332: Stop Deferring Your Maintenance!

Podcast Transcript:

Kiera Dent:

Hey, everyone. Welcome to The Dental A Team podcast. I'm your host, Kiera Dent, and I had this crazy idea that maybe I could combine a doctor and a team member's perspective because, let's face it, dentistry can be a challenging profession with those two perspectives. I've been a dental assistant, treatment coordinator, scheduler, biller, office manager, regional manager, practice owner. And I have a team of traveling consultants where we have traveled to over 165 different offices, coaching teams. Yep, we don't just understand you; we are you. Our mission is to positively impact the world of dental. And I believe that this podcast is the greatest way I can help elevate teams, grow VIP experiences, reduce stress, and create A teams. Welcome to The Dental A Team podcast.

Kiera Dent:

Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And you guys, gosh, I love going on the road. Have I said this to you? I get ramped up. I get amped up. I get excited about ideas. I love traveling. It puts me in a new state of mind, new ideas come. So if you guys have not taken a trip, even if that means going to just a staycation, but somewhere different than your day in, day out, do so. Do yourself a favor, go somewhere; because, you guys, I will tell you, one of the best things about traveling is that it just gives me a reset. Like I said, you don't have to go far. It doesn't have to be for a long time, but just shake your world up, because I get so re-energized. I fall in love with the business again. I fall in love with our clients. I fall in love with doing dental consulting.

Kiera Dent:

I mean, I'm sure you guys can hear the energy and the excitement in me again. I love it. So, thank you guys. Thank you for providing us with a job, for being the reason that we wake up every day. I love this podcast. I love all of you. So you guys, if we can help you in any way, if you want us to come to your practice or to coach your team or, shoot, anything, just email us. I can't tell you how many random things we're doing for offices right now that are off-script, rogue; definitely a lot of offices signing up for Platinum. So we're able to come into your practice, help you guys grow. People are signing up for the summit. You guys, it's May 14th and 15th. That's our Dental A Team full-team CE event.

Kiera Dent:

We have Mike Michalowicz, if you guys haven't heard. Oh my gosh, the author of Profit First. You guys, I'm gutsy over here, and I just decided, hey, if we're going to run a Dental A Team summit, it's got to be the best summit you guys have ever attended. And I'm going for probably one of the most, if not the most influential people in my life, Mike Michalowicz, his profit first model ... Between that book and between Traction, which ... Hang on, hang tight, guys. Kiera's working her magic over here. I might have one more amazing lineup speaker. You just wait. I've got a call in two weeks with somebody that might be amazing.

Kiera Dent:

But I'm so excited. I was like, "If we're going to have the best of the best, I'm getting the best people." So you guys, Mike Michalowicz, author of Profit First, is going to be there. He's going to be teaching teams and doctors how to become financially free and how to achieve your financial dreams with ease. You guys, literally, I will say, as somebody who's a believer of profit first, who's tried the model, he literally changed my life. So if you are coming for nothing but Mike Michalowicz, buy your tickets. You guys, this man is incredible. He's been on the podcast. You guys have heard him. He's going to speak for an hour, and I cannot wait. I am going to be taking massive notes. I am giddy as all get out that I get to do fan girl status with him. So I'm excited to have that.

Kiera Dent:

So you guys, people are signing up for Platinum, us coming into the office. They're joining our events. They're coming to the summit. They're getting their teams amped up. So you guys, if you're even thinking about it, just get it done. Stop thinking about it, make it happen. Have 2021 be your best year. With that, I have some big news, you guys. That is, I had a big goal. My big goal was that in 2020, I wanted to buy our dream house. So every year, I set a pretty lofty goal for either me, or me and my husband. The year before that, it was to pay off all of my husband's student loans. That is still a sore subject in my life, especially now that they're saying student loans are going to be forgiven. It's fine. I don't want to talk about it, but that was our goal. And then our next goal was to buy our dream house, and to set enough aside that we could buy our dream house.

Kiera Dent:

So I was really discouraged in 2020. I didn't share this on the podcast. Some of my close friends know there is a house, and it was love at first sight, you guys. I call it the [Sunline 00:04:40] house. It was amazing. I was so happy about this house. I just found a realtor on Zillow. I didn't know what the heck I was doing. And I bought this house. You guys, I'm telling you this because this all has a purpose for what I'm going to talk about today. But I got to give you the background, otherwise it will make no sense. So this house, Sunline, we had an inexperienced realtor, just found him on Zillow. He was super nice. We put an offer in on this house. I remember sitting there with knots in my stomach. It was the day before our anniversary, so October 20th.

Kiera Dent:

I remember Jason and I went to Disney World with one of our doctor friends, shout out to them. They know who they are. We cannot thank you enough, because that was the best anniversary that we've ever had. If you guys don't know what Club 33 is, you need to figure out what Club 33 is at Disneyland, because that will change your life. So we're sitting there on October 20th in the hot tub at our hotel, waiting to find out. The next day was our anniversary, nine years. And we got the call that we did not get the house. Guys, I've had depression in my life. You know I've shared about it before. Oh, this was a different element of depression, and I was so sad. And we were going to Disney, the happiest place on earth, and I was so sad on our anniversary. It was supposed to be the perfect weekend. We were going to be at Disney World, get our dream house, be at Disney World and celebrate our anniversary. It was going to be epic, and we didn't get the house.

Kiera Dent:

Well, as fate would have it, this house came back on the market a month later. Oh my gosh, it was like seeing your ex that you're still madly in love with and you'd get a second chance at dating them. I was so excited. We made an even better offer. We had a new realtor. She knew the market better. We were so excited. I was like, "This is going to be it." I wore a lucky brace up for three days straight. I'm not kidding you. That's a true story. I believe this lucky bracelet had magic. And we went and saw the house again, my stomach was in knots, put the offer on, got a call that we didn't get it again. I was devastated. I'm like, "2020 is stupid. We're never going to get our house," all that jazz.

Kiera Dent:

So as fate would have it, I surprised my husband with a trip to Maui for Christmas. It was a ton of fun. And lo and behold, we got our dream house. It's even better than the Sunline house, yes, as fate would have it. And we actually got the call on New Year's Eve in Hawaii, a house that we've never even seen in person, that we got the house. So freaking excited. You guys, I was on cloud nine: "This house is going to be amazing. If we have babies, I can still have the office in the basement. We can run all of our events there." I was so excited about this house. Okay, I still am excited about it. So, we get back. We find out that this house is going to be great. Obviously, we're having a few little bumps. So hopefully, we get this house. If not, I'm sure there'll be another house, but we just had our inspection on this house. And what happened is these people have a lot of deferred maintenance.

Kiera Dent:

And that's the phrase I want you to think about, deferred maintenance. And I hope you know where we're headed with this now; deferred maintenance. So this house, every square inch of it, as much as it's a beautiful home ... Thankfully, my husband used to build custom homes, so it should make our lives a little bit easier. But we are going to have to touch every square inch of this house. I don't know what they were thinking, but they must really love crown molding, because they did six inches of crown molding, and then did another six inches of crown molding. It's quite a sight to see. Don't worry, I'm not going to post pictures for probably a year until we redo the whole thing. But everything, the bones, the view, the garages, the downstairs walk-out basement, everything is what we want it to be. But it has deferred maintenance; everything like the heater and the dishwasher and the fridge and everything, deferred maintenance.

Kiera Dent:

So although this house has great bones, it has a lot of deferred maintenance and a lot of problems. And when I just got the inspection report back, I was thinking of dental practices. And so this is my question to you, of what is your deferred maintenance on your practice? [inaudible 00:08:44] I hope you guys are excited about this because when I thought it, I made a quick note of: practices, where is your deferred maintenance? So in this house, they should have cleaned the heaters every single year. They should have had a pest inspection come out to prevent rodents. We live in the mountains. There are rodents. That's deferred maintenance. Also, getting your dishwasher serviced, getting your heater serviced, getting your air conditioners serviced, painting your walls every so often, fixing little problems like a broken window before there's many other broken windows. And oftentimes what happens with deferred maintenance is when we fix it, when it happens.

Kiera Dent:

So for example, a window comes, it gets broken. That's maybe, what? $500. I'm not a homeowner yet, guys, so I have no idea how much this costs. So you could laugh at me or I could be spot-on. I'm not sure what it is. I'm sure in a few months I'll know what it costs. But all these things are little things. Maybe it's expensive. A new dishwasher; fixing it, maybe a hundred bucks, maybe 200, but now it's a brand new dishwasher. Now it's fixing heaters, which are $5,000. Now it's fixing the AC units. Now this house isn't worth as much as it could have been. They're not getting as good of a deal as they could have. That's why we want to buy it. We're super excited because, guess what? We put a couple months of sweat equity into this and we can flip this house for 200,000 to 400,000 more than we're buying it for. That's awesome. That's a good purchase to purchase.

Kiera Dent:

But I'm wondering about your practices. What are the little things that if you fix them now, would actually serve you long-term? So after we came back from COVID, I was thinking, there's a lot of deferred maintenance. For example, how are our handoffs? What about cancellations? I'm hearing cancellations come up like crazy. Didn't you have a system for that? What about your AR? Are you staying on top of the AR? What about our statements? I know we had COVID, things went crazy. Do you have deferred maintenance, and where is it on your practice? Like, "Oh, we'll take care of that later." Did you update your operations manuals? Are they old? We've changed protocols, guys. COVID came, so protocols have changed, so your operations manual. That's deferred maintenance.

Kiera Dent:

And if we can fix it now, they're small fixes. They're easy fixes, but if we wait and wait and wait, they become hard. They take more time, more energy, more money long-term. Claims; are we sending out our claims? Our AR; are we taking care of that? Did we get our fees updated this year? It's a new year. Have you updated your fees? Did you insert your fee schedules, get those taken care of? Are we working on our treatment plans and making sure we're tracking our case acceptance? What about our doctor per hour? Are we working on that? What about our fluoride, looking at that? What about our new patient protocols? Have we reviewed those to see where those can be better, or are we deferring maintenance down the line, making a bigger problem that if we solved it today, could benefit you long-term?

Kiera Dent:

So, I want you guys to literally have a team meeting. What is the deferred maintenance? And that's why I wanted to call it deferred maintenance. You guys, it's such a beautiful term that I'm so excited to bring into the dental world. What is the deferred maintenance on your practice? Are you doing your monthly one-on-ones or have those been deferred? You guys, investing in your team is the best investment you could ever make, and making sure you stay on top of that. Have you deferred maintenance on reading Traction and implementing that in your practice, even though you know it would work? Have you deferred maintenance on your profitability of your practice?

Kiera Dent:

Have you deferred maintenance on talking to any of your team members on issues that they're having and having that direct conversation? Do you have deferred maintenance on training your team? Do you have deferred maintenance on CE? Where are you deferring? Where have you been putting off thinking, "Oh, I'll just wait for it," or, "I don't want to take care of that right now. I've got bigger fish to fry"? That's your deferred maintenance. And if you can fix it today, it's very inexpensive. But if you wait, something else is going to break and then that's going to add to the pile, and then something else and something else and something else. So do a spot check, do an audit, do an inspection, if you will, on your practice.

Kiera Dent:

If you guys want, email The Dental A Team. We can help you out. We can give you a sample of the scorecard that we use on our practices to check the health of their practice. So when we go into a practice, we check these items, just like an inspection would do on a house. We do it on your practice. So email us, [email protected] or go to this podcast episode. Alex will make sure we attach this form to the show notes so you and Kenzie can upload that. But you guys, check out the website. We can have this form attached for you and you guys could do a quick spot audit. You guys could look to see, what are our systems? Let's review our systems. Where do we have the breakdown?

Kiera Dent:

This is your deferred maintenance podcast to find out, where are the breakdowns? Where are those little spots that we're deferring? Maybe we know, we know we've got to fix our block scheduling, but it's just so inconvenient. We're not going to do it. Every day you put that off is another day that we're filling in hygiene patients. That's deferred maintenance, and it's going to come around and kick you in the booty when you don't have space for your new patients, and then your practice starts to shrink. Deferred maintenance on wanting to get a collection protocol in place, so that way we're not kicking that can down the line. All these little things, you guys, these are your 1% dial changes that make massive, massive growth on your practice.

Kiera Dent:

So don't defer the maintenance, get it done today. Email us, guys. We'd love to help you out if you've got deferred maintenance, because sometimes that deferred maintenance is a lot. You're like, "We're like the house you're buying, Kiera, and we've deferred maintenance for like the last six years." Cool. That's where The A Team can come in. We take practices all the time with deferred maintenance and we help you figure out where to start today, how to do it the fastest, easiest, most efficient way that's going to be the most cost-effective. And we get you guys back on track. So if you need a practice overhaul, give us a call. Don't you worry. It will be easy. It'll be fun. We make your life really simple and help you guys have maximum efficiency.

Kiera Dent:

Hello, Dental A Team. I hope you are as excited as I am, because guess what? May 14th and 15th, this year, we are running Dental A Team's full-team summit for the first time ever. It's May 14th and 15th, a Friday, Saturday, and it's CE training for you and your whole team in your practice. So in the past, you've had to fly your whole team to get full-team CE. And instead, we're bringing the CE to you. You guys, I've attended so many virtual events and I cannot wait, because this is going to be epic of all epics.

Kiera Dent:

We're going to teach you guys, with your whole team working together, how to build your dream practice, how to have accountable teams and run effective meetings. We're going to have breakout sessions with each department specifically, so billing, OM, TCs, schedulers, hygienists, assistants and doctors. And we're going to round table style, learning from the best. We're going to have lessons on leadership. We're having guest speakers come in. You guys, it is going to be epic, and I want all of you there. So head on over to our website, thedentalateam.com/events, and snag your ticket for you and your team to attend Dental A Team's full-team summit this year.

Kiera Dent:

I've seen offices quadruple, I've seen offices ... We just got a text today from an office who literally would have lost their practice last year without us, and we've got them fixed. We've got their collections high. It's been incredible. So it's very easy, you guys. It doesn't take a lot of work. We've done this for years. This is literally what we do for a living, is we help offices with their deferred maintenance. And it's okay, we all have reasons. This house, they were old. They retired and they had a lot of things going on, so they just deferred the maintenance. Well, guess what? You guys don't have to be that practice. You can fix it now.

Kiera Dent:

So if you need a whole overhaul or even just a little bit of help, we're here to help you. But I think you guys can spot audit it yourselves, figure out where the deferred maintenance is, and maybe this quarter, you commit to fixing one, two, or three of those things this quarter. Stop putting it off. Get it fixed. And I can't wait to hear what you guys do. Email us, [email protected]. As always, thank you guys so much for listening. Please like, share and subscribe to this podcast if you have not done so already. Share it with a friend. Truly, I would love to hear you guys sharing it. That would be awesome because it would help grow the practice, and we're able to give back to more dental practices and help them become a better version of themselves as well. All right, you guys, as always, thanks so much for listening, and I'll catch you next time on The Dental A Team podcast.

Kiera Dent:

All right, Dental A Team listeners, that's a wrap. Thank you so much for listening. And if you love today's podcast, go leave us a review. It takes you five seconds, and your review helps more offices, more practices, more team members just like you find out about The Dental A Team. Thank you guys so much for being part of my Dental A Team family.