients. I came up with 52 weeks of topics for the Dental A-Team.

Kiera Dent:
You could do 52 weeks of topics as dentists. So I did morning, end of day checklist, literally brain dump all the things that your patient might want to hear about the practice. You could do dental education tips, you could also do CE that you’re taking and you could do personal things about you and your family if you want to share any of that. So you can do 52 weeks. Then I have on here, and I wanted to pop it up, but you guys could create this as well, of your social media calendar per quarter. It has the day, it has YouTube, blog, podcasts, email campaigns, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.

Kiera Dent:
You literally could map out what you’re going to talk about. You could binge record a ton of these. I’m happy to share that because that’s how we keep everything organized. I think right now we want to know what can we do? These are things you can do today, right now for you, for your team, for your patients that really will make an impact and a difference. Just think if you build out 52, I literally you guys, when I do videos and Ryan, I’m sure you’re the same, maybe you’re not. I’ve learned, I’ve gotten smarter. If I wear a Dental A-Team t-shirt, I don’t have to change my shirt so many videos so it looks like I wasn’t batch recording.

Ryan Isaac:
I figured that out recently. I just wear a Dentist Money shirt every day of my life and it’s always branded and I never change.

Kiera Dent:
It’s so prime. So if you have any of those, wear those. Otherwise, what I used to do is I would take like 10 shirts in with me to my office, I would set it up. Then I would have 10 and then I switched shirts, 10, switch shirts, 10, switch shirts. So that way you can then move them around and it doesn’t look like you just did a batch recording but you could literally bust out 52 videos very quickly and then you could plug and play where you want to put them in.

Kiera Dent:
I would look to see before you just batch record, make your whole list, but then be of what are my patients going to need in quarter two? What are they going to need in quarter three? In quarter four? Build content around that. So you actually are building your marketing strategy because yes, we still have to market. We still need to be strategic in this, even when things feel a little chaotic. So hopefully Ryan, those were some ideas that will be beneficial for you, be beneficial for your audience and that we can really share with everybody,

Ryan Isaac:
That was a ton. Yeah, that was actually so much. Thanks for going through that. It just made me realize too, when you’re talking about just starting somewhere with recording, and content, and media, it can be really overwhelming. But in our company we’ve been doing content, video, and podcasts for a long time and the early ones are, I can’t even listen to them. They make me cringe so much. But they were a beginning, you know? They were a start. They were the first step into a long journey and you just got to go, you just got to know that you’re going to hate the first ones. When you’re at video 100, you’ll be like, oh, the first one was pretty bad, but no one cares. People just want to hear from you. They want to hear the genuine you, the real you.

Ryan Isaac:
If you’re a quieter personality, be quiet. Be a softer, quieter, if you’re loud and boisterous, you talk a lot then just do that. Just do your thing but starting somewhere and then just realizing that it’s okay. You’ll hate the early ones eventually and just keep trying to get some.

Ryan Isaac:
Okay. There’s so much stuff. Thanks for sharing all this stuff. We will link as much as possible everything we can that you mentioned. Anything else you want to like, parting words? Let everyone know? Anything you would love to see people come out of this something different, something changed. Anything else you want to mention?

Kiera Dent:
Yeah. I purposely dumped so much content on these podcasts and on these webinars because I feel like, hey, if you will just pick up one of those nuggets. I don’t care which one you start with. I don’t care where you start. The idea is momentum builds and we can either build in an upward fashion or we can build in a downward fashion.

Kiera Dent:
So just if you’ll start, even if you will say, okay, tomorrow I’m going to work on me, and I’m going to meditate, and I’m going to write down three things to get done for the day. High five, you’re at least starting to build momentum and you’ll start to gain on that momentum building traction.

Kiera Dent:
Something that I’ve been telling myself over and over and over again is I get to create my future. The winners write history. So what are you going to write and now is your time. Now is the time for you to become the practice you’ve always wanted it to be, to be the dentist, to be the leader, but it won’t happen if you just sit there and binge on podcasts, binge on Netflix. You actually have to take that first step like Ryan said.

Ryan Isaac:
That is awesome. Thank you so much. They could find A-Team, what’s the website again?

Kiera Dent:
Thedentalateam.com because we’re cool like that.

Ryan Isaac:
The Dental A-Team.

Kiera Dent:
The, like The Facebook, and The Home Depot like-

Ryan Isaac:
The Ohio State.

Kiera Dent:
Because somebody owns Dental A-Team, and I don’t know who they are, and they won’t sell it so it’s got to be The Dental A-Team

Ryan Isaac:
[inaudible 00:35:34] sneaky, thedentalateam.com, Kiera Dent, thank you for joining us. Really appreciate your time. Best of luck to you, and your family, and your employees, and everyone you guys serve. Thanks for all the work you’re doing.

Ryan Isaac:
Thanks everyone for tuning in and we really appreciate it and best wishes for everyone out there and we’ll talk to you later. Thanks.

Kiera Dent:
Thanks.

Ryan Isaac:
My thanks Kiera Dent, thanks for joining me today. That was a lot of really helpful information. Even if you just pick one or two of those items on that big list, you will come out of this more prepared, probably more efficient and happier in the practice you’re running. We will link to all those links in show notes. Thanks for tuning in and we really appreciate you listening. Best wishes to everyone out there. Best of luck going through all this stuff. Let us know if we can help with anything. Go to dentistadvisers.com, click book free consultation. We’re happy to chat with you anytime and thanks again for tuning in. We’ll catch you next time.

Practice Management