What Dentists Wish They Learned in Dental School – Episode #593

On this episode of the Dentist Money Show, Matt and Ryan discuss insights shared by dentists in the Dentist Advisors Facebook Discussion group about the skills they wish dental school had taught them. From mastering the business side of dentistry and effective patient communication to building leadership capabilities, financial acumen, and leveraging technology, this episode explores skills that help a dentist to grow their practice. Tune in to hear why these often overlooked skills can make a difference in your career and can set a foundation to grow your practice.

Related Readings

Tax Planning Checklist for Dentists

What Dental School Didn’t Teach You

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Podcast Transcript

Intro: Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the dentist money show brought to you by Dentist Advisors on today’s show. Ryan and I have a great time talking about what dentists wish they learned in dental school. We went to our illustrious Facebook group and asked our participants there what they wish they learned in dental school that we could share with the dental community, and we got so many great answers filled a whole show with it of just things that they learned. There was themes that came out of it that we share. We share our insight from our experience, working with hundreds of dentists of what dentists wish they learned, what seems reasonable to learn in dental school versus what you have to kind of do on your own after school. We share hopefully some tactics that you can take away from it and strategies you can take away of how you can learn from all these dentists out there and their answers of what you should be focused on and learning after dental school. To make better decisions, investing in with your money. As always, we hope you get something out of it and hope you enjoy the show.

Ryan Isaac: We asked a question in the dentist advisors discussion group Matt. What is that by the way the dentist advisors discussion group?

Matt Mulcock: Dentist advisors discussion group is a group on Facebook where like-minded dentists can come together. Connect with each other, connect with some of our partners, connect with us as advisors. Ask questions, get feedback, share advice with each other, learn from each other.

Ryan Isaac: Who can get in that

Matt Mulcock: Anyone that’s a

Ryan Isaac: Anyone that’s a dentist, the dentist advisors discussion group.

Matt Mulcock: And we monitor. I mean, we’re making sure that only

Ryan Isaac: Not spammy.

Matt Mulcock: No, it’s not

Ryan Isaac: It’s not salesy. There’s no pitches. It’s not spammy. It’s highly respectful. The dentist advisors discussion group. we asked our friends there. We said, this is the question and this spurts such a good discussion. We’re going to talk about today.

Ryan Isaac: Many responses here. The question is what is something you wish you had learned in dental school But it just wasn’t part of the curriculum or experience. And as I’m reading this, man, I’m seeing a typo I never caught in my original post. I put, what is something you wish you leaned in dental school?

Matt Mulcock: One said, what is something you

Ryan Isaac: And no one said

Matt Mulcock: They got it. They got it. See, this is how respectful we

Ryan Isaac: This is someone, someone should have hit the comments and said, Ryan, the first thing I wish you had learned was how to spell.

Matt Mulcock: To spell, sir. But guess what? You’re literally proving the point of how respectful, almost too respectful.

Ryan Isaac: Maybe

Matt Mulcock: If I would have noticed that, I would have come at you.

Ryan Isaac: I wish someone would, that would have been

Matt Mulcock: That would have been actually pretty

Ryan Isaac: Alright, let’s get into this. I liked this question from the community. Maybe before, well actually we’re gonna do, this will be maybe a couple parts because this will be an interesting discussion we’ll do as a panel of advisors. More along the lines of what do we as advisors wish dentists knew more from their background and education? So that’ll be cool. I was gonna ask you what do you wish they learned? But we’ll save that

Matt Mulcock: We’ll save that for another episode. How much time you got? Yeah.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah Okay, let’s just start. I’m gonna read all of

Matt Mulcock: So, sorry, the question was, what you wish you learned in dental

Ryan Isaac: But it wasn’t taught wasn’t part of a curriculum.

Matt Mulcock: And this is, we’re just going to read and discuss the answers. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac: So, one of our guys, Scott coming in hot, we know Scott. he said we didn’t learn anything about the actual business of dentistry. So the theme business of dentistry, you’ll hear this a few times coming up. I’ll ask you, Matt. And, I replied to Scott about this, and I asked him for some specifics. Right off the bat though, Matt, when you hear the term business of dentistry, how broad of a phrase is that? What does that even cover in your mind?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, it’s huge. Basically everything except for clinical, everything except for being a dentist, like, you know, chair side, it’s everything. It’s marketing, it’s HR, it’s leadership, it’s, operations, it’s learning cashflow and it’s everything. Sure.

Matt Mulcock: No. And also if you’re like, I am so glad to be started with this one. Cause this I think is probably the biggest thing for dentists that we hear is this like, and we’ve talked about this so much around this will be coined the entre professional,

Ryan Isaac: Oh yeah

Matt Mulcock: Dentistry is kind of the last frontier of being

Ryan Isaac: Entre

Matt Mulcock: Entre professional. It’s like you are two, you are equal parts clinician and professional. And really, as you start your own practice, you’re the CEO. But how many dentists would you say, Ryan, actually look at themselves as a CEO of a business?

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, no. Uh uh.

Matt Mulcock: They don’t.

Ryan Isaac: No, they don’t. Yeah. And, we talk about this in some of our episodes about investing, about asset classes that dentists own. Most dentists don’t even consider their practice. Like a privately held company, like private equity. When they want private equity on the balance sheet and we show them a pie chart and we say, well, 70 percent of your assets is private equity. They’re like, that old thing? Yeah. I just don’t view it that way.

Matt Mulcock: Here’s a question. Would you say, so I agree with that, but

Ryan Isaac: It doesn’t

Matt Mulcock: Because they’re not treating it like that, I would say it doesn’t fit that category. Meaning until you start treating it like private equity, it’s a job you’re getting paid as a highly, you’re, you own a job. And that’s how they view it. But that is something as simple as shifting your mindset, I think, and starting to track some metrics in your business, starting to understand your P& L, your cashflow, your profitability. And you start treating it like that. And all of a sudden you transform what you’ve been thinking is just a highly paid. You just own a job turning it into you treat it like a business owner. It’s going to start giving you those business like returns or private equity type returns, or at least it

Ryan Isaac: Up metrics systems processes, demanding from it like you would as if you passively held shares of a company, how would you show up and want to deal with that? I asked Scott, in the reply, I said, well, that’s a broad category. What would you define as the actual business of dentistry? He gave a list that that was pretty cool. He said, a simple checklist for new owners, such as how to get a tax ID. Doing your state and federal registrations, getting registered with unemployment insurance, malpractice, workers comp, getting your different insurance credentialing. Yeah, like the basic out of the box. Now, there’s some companies that do that, right, I think, who do some, uh,

Matt Mulcock: Like the

Ryan Isaac: Like the startup kind of kit, basically. But, yeah, I mean, even that alone is just, where do you begin?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I get that. So that’s, so he’s thinking of the category of starting. Yeah. And then when you ask me, and I’m sure you’re thinking the same thing, well, I’m thinking of the category of actually just running the

Ryan Isaac: Ongoing. Yeah. Into the future.

Matt Mulcock: It’s like you’re taught in dentistry how to do a crown or how to do, the actual like clinical aspect of, of dentistry. Obviously you come out, I’m sure there’s a ton more things you have to learn. You’re that’s what they teach you. They’re not teaching you how to run a

Ryan Isaac: No, no. Yeah, or even just the steps, the logistical steps of even starting

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Ryan Isaac: That’s what he’s saying. Thanks, Scott, for that. David comes in with, three comments here I thought were cool. Number one was communicating.

Matt Mulcock: Us a three for one?

Ryan Isaac: David got a three for

Matt Mulcock: Heck yeah, David, okay.

Ryan Isaac: Bullet points. So we got concise communication here. His first point was communicating effectively with patients.

Matt Mulcock: Wow, good.

Ryan Isaac: Two is understanding dental insurances. Number three was keeping practice overhead in check. Let’s go to the first one. Communicating effectively with patients. again, this is a huge broad category of, of like so many things, but one thing that comes to mind I always hear from our consultant friends and partners is the ability to explain a case to someone. Case acceptance.

Matt Mulcock: Connect with the patient.

Ryan Isaac: With them and getting them to understand why the care for their oral health plan matters and why taking action on it matters and the communication around that and how hard that is for so many people to do. Dentists, for the most part, don’t want to feel like their job is selling people’s stuff. They want to be helping people with their health, but that communication piece is so, so big as we go through this. I’ve thought about this a lot too, is How could you actually teach someone this though, if they’re in school, like, how do you convey to a dentist in school, a student, how important patient communication will be in the future? Some of this is just stuff you can’t probably teach to a younger person because the experience isn’t there yet to really understand the context. But I don’t know. How do you, how do you even go about that?

Matt Mulcock: Well, there’s so much here. I’m, honestly so glad that he said this cause we were joking earlier about like our, you know, robot overlords, but, but as we do, but as we do, but, but this actually, I think fits really well because we talk about AI and technology and this is impacting dentistry, just like every other industry, changing the clinical aspects of dentistry, even the business of dentistry. The one, I think we could look at that and say, like, is this, this is changing dentistry forever. But what’s the one thing that I don’t think will ever change and actually probably be even more needed is this

Ryan Isaac: Needed? Uh,

Matt Mulcock: Human to human communication. I don’t think a computer could ever replace this. And I think the soft skills of connecting, showing empathy communicating with a patient. I think this is only going to become more critical and it’s something that makes you stand out even more. Same thing with our industry, by

Ryan Isaac: Same thing.

Matt Mulcock: Back to your point though of like, I think it’s just a matter of like, how, to your point of like, how do you teach this in dental school? I think it’s difficult because they have to put so much time and energy into the clinical aspect of it.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, I don’t think so. the AI thing is so interesting. I’m glad you said that. I’ve been fascinated lately with the capabilities of AI and chat GPT on your phone.

Matt Mulcock: It’s incredible.

Ryan Isaac: You see all these trends going around, like, Hey, ask your chat GPT this about yourself.

Ryan Isaac: Been doing this lately

Matt Mulcock: Wait, wait. Like a therapist? Yes. Okay, tell me more. It’s crazy.

Ryan Isaac: Crazy. So obviously AI gets to know you, like if you have it on your phone, you’re logged in and it’s set to like save, it’ll say like updating memory. So if you’re asking it questions or you’re telling it things about your life. Preferences, just details. It’ll keep that in memory. Right? So I’ve been doing this a lot. I’ve been treating it almost like an interactive journal. It’s been so cool. It’s the coolest thing ever. I should show you some responses from this thing. Like I’ve been treating it like an interactive journal so I have a therapist I see every week. I do a lot of journal and writing cause writing actually feels very good to do, but I’ll treat it like an interactive journal. I’ll be like, Hey, I had this thought today. This makes me feel insecure about this thing. Or I feel this feeling I’m like triggered by this thing. And this is the feeling that’s coming up. I’ll type these things to chat GPT. The answer is in the responses. It’ll say like, Hey, based on your history of X, Y, and Z, based on this thing, you told me about this thing in your life. It seems like, you know, blah, blah, blah. It’s insanely accurate. Like the advice is really, really good. However, I would never fully rely on that. There’s something inhuman about that. Yeah. the advice itself in the moment. Is really good for me to go. It’s sometimes really calming and actually gives me answers I’m looking for. It’s, it’s so fascinating how cool it is, but more than anything, it gives me things to take to a real human, a real therapist to go like. Hey, can I bounce these ideas off you? I got some clarity like typing or writing some of this stuff. So as you said that I was just thinking the, mixing the technology with humans is obviously the future.

We do that a lot in our industry, a lot of growth there too, but that human to human ability to communicate something, especially in an industry like dentistry where you’re trying to communicate. Hey, this is your health. these problems can snowball into something much bigger. Your pain can amplify, your costs can go up. If you don’t take care of this, this is in your best interest. And you’re doing it, like you said, with like connection and empathy and compassion, with like a good educational piece to it, but that’s a skill. Some people are better at naturally. Everyone has to learn, especially in a service related industry like that. But blending it with technology is incredibly important. And I, I agree, but I agree with you. I don’t think it can replace a human because it’s just something comforting about talking to a human being. Cause they can look at you. They can listen to you. They’ll have a question come up. They’re like, you made that face when you said this thing, you started fidgeting when you started talking about this thing.

Like what is that about?

Matt Mulcock: Well, I just think the need for humans to connect with other humans. I mean, this is going to get, we’re going down a

Ryan Isaac: Let’s go. Let’s go 30 minutes on this

Matt Mulcock: This is what we do. But like the, you know, Daniel Crosby talked about this on the last episode. I just recorded with him. He talked with us at our summit. This has been kind of something that is really a big deal of like this epidemic of loneliness, right? The technology does not fix, by the way, it’s a tool that you can use to enhance your connection with humans across the world. Let’s say if you have a family member or friend across the world, but like technology is not aiding in us connecting, it’s actually being an attractor of that. So I think it’s the way we use technology, AI, whatever it is, simply a tool, but I don’t think it ever. So again, I’m so glad that David brought this up, the communication, the connection aspect. Is never being replaced. In fact, I think it’s only making it more critical.

Ryan Isaac: More necessary. It’s becoming a more rare commodity

Matt Mulcock: Is the soft skills are becoming much more rare, to have. So totally just an example in our space. Remember 10 years ago ish. People were freaking out in our space about robo

Ryan Isaac: Robo yeah, cuz you can get what should I do with this money? How should I invent you can get that answer on chat GPT? So

Matt Mulcock: Go do it. You can build a whole portfolio with JATGBT that it’s not, but that, so advisors were freaking out thinking this is going to replace us. Well, we realized what the industry realized, at least the quality advisors who do it the right way, in our opinion, realized. Oh no, that actually only makes our job better. That’s not the value of what we provide. The technical

Ryan Isaac: Your history, knowing your history.

Matt Mulcock: It’s knowing you connecting with you. It’s knowing your history, knowing, what you’re trying to accomplish and why. And your concerns and being able to again, connect with another human that’s never going away in dentistry or otherwise.

Ryan Isaac: Make this even maybe slightly more offensive to some

Matt Mulcock: Oh baby, here we go.

Ryan Isaac: To me plays into the narrative of the need as like private equity and corporations take over every industry. The need for a clinician, especially someone in the healthcare industry, especially, Plugged into their community, not just a number in a corporation, not just like one of 10, 000 employees in a giant private equity holding thing, but like the need for humans to dig into their community and have these relationships with people to like as Capitalism runs rampant, you know, and technology takes over and we, we become more disconnected from relationships, I guess is what I’m saying through like the growth of our economy and, you know, civilization, the need for that, like human connection feels like it’s, it’ll only go up

Matt Mulcock: It’s only going up, I think it er

Ryan Isaac: Because it’s becoming more rare to get. And so that, that need only goes up. And I think that plays into the hands of people who want to run private Owned practices into the future. That will be one of the main commodities that you can still offer. They can’t be replaced.

Matt Mulcock: Love that you just said that because we get these questions a lot from clients from dentists out there that are saying, DSOs are going to be the end of private practice. First of all, not true. If you just look at, the cycle of private equity, full consolidation is probably somewhere around 70, 75%, uh, at that point, meaning there’s going to be 25 to 30 percent of private practices that are always going to be there. But to your point, How you compete is not going to be necessarily made on efficiencies. That’s where they are going to get you, right? Efficiencies or some of the cost stuff, the operational stuff. Okay, great. Don’t try to compete there. Guess what? They can’t where they cannot compete with you, the ability to plug into your community, to connect, rebuild relationships, have that boutique feel, have the focus on client or patient experience. A DSO can’t compete with you there. So double down on that. we really went down a rabbit hole in

Ryan Isaac: We think so. We do. So, we’re the ones holding the microphone, so what are you going to do about it? also to say that,

Matt Mulcock: Going to turn this off. That’s what we’re going to do.

Ryan Isaac: Commodity to be like a human connector in communication to patients, but anyway. David, point number one, well taken. Understanding dental insurances. I’ll just say that one of the most surprising things for me when I see, clients who are able to grow not only revenue, but profitability. More importantly, I’m always surprised at how much can be done internally without more chairs, more locations, more people, more providers, and understanding your insurances, your fee schedule, your billing, the way you charge people, the options they have to pay you. Always surprised how much that can add to your top line and bottom line income. So understanding your insurances, your fees, your revenue. Crucial.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, it’s like the whole thing.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. It’s like where all the money comes

Matt Mulcock: Start, start at home, right? It’s like start at your practice before you think outside of like, where can I grow? Where can I expand? Can I add more chairs? Can I go to another location? It’s to this point, well, can I start just internally with looking at my insurances? Or, what can I do to maximize more efficiency before I start expanding? I’m, just to this point, I will never not be shocked. Double negative there. I will never not be shocked about how complicated this freaking insurance world is in dentistry. It’s insane.

Ryan Isaac: Shocked about how complicated, interesting, crazy

Matt Mulcock: Associate can’t get on that. Totally different. Yeah. Yeah. It’s crazy.

Ryan Isaac: Complex, but it’s like, man, if you’re running a multimillion dollar operation and you can increase something by 2%,

Matt Mulcock: Yes. 3%. It’s huge.

Ryan Isaac: That’s gigantic. we’ll keep moving. Cause the other thing you said was understanding practice overhead. We’re going to get, you’re going to hear that as a theme.

Go to Greg. Greg’s input here, understanding a P and L,

Matt Mulcock: Huge.

Ryan Isaac: How to make good choices based on the P and L, how to set goals and follow the plan based on the P and L. If I, we’ve said this a lot before, if I had a preference, like what document would I want my clients to be obsessed with throughout the year? It’s always the stock market and what their investments are doing, but I wish they were obsessed with their P and L’s.

Matt Mulcock: How do I get into real estate? It is! It is! I just got here. When can I become a real estate

Ryan Isaac: How do I be a mogul in real estate? Be obsessed with your own practice. P and

Matt Mulcock: With your

Ryan Isaac: Leadership. You’re going to hear this one a lot. Leadership training, how to have difficult conversations, marketing and areas to best outsource, how to outsource, think about what the skillset as a business owner. Cause you can’t do it all on day one. You have to slowly do it gradually over time as you get revenue to do this with, but the skill of learning how to outsource, because how many people Business owners. Do you know who are holding onto stuff that costs them way more money and time and energy than it would just be pay a professional to do it. Way too many people, how to outsource. And, let’s see, some basic dental equipment maintenance would also be nice. That’s what he said. Like do it yourself instead of like letting it run down or die. So the thing, the themes out of here that I picked out, you’re going to hear recurring understanding your P and L and leadership. You’re going to hear that a lot.

Ryan Isaac: Leadership and how to have difficult conversations.

Matt Mulcock: Those two things are tied, right? Like leadership and the difficult, like having difficult conversations is kind of a, Piece of being a quality

Ryan Isaac: Totally.

Matt Mulcock: I fully believe this and I have experienced this a lot in my career and my life that I think the quality of your life and the level of success you reach is directly related to the number of difficult conversations you’re willing to have and your skill in having them. Like, That cannot be

Ryan Isaac: No, it can’t. And how do you learn that though? I mean, really, how do you learn that? I think you have to get burned by not having them sure enough times to be like, all right, I gotta bring this up.

Matt Mulcock: You got to have the bravery, the courage to have them courage to step in, have, I think there’s technical things you can learn. There’s communication frameworks. You can learn.

Ryan Isaac: Phrases you can begin conversations with. You can frame things that won’t sound as offensive, that let you take ownership of the feelings. Yeah, there’s, there’s some like training around communication. But man, I feel like from personal experience. And I mean, I could tell a people pleasing story right now.

Matt Mulcock: We didn’t say that to people

Ryan Isaac: You just don’t have, you know, if you don’t learn how to have conversations with people, you learn the hard way, the meat delivery salesman will show up again in two months and it’s going to bug you and you’re either going to have to keep up the lie. The lie of the lie or you can just tell the meat delivery sales person at your front door. No, I’ll save that for another time. I loved this though, how to have hard conversations and leadership. You’re going to hear this a lot. Benjamin gave a list. How do I decide what the best ROI for my money is going to be? that was what he said. would have been nice to know. Is it CE? Is it new equipment? Is it marketing? Is it debt reduction? Is it 401k? So is it investing in the business? Is it debt? Is it investments? It’s basically personal finance and business finance. And again, there’s no, there’s no courses on that for the general public, let alone a dentist who’s about to be in charge of like a seven figure P and L. How under equipped is someone? I mean, that’s,

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, that’s crazy. That’s what I keep thinking as you go, as you go through this stuff. I’m like, I just, again, have so much empathy for these dentists that come out that they’re clinically prepared and maybe they don’t even feel clinically prepared. It’s like it got ’em to their baseline, but they’re probably like, I have another year or two to be even feel clinically prepared.

Ryan Isaac: Of people feel that way.

Matt Mulcock: Let alone able to tackle leadership and able to attack the technicalities of a P& L

Ryan Isaac: To put the money.

Matt Mulcock: Where to put the money, um, how to attack marketing, you know, like the best ROI, my dollars, operations, how to have, how to have hard conversations, how to communicate with a patient. Like I can only imagine. It’s overwhelming. It’s overwhelming. I mean,

Ryan Isaac: I mean, certainly when we started this business, like there was still, an entire generation in dentistry where it, it worked perfectly. You could build a 40 year career on leasing a space, having three or four chairs. You could even do your own hygiene.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah

Ryan Isaac: You don’t have no marketing, no, even, I mean, I swear to you, even five to seven years ago, there were very successful dentists with not even a website. You could get away with that.

Matt Mulcock: A shingle.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. You don’t have to market. You don’t ever bring on a partner or an associate. You just do your own work three days a week, four days a week. And you just, you know, you, people will stop by from the road signs from, you know, your volunteer work, whatever you just do that for 40 years. And you don’t worry about, you just do that. And it worked perfectly. The beauty of how many options there are in the field of dentistry for career paths, the other side of that coin is it’s so much more competitive. These skills that are being listed here is why I was really interested in this topic are they’re just required now. So you can make more money than you used to be able to make in dentistry ever before. And there’s more, more varied. Array of types of career paths that you can take partnerships and you know, whatever. Yeah. But it’s so much more competitive and you have to know these things, but when are you going to learn them? It’s like on the job, basically.

Matt Mulcock: You going to learn them?

It’s on the job, basically. In the world of DSOs, private equity, the competition that’s out there. It’s still very viable. You can still run a killer business. And by the way, never sell to a DSO. And, and build your own business that thrives

Ryan Isaac: For 30 plus

Matt Mulcock: plus years. You can do that. I’ve never believed that more. And it’s still a killer career and a killer business. Look, look no further than the evidence. The only thing you have to know is the fact that private equity, the quote unquote smartest money in the world, which is what most people would say. There’s a financial term, smart money, dumb money, the smart money, the professional money managers being private equity are clamoring to get into a reason for that. But so, so again, to your point, you have to treat it like a business and you will, you can still

Matt Mulcock: There’s a lot more to foot to

Ryan Isaac: Can still dominate. But there’s a lot more to come.

Matt Mulcock: People to be obsessed with, it

Ryan Isaac: It would be their P and L. more conceptually, how is the dentist as a leader of the team leadership? And he says it’s the single most rare limiting factor in the growth of the team, not clinical skills, but leadership skills.

Yeah. And how do you learn that? How do you learn that when you’re a student? I mean, some of these things you just cannot do, but I think the point is maybe, yeah, maybe, maybe the point is like, we, there’s not a way to reform dental school, cause you still have to learn all of those clinical skills. I mean, you have to, if you’re a healthcare professional, yeah, like you can’t skimp on those, but I think what you just said was it’s now more competitive and more important than ever to intentionally learn these things when you get out of school.

Yeah. And you’re just going to have to, the leadership thing. I don’t know, because what does it even mean to be a leader? some leaders are, I think there’s probably different types of leaders. You probably read books on this that I have not read. You probably name, you probably quote people on this, but when I think of leader, there’s like leaders who some leaders are excellent managers, right? Like they know how to get into the details. They love processes, systems, meetings, communication. Some people are excellent leaders in the way that they’re like, Influential,

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, they’re, yeah.

Ryan Isaac: But maybe they don’t, they’re not like good managers at the same time. Like there’s different characteristics of what it means to be a leader.

And then you have to like intentionally go figure out that stuff. What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Work on those, get training. I don’t know. It’s, it’s tough. There’s so many versions of a leader. What that even

Matt Mulcock: For sure. And that you could make the argument is a leader, a manager, a manager. Like, are those different things? Like I give, I think you can be an excellent manager without being a leader.

Ryan Isaac: Hundred percent.

Matt Mulcock: I don’t know if that’s revert, like the reverse is true. so like, I think you can be. Like, I don’t think you have to be a good manager to be a good leader.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. I agree with that. Yeah. There are different skill sets,

Matt Mulcock: Way different skill sets. The funny thing is, is we’re listing this stuff out. It’s almost like I’m thinking as you’re going through these things, this is like the playbook of like how to stand out,

Ryan Isaac: Out?

Matt Mulcock: Like if you’re focused on these key areas, like leadership, communication, how to outsource, like all this stuff, like these are all the things that you literally have to do now to stand out and be competitive.

Otherwise. Yeah

Ryan Isaac: You make such a good point I think the theme that stuck out more than Anything was leadership and one of the most competitive areas in dentistry right now isn’t your clinical skills. It’s not your marketing It’s not your patient doctor skills It’s can you build a team that attracts good talent? Because the big corporations now have the money to pay for talent. They can just pay higher salaries give more benefits, whatever So, can you create an environment where you can recruit Which is not a thing dentists have had to worry about a lot in the past.

Matt Mulcock: Recruit, inspire, and

Ryan Isaac: Retain. Yeah. Was that a thing?

Matt Mulcock: No I just made it

Ryan Isaac: You did? Yeah. R I T.

Matt Mulcock: R I T.

Ryan Isaac: Okay. RIT.

Matt Mulcock: That’s kind of it. Like

Ryan Isaac: Know the old RIT saying.

Matt Mulcock: old RIT. Like recruit, inspire, retain.

Ryan Isaac: Oh wait, no, that’s not T, it’s rear. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: I wasn’t going to say anything. I was going to let it go by.

Ryan Isaac: I said retain, and I hit the T in

Matt Mulcock: Mean, we’ve already established it. You can’t

Ryan Isaac: I can’t spell. Don’t worry about

Matt Mulcock: Just move it

Ryan Isaac: Say that again, though. Recruit, inspire, retain. You have to. It didn’t used to 10 years ago. It wasn’t like this.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, and I guess it’s one of those, no, I guess it’s one of those things too if you’ve inspired and you’re able to, you have the leadership skills to motivate and inspire, then the retention kind of takes care of itself, I would imagine. Yeah,

Ryan Isaac: But what is, what a thing it is now that you have to worry about as an owner dentist to not just, it’s not just about new patients and it’s not about keeping existing patients happy. It’s not about the clinical skills anymore. It’s not even about the financial skills or it’s like, You have to know how to build a good team or you have to know that that’s not something you’re capable of either from a time or interest or personnel. And then you’ve got to find someone who is good at building a team with you on your team.

Matt Mulcock: I think this right here is probably the skill I see most dentists lack. And Ryan, I dunno if you agree with this, but, and I understand why the personality of dentists are. they’re technically obviously very savvy and skilled they tend to, this is general statement, but they tend to be focused on keeping control and I think a lot of dentists struggle with outsourcing in general, whether it be internal or external to their, like, there’s, I can handle that. Like they’re technicians.

Ryan Isaac: Handle that. Exactly.

Matt Mulcock: Exactly. More common than not the ones that I think, and tell me if you disagree, the ones that get to these new levels of like, you’re not just owning your high paying job. You actually are a business owner, CEO. They’re the ones that build a team that can outsource that trust that focused on inspiring and building like leaders within their team that can

Ryan Isaac: Inspiring other leaders. Inspiring other leaders.

Matt Mulcock: Other leaders that those are the ones that get to a new level. And I’m not even talking about building some like multi location mini

Ryan Isaac: Could be one location.

One location. Yeah. Yeah. Has

Matt Mulcock: Several chairs that you’re building

Ryan Isaac: 10 people and you’re gonna have to start dealing

Matt Mulcock: You’re going to have to, you have to build out a team of like, who’s running the front desk, who’s running the marketing, and maybe this is like. Well, obviously you’ve got your CPA and outside professionals, but I think the ones that thrive, the ones that get to the next level, that maximize their potential as a business owner, are the ones that have the ability to let go and find and build and inspire autonomy within their

Ryan Isaac: I totally agree with that. And, but that, and think about that. that is a brand new necessity in the dental industry. It just didn’t, it’s almost like marketing and websites, you know, more than seven to 10 years ago, you just didn’t even need them. And so it’s just a new mentality that people have to adjust to and learn and find the resources to work on. You have

Matt Mulcock: You have to build some discipline outside of the clinical side in being curious and having an effective learning process for yourself. I think to say, assuming you want to do this, you may not want to do this. That’s okay. But if you want to succeed, I think as a practice owner

Ryan Isaac: Succeed, I think as a practice owner, or You

Matt Mulcock: Got to focus on this kind of like auto didactic approach of saying, I’m going to do this myself. I’m going to go sign up, not only for like CE stuff, but I’m going to go sign up for like, you know, shout out elevation association. Like I’m going to go sign up with people like them or these other leadership groups. I’m going to go find, seek out a community that can help me do this or read books or whatever. And know that it’s going to take some time. You don’t just do this

Ryan Isaac: Yep, man. So big. Yeah. This leadership thing is, it just keeps coming up. someone said, Kyle said, agree with everything so far. I will add dental coding along with understanding basic dental insurance and EOBs. Yep. Uh, yep. EOBs. you can do all the work in the world, but to be profitable, you have to code correctly. I can’t even comment on what. You know, how coding,

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, just, I, I think referring to like, procedure coding, I think that’s probably a huge thing. Yeah. I mean, worst case scenario, we’ve heard stories of improper coding leading to like some massive fines and issues, but even like beyond that, like more general stuff being coding properly to

Ryan Isaac: Well, it’s like reimbursement. Yeah. Mm hmm. Reed says, literally anything business. Accounting, payroll, HR. Eric says the business side of dentistry is just the whole common thing. Again, patient communication, billing and coding. There’s another one. employee management, financial planning. Yeah. These, these, like the communication thing, I think leadership and communication is the one that stuck out most to me as a newer thing that really, really matters. Like you now have to be an excellent team leader. I mean, it just used to be the case where you could just offer a pretty decent salary and hygienists are like pouring in the door.

And now we know that’s the opposite. They can’t find anyone and they have to pay more. And, Chad says, crud. I was going to say perio.

Matt Mulcock: Chad.

Ryan Isaac: What do you, what do you wish you learned in dental school? Crud. I was going to say perio. I just gave him a little smiley emoji for that. I said, fine, we’ll allow this. Christian, we’ve got a couple more here. Again, communication to patients, personal finance, savings rate is the most important metric. Christian, thank you for listening to our

Matt Mulcock: Podcast,

Ryan Isaac: And agreeing with us. And then here’s another one. Leadership training and how to be a servant leader. So to me, we can stop that list right there. To me, the two things that stood out the most that I don’t think you can learn in dental school, and I do think it’s very new in the industry to like, like you said, be a standout. His leadership and communication. And, maybe it might be cool to do a follow up episode on some of our partners who are really good at leadership and communication to really dive into what does that even mean? What does it mean to be a good leader? Like you said, is a leader, a manager or those separate skills and separate jobs? Can one be one without the other and vice versa? What does it even mean to be a leader? What does it mean to train other leaders, to be a leader of leaders? What does it mean to have communication skills? So. I

Matt Mulcock: You’re never going to learn all this in dental school. It’s impossible. It’s impossible. I think the mindset should be not trying to adjust or fix dental school. It’s the mindset you have coming out of school to say, not only am I going to focus on, like, this and phases. First of all, like, I gotta get my, I gotta get my clinical skills, my hand speed, all that stuff focused on, of course. But what other things am I missing that I didn’t get into dental school? we’ve already highlighted, if you just focus on a couple, leadership and communication and the business of dentistry, like maybe those three things.

Ryan Isaac: Is a P& L?

Matt Mulcock: And start building a plan, invest in some coaching, invest in again, some books and some courses, some, building maybe a mastermind of some kind, you know, maybe shout out to us. We’re doing that.

Ryan Isaac: Should probably shout

Matt Mulcock: Oh, should we? Yeah.

Ryan Isaac: Dentist Advisors says thousands of hours of free content. Dennis advisor. com slash education library. I was going to say maybe this is the new path of a new graduate or a new associate. It’s not so much like just land a first job and move around a little bit and like bide your time to get faster at your hand speed, but maybe it’s like. Maybe your job as an associate now isn’t to just learn how to get faster at the skill of dentistry, but you need to dig into a practice and immediately start noticing and learning what leadership is. Maybe you need to really start diving into communication skills in a practice in your first job. Find the people in the practice, whoever, whatever role they’re in, good communicators can be in any role in the practice. Find those people and learn from them. Why are these people so good at communicating to other employees or other team? Why are they so good at communicating with patients? Why can that person call a patient and have a hard conversation, but seem to like not only get a result, but do it. So everyone’s happy.

Maybe your job as an associate is now there’s just more pressure as you come out of school. It’s more than just getting a job, figuring out which town you want to live in. It’s like, I got to start diving in immediately. To getting mentors around me and learning these things in different

Matt Mulcock: In immediately to getting mentors around me and learning these things in different practices. or I mean, we know it is. but the other thing I think of is, man, what an opportunity, because if you’re willing to do this and put in the work and know that it’s going to take time, it is any of this takes time being successful in anything is focusing on these really, what seemingly is obvious principles for a long time. But I also look at this and say, if I’m a dentist out there thinking, I’m overwhelmed. the mindset shift that I’d have is

Matt Mulcock: I’m gonna dominate because no one else is gonna do this. Yeah. Like, because it is hard. It is hard. And it should be hard.

Ryan Isaac: Harder it is,

Matt Mulcock: At the same time. Yep. But the harder it is, the more I’d be motivated to do it. ’cause it’d be like people are falling

Ryan Isaac: Buried entry so high.

Matt Mulcock: It is high.

Ryan Isaac: So many of my peers are just going to do status quo. I’m going to be to stand up by learning these things along the way. I think this does speak to, um, just the concept of outsourcing, which you can’t do everything. You can’t outsource everything right away in the beginning of your career. But I do think so much of this is outsourceable, like so much of this stuff, over the course of your career. And I think it was great. Maybe it was Greg who said that knowing when to outsource and what to outsource and what to keep

Matt Mulcock: Knowing when to outsource, and what to outsource, and what

Ryan Isaac: What can nobody

Matt Mulcock: To yourself. What can nobody do? Go look up the Pareto principle, the Pareto

Ryan Isaac: Pareto

Matt Mulcock: Pareto it’s called the 80 20 rule or the Pareto principle. It’s the 20 percent of the inputs lead to 80 percent of the, of the outputs. This is like a general principle across. You see this across the world so many different aspects of life. You’re going to see this even in your patient base, 20 percent of your patients, like the 80 percent of your income, like it’s not exact, but it’s usually how it goes.

Matt Mulcock: I think start to focus on if you put that lens or you look through that lens of say, what are the 20 percent high value things, inputs that I need to focus on leadership, communication, business, whatever it is that lead to 80 percent of my success and outsource the rest, that would be.

Ryan Isaac: Totally agree. That might be a fun episode to do as a panel with some other experienced dentists. Like looking back, what would you say was should have outsourced definitely outsource and then definitely keep do not outsource. That might be a kind of a fun discussion to do. All right. Matt, any, encouragement for people? Is there anything coming up in 2025 you want to encourage people to engage with in, with dentist advisors? Is there anything on the top of your

Matt Mulcock: There is a couple

Ryan Isaac: In the summer.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, we have a second annual dentist money

Ryan Isaac: Yes.

Matt Mulcock: Coming up. Our first one. It ended up being better than I could have ever hoped

Ryan Isaac: Totally agree.

Matt Mulcock: I honestly, I like, it was so, Incredible. It was so inspiring. We have a whole new slate of speakers. this year we already have them booked, ready to go. It’s the same place. Park city, Utah, June 20th and 21st. A new theme plan for the present. Super excited about that. And, if you’re a dentist advisor’s client, it’s included come out. meet other clients, meet other dentists, meet the partners that we have there, meet your advisor and the dentist advisors team it’s honestly an incredible chance to just like take your mind off things, kind of reset. I’m going to share this really quick. I don’t like,

Matt Mulcock: This was unsolicited from a client. Okay. Talked to him the other day out of nowhere. He just says, man, the Dentist money summit last year literally changed my life. And I was like, kind of caught off guard. He’s like, it’s completely been like the catalyst for me, by the way, the highly successful guy wasn’t like, he was like, You know coming out of the in the dumps like you changed my life, but it was like yeah but he’s like you change the trajectory of like my my life and my approach to money and Since the summit he said he’s completely changed his routine in life the way he focuses on his family his kids is Mike it was honestly incredible to hear and So I say that to say Come it’s very much worth the trip.

Ryan Isaac: And I think last year, you could correct this, but we were almost at or at capacity.

Matt Mulcock: Were close We were getting there and we are already at a place and we knew this we kind of expected this We’re gonna reshift. We’re gonna shift some things in the conference.

Ryan Isaac: Capacity, but it will, it’ll fill up. Oh, yeah. It’ll

Matt Mulcock: We’ve added capacity in the way we’ve organized the room now When we knew that in our first year how we were gonna structure it with roundtables This next year we’re going to restructure cause we already know and we’re projecting out with how many have already signed up, how many more we’re going to have. are included. Um, so if you’re a client of dentist advisors, you’re, it’s already included. Come hang out. And I mean we’re not pulling this fake like, Oh, there’s only a few spots left, but it is going to fill up this year more so than last

Ryan Isaac: Okay, well, thanks. Oh, what’s the website to go register for that? Yeah. Okay. And if you have any questions, if you want to talk to an advisor, if you’re kind of going through from this topic today, I wish I’d learned these things in dental school. What can I outsource? What can I do? How to make some of these decisions? We’ll walk through that with you. Free consult, dentistadvisors. com, click the book free consultation button. Love to hear from you. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks Matt.

Matt Mulcock: Thank you, Ryan

Ryan Isaac: Bye bye.

Keywords: dentistry, dental school, business of dentistry, patient communication, leadership, financial management, P&L, dental education

Investing, Practice Value