Practice Insights from a Dentist, a Consultant, and an Advisor – Episode #439

A dentist works in the here and now. A consultant has to look to the near future. And an advisor thinks long term. Together they bring three unique perspectives that can help you navigate the many challenges dentists face. On this episode of the Dentist Money™ Show Ryan, Kiera Dent, and Dr. Ashley Joves discuss the value of workplace fun and what to do about rising team costs.

Show notes:
The Making Of Retreat
Dental A Team

 

 

 

 

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Podcast Transcript

Ryan Isaac:
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Dentist Money Show, brought to you by Dentist Advisors, a no commission, the only fiduciary, comprehensive financial advisor just for dentist. Check us out at dentistadvisor.com. Today on the show, kind of a fun format. I host Kiera Dent from the Dental A team and Dr. Ashley Joves. We tackle opening a second location, having fun in your career, what to do with the changes in environment and pay and cost of team and leadership and hiring and how to maintain these things in a healthy balance in your dentist and your personal life. Many thanks to Kiera and Ashley for spending their time. This episode will go on their shows as well. This is a super cool format to pose some questions and then get the perspective of practicing dentist. Very successful practicing dentist, a dental consultant and myself as a financial advisor. So thanks to them, it was super fun. If you have any questions for us, go to dentistadvisors.com and book a free consultation. We’d love to have a chat with you. Thanks for being here everybody. 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:
So I’m gonna pose a question, for Kiera, but then Ashley, the dentist, in the trenches in the, well, I say trenches but then I saw pictures of your new practice and I wouldn’t call those trenches.

Kiera Dent:
No. She’s in like the bougiest of the bougie of the most gorgeous, like, I want her to decorate my home type practice. She had Ryan…

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Kiera Dent:
Hold on, as we’re talking, it will be a consultant, Dentist and advisor’s perspective.

Ryan Isaac:
Okay.

Kiera Dent:
Ashley will come back when she wants to come back to the party.

Ryan Isaac:
Popping back on and off.

Kiera Dent:
But with Ashley, you’re gone again. With that, Ashley has, Ryan, I kid you not, In her sterilization room, gold handles for the drawers and sterile with black countertops of just like pure bougie gorgeousness of sterilization. I was blown away. I’m like, you wanna eat dinner here but it’s gross. Sterile but it looks beautiful.

Ryan Isaac:
But it’s clean. Well…

Kiera Dent:
It was so great.

Ryan Isaac:
Okay, let’s use that for the beginning question then. ‘Cause this is fascinating to me as a financial advisor. Kiera, this is your whole business and I get questions on this all the time. Ashley, how did you decide to go to that location? What was going on in your life, in your other practice, with your goals, with your money, cashflow, your patients, demogra… All of it? What led you to go from where you were to where you are now in apparently this gold handled palace of dental dreams [laughter]

Dr. Ashley Joves:
Wow. Well, I… Okay, so… Man, how long do we have? No. So in my first location in Folsom.

Ryan Isaac:
Doesn’t matter.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
All day, all day. I love it. In my first location, it was six. Oh, it is six ops. We had at one point 13 team members. No room to breathe. And honestly, like I feel stifled when I’m like too close to people. I think it’s also, as I’ve gotten older, I just don’t wanna be around that many humans anymore. Is that weird? [laughter]

Ryan Isaac:
So relatable. Like you are there.

Kiera Dent:
It’s so relatable.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s my love language. Anti-social behavior is my love language.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
Right, yes.

Kiera Dent:
Well, you guys have the, LOMO into the FOMO, the Love of Missing Out.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Oh yeah.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
The Love of Missing Out, and we’re both Enneagram sevens, so Yeah…

Kiera Dent:
‘Cause I still have FOMO, so I can’t completely relate, but I do enjoy…

Ryan Isaac:
Actually a huge FOMO.

Kiera Dent:
But I do enjoy my alone time after meeting with people. I’m like, no. Shut this off. I’m done.

Ryan Isaac:
Just leave me alone.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
Just shut it off.

Ryan Isaac:
Very relatable though. Yeah.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
It was. So I had this one really successful practice. We were just cranking six ops running full steam ahead, like chickens with our heads cut off. And I honestly, I dreaded just going to the practice. I was like, this is claustrophobic. When I first started this location, it was super zen. We had almost nothing on the countertops. We had like plants, and that was it. And now like I walk in and they’re like, sterilization is just crazy. And it was just not fun anymore practicing. And especially with Covid. So with Covid, like the pandemic, I mean, I didn’t have Covid, but with the Pandemic, things just changed. Now we needed to have all this PPE. Now, it really took away that personalization even more. I mean, dentistry was already a tough sell for people. Right. And now we have like, the masks. It was just like, we need to, get away from each other. Like, that whole social distancing, I feel was almost like a blessing in disguise quite honestly.

Ryan Isaac:
Can We bring it back? Yeah. Let’s go back a little bit.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
Does anyone else miss it? Like quarantine? Because I kind of do [laughter]

Ryan Isaac:
I feel like I shouldn’t be too positive because it was very, very bad for so many people, but I didn’t have the worst year of my life. It wasn’t the worst.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
No, it wasn’t.

Kiera Dent:
I think it was something where it just resented all of us, right? It went back to like more family time and spending time with people that I went to and then enjoying when I’m at work. And I did miss the, like, I think human interaction was nice, but I think it became something of like, I feel like we were human interaction on steroids. Then we went to like, no interaction on steroids to where I think we’re kind of trying to find like what really is the happy medium between the two.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
Yes.

Ryan Isaac:
And that’s interesting to hear, the words that are standing out, Ashley, as you’re saying this story though, these are the words that stand out to me. So this is heavily biased, but you just said you weren’t having fun anymore?

Dr. Ashley Joves:
Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
And, I feel like that’s such an underappreciated part of a career. Like everything is like progress and money and status and achievement and those things are great. Those aren’t bad things, but, where’s the fun? You know? Yeah. Because like, we do this for most of our lives, so where’s the fun? I like that you said that as like something you notice and that became a priority you wanted to focus on.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
Yeah, no, and I found…

Kiera Dent:
I think Ashley’s… So many, so many doctors, Ryan, to your point, like hearing so many of them, I do feel like they don’t prioritize their personal lives. And I think Ashley, that’s something you do very differently, which I love to highlight, is they think that fun is not something that they can expect… They think that work should just be like a mode of this. But I’m like, if we’re not working to enjoy life. Like, like, are you working to live? Or are you living to work? And neither one’s right? But I think it’s such an undervalued portion of life, and those who prioritize it are happier. I mean, like, Ashley seeing you yesterday in your practice, you were so excited to show me your office. You have your like, smile studio. I feel like that energy really is infused back into you. And so, so many offices, I tell them like, you’ve gotta have that office as a space that you love. If you wanna be super productive and profitable. Because when you are flourishing and thriving, that’s when you’re actually really productive. When you’re in this like, suck of energy, you actually struggle to be profitable and productive because you just don’t enjoy being there. So to Ryan’s point, I think it’s super underrated, which should be top rated if we really wanna have that fulfilling, profitable life that we’re also searching for.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
Amen. And so funny you mentioned fun because fun is one of our core values also. And I know that it’s a core value with the dental A team. Is it one of your core values too, Ryan?

Ryan Isaac:
You know what’s funny about that is it is now. So we kind of, yeah, no, we like for, for real, shout out to, Matt MoCok who was, at the helm for Dennis Advisors these days. And he kind of helped us re-Institute some new core values in our company that we just discussed a few months ago. And actually that is one of our top ones. Awesome. Yeah. Made me really happy. I love to see that.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
Awesome.

Kiera Dent:
Why don’t we, I’m just gonna ask the question for all of our different perspectives. Why do you think that people don’t prioritize fun? Why do you think in dentistry as an industry fun, isn’t something prioritized? And I would say even not just dentistry, but in society. I don’t know if either of you have a thought on that, Ryan, of course. I’m sure you have a thought, we’ll circle to you first, but what are, why, why do we feel fun? Might not be, I mean, like, for you guys to bring it in as a core value. I started the company to have fun, so I was like, forget that I’m having fun.

Ryan Isaac:
Good for you.

Kiera Dent:
And we’re not adding sprinkles and my life’s amazing. I don’t wanna do this. But I don’t think it’s really there. Maybe it is and maybe I don’t see it. I don’t know.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, it could be personal perspective. I mean, I would agree with that. It could be generational, it could be the, you know, age groups, how we grew up, it could be cultural, upbringing there. I mean, you go on social media and scroll through it and how there’s so much emphasis on like, sacrifice and grind. Like it feels like the cheesiest thing nowadays is like, what’s your morning routine? It’s like, I don’t sleep. At 2:00 AM I’m cold plunging and I’m meditating. Like, those things are so great, but there’s like so much emphasis on like grind and sacrifice. And, but that could be generational. That could be things I notice from my age group and generation. I do feel like, I dunno if I’d call it fun, but I would, I do feel like younger generation, emphasizes maybe call it fulfillment or meaning or purpose better than, like my generation does. I don’t know if they call it emphasizing fun, but Yeah, I think they do a better job. So there’s probably a lot of factors, but it is a thing. It’s a total thing.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
Yeah. And from a dentist perspective, I mean, gosh, we graduate with a million dollars in debt. It feels like you buy a practice, there’s an extra million dollars. You do a startup, it’s now 750,000 is the average to start up, plus the 750,000 in school loans. And then we have these, these PPO reimbursement rates where like, insurance companies are just paying you 50 cents on the dollar. So now you have no choice but to crank. You have to see multiple patients running around with your head cut off. So it’s not surprising that there is no fun in most dental practices. Everyone’s just trying to survive. And in California, I mean, Kiera, we went through my overhead with staff costs, like these, RDAs with almost no experience. They’re making a good amount of money. And even the fast food industry, Chick-fil-A or, what is it? It’s gonna be $20 an hour for fast food? So…

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
There’s not a lot of fun in that [laughter] You have to compete.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. It’s the pressure.

Kiera Dent:
It’s one of those things where, I mean, if I went back to historic times and I am trying to survive, there probably wasn’t a lot of fun, I would think in those times. Like of course you can always make fun in whatever situation you are, but actually you bring up a good point. If you’re in survival mode, you are not in fulfillment seeking. You’re in. I just have to like, find my daily bread and get through this. That Then I think on the other side is that breathing room. That’s the fun thing. How did you do it in your practice, Ashley? ’cause you started it with fun. You, I think were very different from a lot of dentists I know where, I mean, I saw you at Smile & Co the first one. We had a like, cute memory yesterday when you fluffed the pillows in your office. And I remember when I went to your first practice, you took me outside to the patio and you fluffed the pillows there.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
Because every practice has a patio, [laughter],

Kiera Dent:
Every practice has a lounge area. Ashley’s like, sit on the couch in my office. ’cause it’s more comfy and cozy here. Like who has a couch and prioritizes this beautiful space. But I feel like Ashley, you’ve done that even with the debt, even with the startup, even with the pressure. Do you have any thoughts on, from a dentist perspective, like you, yeah, it’s stressful, but in survival mode, you still found a way to have it enjoyable for yourself?

Dr. Ashley Joves:
Quite honestly, it was because of a need. Like, I hate the dentist. I think the, as an overarching theme, most dental practices are awful. They’re like, they’re not fun for the patient. It’s always rushed. It’s not personalized. And obviously, the people who are listening to this, they’re creme de la creme, right? People who listen to podcasts are always trying to be better. But generally speaking, there’s a lot of sleepy practices that we talked about, Kiera, where it’s awful. It’s awful. I’ve worked in those offices as an associate. And it was actually during my time in a pediatric office. I worked in Pedo for five years. And it was so nice to sing The Little Mermaid to Kids while, giving them, anesthetic.

Ryan Isaac:
Wait, Wait, which song which song would you actually sing? And can we…

Kiera Dent:
Can you give us [0:13:24.4] ____.

Ryan Isaac:
Five seconds. Five seconds. Yeah.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
I don’t want your ratings to go down guys. I really would never do that to your audience.

Kiera Dent:
I Think it would definitely skyrocket Ashley. I mean, I shared an embarrassing Invisalign story yesterday with your team. I mean, let’s just keep on rolling with the…

Ryan Isaac:
Which song at least, were you singing?

Dr. Ashley Joves:
The look at this stuff. Isn’t it neat [laughter], wouldn’t…

Ryan Isaac:
Okay. All right. So You miss something, anyway.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
Okay. You guys are having me sweat here, [laughter] So, so I’m working on these kids and the parents would say, do you guys see adults here? Like, and they would be genuinely serious about the question. And, we’re sorry, we’re a pediatric office, and why couldn’t we be silly and dance in hallways and maybe tell inappropriate jokes [laughter] from time to time? I don’t know. That’s just my personality. And if this is the career that I have chosen for myself, there is no way I’m going to work for the next two, three, four decades and not enjoy coming to work. I’m sorry. It’s just not gonna fly.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. I love that. It’s so much of our lives spent working. Okay. So going back and then I’ve been thinking of another topic that we could maybe round this out with, that both of you have really good experience with. I know our audience would love to hear about this, and I think yours will too. But to finish this out, so the second location, you got this thing going, it’s clearly from what I’ve seen in here, it’s pretty amazing. How has that transform things then from where you were to how you’re feeling about them now? And then how do you feel about like, where they’re going in the future?

Dr. Ashley Joves:
In terms of like just where Smile & Co is going or?

Ryan Isaac:
Sure. Like yeah, career, like, how does it progress from here for you, moving from the one to the two, and did you get fun back? Are you having fun? Was it gold handles in the patio and the pillow, or like, is that fun? Did it help? Did it work?

Dr. Ashley Joves:
It is everything that I could have asked for and then some, but all this to say is, I mean, it’s still a rollercoaster. It’s… With this beautiful new office there is, there’s growth and with growth there is discomfort. And when there’s discomfort, there’s loss and a mourning period of what was, so now we are navigating, what does this even look like for our culture? We used to be this one big happy family working together, having fun, and now I’ve taken half my team and split them into the two offices. So now they’re navigating those feelings of not seeing each other all the time. And then the vibe is different. And I didn’t realize how different, well, I guess I knew that the way I interact with patients is different than how the other doctors interact with patients. Not to say that one is bad and one is good, but the vibe is different.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
And now I’m navigating, okay, what does this look like as a brand, as Smile & Co grows? And as we scale, I still want this to be in my blood, sweat and tears in my brand, but how do I take a step back so that it’s still embodying all of those core values, but not necessarily reliant just on me anymore to be the face, to be the fun, to be this culture. And, so that’s been, that’s definitely been a challenge. And it was already a challenge when I took a step back and I hired associates and now let them do all the new patients and the exams. But now that I’m dividing my time, so I’m in the new space, like I don’t want the old space, but not the old space, the first space to feel neglected or that it’s not being showered with the love and attention that it deserves. So it’s basically like having a second kid, right? And, you have this newborn baby, and now your firstborn is like vying for… Not vying for your attention, but it’s different. There’s…

Ryan Isaac:
The dynamic.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
The dynamic.

Ryan Isaac:
Everything’s definitely is permanently changed. Thanks for sharing that. Kiera, Can you talk to that about, you in the consulting role, improving these things? And you field these questions, that’s what you do professionally. You hear these concerns. How do you hear that as a consultant and how do you plan to address all this stuff? Like what does that look like on your side?

Kiera Dent:
Yeah. I think Ashley, what you’re describing is what I think anytime there’s a big transition in dentist lives. So like when they go by their first practice, they’re so excited about doing it, and instantly their lives change. And it’s like, hold on, like, this was a dream I’ve dreamed up. And then I think it’s the expectation versus the reality gap, which causes like some deep depression and like some like, whoa, whoa, how does this go? And then you’re trying to like navigate, now you’re an owner, you’re not an associate or a student. Now you’re a multi-practice owner versus just a single one. And I think it’s the…

Kiera Dent:
I just think it’s cyclical of a business, and we forget that these are seasons within the business that’s totally normal and there’s really no way to prepare for it. And it’s really, you gotta like go through it and be able to sustain while going through it. So what does that look like? You don’t wanna suck the fun. Ashley did this to have fun, and I’m sure there are some days, I’m not here to speak for Ashley, but for doctors that I’ve coached and seen, it isn’t fun. It’s like that you dream of this, you dream of making a million dollars, and the day you do, it’s kind of like, well wait, it fell short from what I thought I would feel. And so it’s figuring out how to navigate it, and I think stabilize the expectation with reality and make it fun.

Kiera Dent:
But there is this growing period, and so helping them realize, like when everything is in chaos and confusion, what needs to be prioritized? What needs to happen? Because I think it’s all this all consuming. I feel like I have to do everything right now, rather than where do I need to invest my energy? What does this look like? And I call it like the three to six month shakeout of any new change. So it’s a new associate doctor, a new practice, a second location, a third location. It’s usually a three to six month shakeout before things actually shake and settle. But look at the rest of your life, when you buy a new home, when you have a new baby, when you get in a new relationship, like when you get married and you’re adjusting to that life, when you start school.

Kiera Dent:
So it’s these big monumental changes and you get a new team, you get a new office manager, you lose a team member, these are the their moments in time that I think really need to be given more love, more energy, and also us instead of doing that, grind it out. Let’s prioritize and actually let’s refuel ourselves internally, so that way we can output because there is more output. And so really I just think for me, I would, I boil it down to the basic, let’s make sure you’ve got your profitability numbers figured out. Let’s make sure you’ve got a team and we’re maximizing while simplifying at the same time. So like, if I could choose one thing to implement in a team, which is exactly what we did with Ashley’s office yesterday. If I could only choose one thing that’s gonna drive and fix a lot of their problems, we’re gonna highlight that and get the whole team rowing in that direction.

Kiera Dent:
And then really like almost center, the owner of this is what you do, a step A, B, C, and I’m gonna check in with you because I think they’re trying to do like the whole alphabet soup and it just constantly spins them. And I really think that is for outside perspective. Your advisor board, like Ryan, I’m talking this of like, I’m so experienced in this, which I am for dentists, but my own life, I call you and I’m like, talk me off the ledge. I’m ready to sell this. I don’t wanna do this anymore. I thought this was going to be fun. And so I think it’s just all of us need to have a grounding person that really has the answers and the resources for us. But also give the space that it’s a three to six month period which seems forever in the moment. And in reality it’s a small dot on the timeline of your entire life. So let’s not let this small dot on the timeline of our entire life overshadow the goodness of what we wanted this to become, and like, give it time to become what it’s capable of being.

Ryan Isaac:
I’m laughing to myself because in your business, you’re trying to get people to hold on for three to six months while things change. In my business I need people to give it a few decades for their investment accounts to be okay. Like, hey, in 20 years it’s gonna be fantastic. It’s okay. It’s a lot of trust. Just keep going I promise it’s gonna be okay.

Kiera Dent:
It is trust.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
Thank you…

Kiera Dent:
Ryan, [0:22:26.9] ____ money monsters, but I call him like the cookie monster. I’m like, Ryan, I just like give you money, but I actually like don’t know where it goes, how I get it back. And that’s probably really good.

Ryan Isaac:
I mean you do.

Kiera Dent:
I do.

Ryan Isaac:
But we’re working on it. Yeah.

Kiera Dent:
But that’s a good way of [0:22:39.2] ____.

Ryan Isaac:
Just as a disclaimer, your money goes somewhere and it’s protected by a third party and you’re not being scammed.

Kiera Dent:
I’m not.

Ryan Isaac:
Thanks. No, yeah, no, thanks for sharing all of that, Ashley. I think the questions on your mind are just so relevant for people. The environment of dentistry right now with all the consolidation, all the DSOs out there, there’s gonna be eventually this big group of that neither good nor bad, whatever, it’s just different. And then there’s gonna be a group of probably multi-location practice owners. And it’s gonna be the people in that group who really figure out the answers of the questions you’re dealing with right now. So it’s really healthy to kind of go through all of these.

Ryan Isaac:
Here’s another thing that’s on my mind a lot lately. I was just on a call with a client this morning talking about this, and that’s people cost and people… You were just, when we started, you’re getting new people. How do you attract talent? How do you keep it? I think on all the P&Ls I’m seeing now for the last two years, people cost is up from an average in the 20%, and now to like 30% people cost.

Kiera Dent:
Easily.

Ryan Isaac:
Someone told me the other day that $1.5 million practice is the new $1 million practice.

Kiera Dent:
Absolutely.

Ryan Isaac:
You gotta… The benchmarks you have to hit to break even and feel okay are just getting higher and higher. Can the both of you speak to that? People, team leadership, the cost of it. How sustainable is it? What are you doing? How are you working on it?

Kiera Dent:
Yeah.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
Crying.

[laughter]

Kiera Dent:
Crying…

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you Ashley for your answer. Kiera, what is your…

[laughter]

Ryan Isaac:
It’s very honest and succinct. Crying. I like that.

Kiera Dent:
Crying.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. You’re not lying. Yeah.

Kiera Dent:
Just crying.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
I’m not.

Kiera Dent:
Just crying the whole time.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Ashley, what do you… What you hear, you’re in the middle of it. You’re testing new boundaries with the growth of it. How do you think about just how teams and leadership and people finding them, paying for them, where it’s headed, how are you feeling about it all? Not that you have to have the answers, I’m just curious like what your experience is like.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
It is… Do you allow cursing on this show? No. No cursing.

[laughter]

Ryan Isaac:
No. Do it, do it and we’ll just beep it out. I think that’s kind funny actually. Please do.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
No, It’s the environment. Especially in California, as you know Ryan, the staff cost situation, I’ve always been over, like that whole 25% to 30%, that has never been a thing for me. And now it’s, now I have the two practices. And even, we ran the numbers of our bam, Kiera, right?

Kiera Dent:
Yeah.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
It’s insane what overhead is looking like when even when… We’re not even really big. We had two dental assistants, one front office, one associate dentist, and that’s basically it for both practices.

Kiera Dent:
And one hygienist.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
And one hygienist.

Kiera Dent:
It’s 10 different people, five in each office. It’s not that many.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
It’s not that many.

Kiera Dent:
And it’s just the sky height cost.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
It’s crazy. And so we got out of network with Delta because we needed to make a change. We were running six rooms and my hygienists were cranking it all day long. And after a full day of hygiene with Delta reimbursements, sometimes they wouldn’t even hit $900. And now hygienists in California are anywhere from $60 to $75 an hour, and you’re paying them even when that patient no-shows, and heaven forbid that’s a two hour SRP, that’s a big hit to the bottom line. So I feel that so much that the new million dollar practice is actually, you have to be at least 1.5. I don’t know. I honestly, it’s really disheartening to see what insurances have done and just these conglomerates, these DSOs, these private equity where they’re able to capture such a big monopoly, pretty much of our space.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
And then they can pay for all of these equipment and supplies at much lower costs. And how do we compete with that as a solo private office? I really don’t know. And I think that it’s such a vicious cycle. Like you want to attract top level talent. You want to attract just people who are going to stay with you, stay committed, and be encouraged to treat people well. But at the same time, if you can’t even afford to pay their salaries, like what do you do? It’s I don’t know. It’s sad.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that, Kiera. When you hear that from your clients, like you do all the time, I hear that from our clients in the last few years. It’s probably the biggest topic people are talking about. How do you hear that, and where do you go from here?

Kiera Dent:
Yeah. Well, and it was the interesting one when we very first shared the podcast. You’re like, well, I’ll talk about issues we’re hearing. It was going to be the staffing, the morale, and how do you do this. Because I think that everyone would love to run a business, and I hear so often, I love the business. I don’t enjoy the people side. And I’m like, but we fail to realize that businesses are the people.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s all it is.

Kiera Dent:
Yeah.

Kiera Dent:
The people are what truly make this business. And so I remember a while ago, Britt, one of our consultants gave me a really good perspective shift of do I see my people as a liability or an asset? And I think sometimes, when I’m looking at the P&L, they feel like a liability. Like, oh my gosh, they cost this much. But if I realize that they’re actually the asset of the business, it does do a flip of the script in a different filter position.

Kiera Dent:
And so one of the greatest things they say, like, the biggest cost on a business is your employee turnover. And so if you can find a way to number one, hire better, which none of us do, so just put it out there, you’re not bad if you have turnover. It’s just learning to navigate through this to change your perspective and realize like you’re gonna have turnover regardless of how great of a boss you are, and that doesn’t matter. Like, you can be nice and you can have it there. And some of being the nicest boss in the world, you’re still gonna have people turn over on you. And I don’t think giving your, like my mom has a quote on her fridge that says, like, parents who are afraid to put their foot down have children who step on their toes.

Kiera Dent:
And so when I say being a nice boss, it doesn’t mean giving them everything, ’cause I actually think they actually stop respecting you. So it’s having the balance of expectation, ’cause as a team member, what I care about is I want you to tell me your expectations clearly. I wanna know how can I win? And then I want like true genuine praise from my doctor. And so realizing like that’s what they’re looking for, but the staffing costs are there. And so I feel like instead of being frustrated with it, ’cause that’s one path, let’s look to see how can we make this the best it can be. Like, to Ashley’s point, it does, it’s hard, it’s super hard. It’s hard to see those costs get there. And so can you find different ways to become competitive and like, can we get scrappy?

Kiera Dent:
So for solo owners, there’s buying groups that we can get into. There’s ways that we could reduce our supply costs. There are budgets we can put into place. Let’s scrap down and be super intentional on the things we can control, so we can offset the cost of labor. It is a give and take. And then that’s also where you do go out of network or you bring in membership plans like to realize that there are options that we can do. And then sometimes it is just the cost of it. I realized this year, I’m gonna sacrifice a little bit of profitability in my own business to ease the stress of like fitting within this 30% category. So like, what is your priority? Is it the profit, which I don’t care if that’s your choice, there’s no right or wrong.

Kiera Dent:
Or is it that like, great if I hire a few more team members, that’s gonna alleviate my stress exponentially. But if I’m putting that staff cost in there, I need to expect them, give them correct job descriptions and expect them to show up here, because if I’m gonna pay for it, I wanna make sure that they are really doing what I need them to do. So again, it’s just like all around. But really, I think my best thing that I can do is, is almost give the dentist a hug, remind them that like, this is normal. You’re not abnormal. This is hard, and now let’s figure out a solution that’s going to be doable. So like, Ashley, figuring out your bam, got it. We at least know the number of what you have to produce and collect.

Ryan Isaac:
We came up with a pretty easy solution. We’re gonna put it in play, try it in three months, and if it doesn’t work, let’s pivot again. But like, it was COVID, it was the great resignation. I had a really brilliant mentor once, tell me, Kiera, all of these problems that come to you are just the flavor of business. So see it as the flavor of business, not the like identity of the business because it’s gonna shift. Right now it’s staffing costs, then it’s gonna be supply costs, then it’s gonna be insurance. Like every one of these is just part of business. And truthfully, I wanna just remind us, like, this is what we signed up for when we decided to become business owners. There’s success and part of success is suck. Like there’s a suck portion of business.

Ryan Isaac:
The suck and success.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
I love that. I’m gonna steal that.

Kiera Dent:
We can’t take the whole enchilada and be like, well, I don’t want that part. Like business and success has two sides. There is a suck portion of being successful, and then there is the beautiful side of success as well. And we don’t get both without… You have to have both to make it happen. So that’s kind of my perspective from it. And Ryan, I’m sure you’ve got a different one. And it’s interesting, I wanna just point this out. I think Ashley’s got the here and now dentist perspective. A consultant has, you’re like 3, 6, 12 month. Like, let me get you this plan to get you through it. And Ryan, you’ve got the in 20 years plan. So all three of us have this very different vantage point. And I think all are super relevant because without the here and now, like I’m in it, I’m in the trenches, this is real life, the consultants, the bird’s eye view of like, let’s get you these tactical pieces. And then the financial advisor that’s like, Hey, remember what you’re actually working towards. It’s this life. It’s this thing. Like this is what it’s all going to be for. And living in the here and now, even while providing for our long-term financial future.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
I love that. The one thing I think that stands out to me that you just said, Kiera, was and you could just teach this lesson, you could take exactly your same words and teach this lesson about being a good investor, which is like, what’s the scary flavor of the economy of the month? I’ve been in this job now for 15 years. I don’t think there’s been zero years so far where there’s not been something scary. And we’re still here. We might not be tomorrow, but we’re here today. But that’s such a good lesson because it’s like, na, go look at 10 years in the news and you tell me what hasn’t been scary. But the world marches on. We find a way, maybe one day again, we won’t, we’ll just all become extinct one day.

Ryan Isaac:
Finally, it will be the, it’s different this time and we’ll all be wiped out. But until then, I think what you said is just really helpful. Whether it’s business, it’s investing, it’s your personal life, there’s always something. But that means you’re always learning something too, and you’re always adapting and growing from that. And now you’ll be better for it in the future. Like all of us having seen our businesses and our clients and friends and family businesses shut down for months at a time, taught us something. And we are better for it in a lot of ways. Not discounting that, it hurts in a lot of ways too, but I like that you said that because it’s the same thing with like the economy and in markets investing, there’s always something. It doesn’t signify the end, it just signifies the new flavor, and there’ll be another one next month. So that was good.

Kiera Dent:
Yeah. Ryan, I wanna piggyback on that real quick of, I would say iron sharpens iron. So these hard experiences are sharpening you. And I think, and Ryan, you and I have a different perspective than Ashley does, even though we’re equally business owners in our own realm. I feel all these experiences, like truly to me, I feel like the sign, the mastery of business is being able to maintain like levelness throughout all the wild ups and downs. So that’s like you’re investing your emotions, like the staffing this is like, it’s so easy to be volatile and that becomes reactionary versus being able to like truly sharpen your skill of being able to just navigate the waves and stay more even kill and more levelheaded to make smarter decisions even when you’re hit with this because it’s going to keep coming.

Kiera Dent:
And Ryan, I think you teach that really, really well of how to stay super levelheaded throughout all of it, even when everything’s turbulent around you.

Ryan Isaac:
Cool.

Kiera Dent:
To me it is a sign of mastery of an exceptional leader, an exceptional business owner, and those who can just cut through and make the right decisions even when the emotional pieces are tying, like, tugging at you, and to stay steady throughout while being able to pivot and make the correct decisions throughout it.

Ryan Isaac:
So hard. Yeah. Thank you. It’s a thing we’re all trying to work hard and get better at. Speaking of staying steady and calm, I think maybe one thing that helps, and we can wrap on this idea is maybe a little bit of wine every once in a while. So Ashley, why don’t you tell us about the making of event that’s coming up. What, next month already? Kiera, you’re gonna be there?

Dr. Ashley Joves:
Yes.

Ryan Isaac:
I think I’m gonna be there. And so…

Dr. Ashley Joves:
You already said you are, Ryan.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, I already said that, yes. I’m gonna be there.

Kiera Dent:
No take backs.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. I’m gonna be there with my microphone and we’re gonna be having conversations, but what’s… That’s what…

Kiera Dent:
Yeah. No, we’re gonna have so much fun. So we are hosting our second annual making a retreat in Sonoma, California, November 15th to 17th. It is a Wednesday to Friday. And yeah, that was a mistake. We’re not gonna do it midweek next year, I promise you guys. But gosh, it’s gonna be a meeting of the minds. We’re going to have the best speakers in the world. I swear, the best speakers in the world. And just talking about dentistry, about money, about fulfillment, mental health, depression. And then we’re going to wrap up in the conference room, but then we’re gonna take our little sesh and move it over to the vineyards where we can really talk about the hard things, the things that light us up because I, so this, I started Smile & Co. With this idea of creating a different dental experience. And this whole retreat was born from all of my… So I’m a self professed CE junkie. I love going to conferences, not just for the content.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s [0:37:46.0] ____ P&L of a CNL budget.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
Yeah, it will.

Ryan Isaac:
Like the P&L, she has her CE budget on there, like we put it in there.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
That’s right.

Ryan Isaac:
So I can tell you like, this girl’s a CE junkie through.

Kiera Dent:
I love CE so much, not just for the content, but some of the best learning took place at the bar during happy hour at dinners over like whoever we met at that conference for the weekend. And I wanted to take exactly that and build an entire retreat around that whole vibe, because so much of this stuff, like as a dentist, it can be very lonely. You feel so isolated in your four walls. And if you are already dealing with turnover and these rising staff costs and the lower reimbursements, who are you really talking to about that? And that’s why I think mental health is such an under-spoken about topic. Is that even a phrase?

Ryan Isaac:
It is now. It doesn’t matter.

Kiera Dent:
It is now, so we…

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. We get it.

Kiera Dent:
It is now.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. We get it.

Kiera Dent:
I just wanted to create something that was going to be memorable but also fulfilling. You can go to so many CEs, but if it’s not really lighting you up, like I want people to leave this experience, feeling like a better human feeling, like you’ve just connected with 80 of your closest friends. Like people who will have your back. I know that I can call Kiera, and Kiera is gonna be like, I got you, it’s gonna be fine. Or I can talk to you Ryan, and say, Ryan, I’m worried about this and you’re gonna be like talking me off the ledge. It’s not been 20 years yet. You need to settle down. But I want that for everybody, ’cause I experience it from podcasting and from the community, but not everybody has that luxury. Not everyone feels connected to other people, and it’s a shame. We should all feel connected, especially after the pandemic. So I’m excited.

Ryan Isaac:
Where do they, where do people find registration? On our show, this episode will probably come out like next week. So that’ll be…

Kiera Dent:
Oh, nice nice.

Ryan Isaac:
If there’s still time, if there’s still room. So where do people find making out…

Kiera Dent:
We have limited spots. Thank you so much. We have limited spots available. Make sure to come. Listen, Ryan, you’re gonna do like your whole spiel about dying with Zero. What are you talking about? Anything? [laughter]

Ryan Isaac:
We’ll figure it out.

Kiera Dent:
We’ll figure it out.

Ryan Isaac:
Dying, just dying.

0:40:19.3 AJ: Absolutely.

Ryan Isaac:
Just dying.

Kiera Dent:
Just dying?

Ryan Isaac:
That’s it.

Kiera Dent:
A little bit everyday.

Ryan Isaac:
Dying inside. Dying inside.

Kiera Dent:
I appreciate Ryan so many times and I’m like, Ryan, what are you talking about? I was like, Kiera, it’s not the night before. Like I’ll get it there the night before.

Ryan Isaac:
We’ll figure it out. You gotta, well you gotta, you gotta arrive on scene and feel the vibe. You gotta feel the check, the vibe.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
You do. You do.

Ryan Isaac:
Then you adjust, okay, where do they, where’s making, how do they find you register if that’s possible this time.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
So it’s go to the making of podcast.com/retreat and all the information will be there.

Ryan Isaac:
I’m so excited for that.

Kiera Dent:
It’s amazing. I was there last year and what I will say about Ashley, I know you just said it was a mistake to do Wednesday through Friday. And you’re like, I won’t do that again. But as I just listened to that and I gave you flack for it too, I’m like, girl, you’ve…

[laughter]

Kiera Dent:
Talk about really putting this into perspective of like why are we doing CE on the weekends, which should be family time, which should be our personal time. Why not do it during our working days? And honestly I will say the things that were taught last year at the making of retreat, I feel if you dedicated three days from your business you to be working on to learn the ideas and do it during that working time. One, you’re sacrificing your production so you’re actually gonna be paying way more attention. Two, you’re gonna make sure that you take things home that you can go implement. I know like the things I’m even gonna talk about alone, if you went and implemented 1, 2, 3 of the items, I tell you, you will make up that production hands down. And that’s just one speaker on the lineup. Ryan’s gonna teach you long-term.

Kiera Dent:
So practical, tactical, but then long-term fulfillment as well. I don’t think you can put a number on that and like kudos to you Ashley, for doing it differently like school. Like let’s do it during the working hours instead of having to do it on the weekend and constantly take time away from our lives. So massive shout out. Agreed. Like tell them I know Ashley. We are helping with Emily team to do scholarships for people. So tell them dental team sent you, tell them dentist Money sent you. It was an incredible event. And Ashley, your CE was the only CE event I have ever gone to where I was not dead exhausted from like over burnout of too much content. And so fulfilled with the people in the relationships I was able to form there.

Ryan Isaac:
Cool.

Kiera Dent:
So I have to say, you give one of the best, if not the best CE events I’ve ever attended and I go to a lot. So definitely…

Ryan Isaac:
So excited. Kiera, where do they find the A team as if they don’t know?

Kiera Dent:
Oh, head on over to the dentalateam.com. You guys know we got the podcast you guys dentist money. I feel like dentist advisors and dental a team are like the PB and J, the peanut butter and chocolate. If you know dentist advisors, hopefully dental a team because I think between the two companies you really are like a match made in heaven. Like you really get the…

Ryan Isaac:
To be in good hands.

Kiera Dent:
The financially consulting… So thank you Ryan and Ryan, how do people connect with you? ’cause honestly, Ryan, you have talked me off the ledge so many times and it’s funny, I was talking to a client and they said they’ve gone into like all these other financial advising groups and they said, Kiera, who do you work with? And I said, Ryan. And I said, even though Ryan is so different than my personality, you are steady Eddie for me and you keep me so grounded. And the client I was talking to, he was like, I just want simple. And I said, that’s Ryan with financial, like dentist advisors. You make it so simple for us to invest to get prepared for our future.

Ryan Isaac:
Cool.

Kiera Dent:
So Ryan, how do they connect with you?

Ryan Isaac:
Appreciate that. Yeah dentistadvisors.com. Check it out.

Kiera Dent:
[laughter] check it out…

Ryan Isaac:
Reach out. Yeah.

Kiera Dent:
If you want Ryan, you have to come through dental A team and I will…

Ryan Isaac:
You gotta go th

Kiera Dent:
Directly connect you ’cause Ryan you’re like really hard to get to be an advisor. And…

Ryan Isaac:
That’s it’s, yeah, so, okay. I like the teaser on that. If you want my personal email and get on my personal calendar, just go through Kiera, you gotta talk to the A team first. [laughter], and then you can get my cell phone even if you want it. That’s fine.

Kiera Dent:
Ryan could tell me any client I send his way, he’ll still take on. So that’s my like plug. If you really want Ryan, come to me.

Ryan Isaac:
I will.

Kiera Dent:
We were siblings in another life. So Ashley if you wanna work with Ryan, you’re welcome. This is a connection.

Ryan Isaac:
We might have been a trio, honestly. This might have been a trio in a former life.

Kiera Dent:
I think it was a trio.

Ryan Isaac:
Well thanks for having me in your audience and thanks for being on ours as always. I think this needs to be like a quarterly event at the very least.

Kiera Dent:
I agree.

Ryan Isaac:
So we’ll make it happen again.

Kiera Dent:
Just talking about the dentist, consultant advisor perspective.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, it’s cool. It’s cool.

Kiera Dent:
It was really magical today. So thanks guys.

Ryan Isaac:
What’d be fun is to get some listener questions and then we could give perspective from financial advisor, consulting dentist. Let’s get some peer groups, some listener questions. And then let’s just come on here every couple of months and do it from three perspectives. Answer the same question from three perspectives.

Kiera Dent:
I love it.

Ryan Isaac:
That’d be awesome.

Kiera Dent:
I think it’d be incredible. So our side, Ryan’s side, everybody [laughter], make sure you guys get those questions in. We, I think let’s just do it. Let’s plan to have it happen.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, we’ll do it. We’ll, field some questions and do it. Okay. Thanks ladies. Thanks everyone. We’ll catch you next time.

Kiera Dent:
All right.

Ryan Isaac:
Bye bye.

Dr. Ashley Joves:
Thank you guys!

Practice Management