Episode 620: Mindset Meets Reality

Kiera’s giving three steps to make 2023 a year your entire practice can crush. It’s as easy as one-two-three:

1. Expect to crush it

2. Map out your goals and be disciplined

3. Stick to it

Kiera also shares insight on the stumbling blocks most practices face, and how to navigated them and come out on top.

Episode resources:

Reach out to Kiera 

Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast

Become Dental A-Team Platinum!

Review the podcast

Transcript:

[music]

0:00:05.9 Kiera Dent: Hey everyone, welcome to the Dental A Team podcast. I'm your host Kiera Dent, and I have 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 travelling consultants where we have traveled 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 team. Welcome to the Dental A Team podcast. Hello Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera, and you guys, I hope today is an amazing day for you. I hope you are just beyond proud of yourself for 2022. I hope that you are looking back, reflecting, and you just are proud of yourself, that you show yourself compassion for the great things and the things that maybe you aren't as happy about. I just hope that you guys are truly 100% loving yourself and giving yourself just an awesome, awesome, awesome day today.

0:01:20.5 KD: All right guys, today's topic, I want to go over with you guys how to crush next year. As a practice, I have another podcast where I go into like setting goals and all that, but how do you guys crush your next year? And I think number one, to expect that, to say next year I'm going to crush it. Words create worlds, language is powerful, and what you decide next year is going to be, no matter what, you can have it become that. It doesn't matter if the economy is great, if you lose team members, if you have team members, you can decide that next year I am going to crush it and it is going to be my best year yet. You can decide that right now. So I want you guys to really think about that, this is how I'm going to crush next year. Absolutely 100%, okay? The second thing is, let's set you guys up for success. So whether that's goal setting, whether that's vision boards, whether that's writing in your journal every day, but let's pick one habit, one thing that's going to really set you up for success. I found that people who truly crush their years are very organized and very intentional. Now, if you're not that person, great news, you have an opportunity to become that person. If you're already that person, great news, you have an opportunity to become an even better version of that.

0:02:33.9 KD: So let's get organized. I am so detailed on this, you guys. So what I have is I have it broken down and I've shared this before and I'm hoping this helps somebody out there, is I have my personal and professional goals written out. I have a vision board of them and then I also, yes, I break them out by quarter to make sure that I have a roadmap for myself to ensure that I'm going to not just hope that I crush next year, but to ensure that I'm going to crush next year. So I want you guys to map this out because guys, why on earth would you say all right next year we're going to do this and we're going to do that but we're going to have no plan for it. Who the heck are you? Why would you ever ever ever think that? Why would you ever say nope not going to do that? That's ludicrous. That's crazy. Don't do that. Create a plan. That's really what it is, and then be disciplined that you're actually going to follow through with it. Be disciplined that you are going to make the most out of next year and that you're going to follow through with what you say you're going to do. So how do you map this plan? Well, you got to decide what you want in life and then you need to break it down by quarter.

0:03:44.5 KD: So let's say the office wants to do a 10% growth. Let's say that you, this last year did a million and you want to do a 10% growth so that's 1.1, all right? So now we've got to break it down and say okay if we want to make 1.1, and I'm doing the math right now, we need to do that in 12 months. That means that's 91,000 per month. Okay? But let's say you're like okay, well, in addition to that I want to do a 10% growth so we're going to hit 1.1. I also want to take off one week per quarter, and we're always off for the holidays so that's five weeks, and we're also off for 4th of July so that's six weeks, and you know, I think like we're usually closed in February for ice storms so that's seven weeks. So instead of having 52 weeks I only now have 45 weeks in the year. So let's do 1.1 because that's what our goal is, and we want to take all that time off so now we've got to divide it by 45 weeks times that by four which is not perfect. That means we're actually now at like 97,777 but I like to bump that to 98 so we don't miss it. So we've got to be hitting basically 98,000 per month, but to do it per week we've got to be at 24,444 I'd bump that to 25,000 so we've got to be hitting 25,000 per week. If we work five days a week beautiful that means we're at about 5000 a day and we should hit our goal of 1.1.

0:05:09.0 KD: So we just broke that goal down into a tangible daily, weekly, monthly plan. You get to take off seven weeks out of the entire year. I'm sure your team will be beyond excited and you have just mapped out how we're going to do it, what the goals need to be for you to get the 10% growth a week off every single quarter, and now you just have to follow this plan. If we get behind on our goals, we've got to find different ways, maybe we run an ortho promo, maybe we do something else, but you actually have a plan broken down with strategy with specifics so that way you don't miss it. That is where I feel people crush your next year, is one, having the mindset saying I'm doing this. Two, creating the goals with a plan and then the next one is just truly sticking to it. Hello Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera and you guys, how was your 2022? I want you to look back and tell me, was it the year of years or was it a really hard year? Did you crush it or did it crush you? This is the time guys, for end of year Dental A Team Platinum is welcoming you where we will physically fly to your practice. We will come and we will elevate your dreams and make them into a reality, and guys, space is limited and prices are going up. This is not a sales pitch. This is not something where I'm trying to scare you into it.

0:06:31.2 KD: I'm just facing the reality of inflation is here, flights are expensive, and I want to see as many people as we possibly can and serve as many as we can. So if you want to be part of our elite group of people, there are limited spaces because our consultants can only see as many. We are taking on 10 new Platinum offices by the end of the year and that's it. That's all we have space for. So if you want to be one of the elite 10, come join us, be a part of our top-notch elite doctor community, be a part of our office manager and hygiene and front office communities, get your operations manual done and live the life that you've only been dreaming of today. Email me hello at thedentalateam.com and make 2023 truly a year that's unforgettable. We are a complete tax write-off and like I said, we are only taking 10 offices. So don't get left behind, be one of those 10, and I cannot wait to give you the biggest warmest welcome to completely and utterly changing your life for good. Welcome to the Dental A Team, I can't wait for you to join us. Hello at thedentalateam.com, cheers to 2023 and making you your best self yet.

0:07:43.9 KD: Now, I thought about this a lot and I coached a lot of people and I'm like, what is the piece that usually causes problems within? What are the pieces as to why people don't execute? The number one is, because they usually don't have a plan. When people have a plan, they're usually pretty good at following that, like that's step one, but step two is truly just human nature, we get busy, we forget, we're not disciplined, we don't want to wake up and go to the gym. There's better things to do. TikTok is super funny. I got really stressed out with my associate, and then time slips away, and then we're like, oh my gosh there's no way I can hit 1.1 and I can't take those vacations, and so we just let the whole thing slip away. And so it's really about having accountability whether with yourself or with someone else. You guys, I have to have a coach, like I need to hire a personal trainer. If you guys listen to my integrity podcast you know like two days a week over here, [chuckle] I'm not doing so great. I need to either join a class or I've got to get a personal trainer, because this whole working out on my own shenanigans is beyond terrible. I just don't do it you guys, and so it's either you're going to have the personal discipline or you're going to have somebody that you hire that's actually going to help you with it.

0:08:56.7 KD: Now, I am such a huge proponent. Of course, I'm a consultant. Of course, I'm an accountability coach like, this is what I do for a living but I've got to make sure that I'm actually following through on this. So there's either like the pain of regret or the pain of doing it, and which one would you rather? The pain of regret weighs ounces, the pain of just doing it, or excuse me, the pain of regret is tons, the pain of doing it now is just ounces. So I'd rather just do it now. It's like it's much easier to workout now rather than having knee, hip, and shoulder pain hashtag Kiera Dent and trying to get better, rather like, why didn't I just workout before? Oh because I was travelling the freaking world, going to all 50 states every single year. I was gone 267 days out of the year. But guess what? I could have still worked out in a hotel room. True or false? I absolutely could have. I could have had a virtual trainer that would have been there when I was on the road. Guys, those people exist, so you either got to be disciplined yourself having meetings, having checkpoints. My team and I, we meet every single week. I have a personal meeting with myself every single week to review, where are my goals at, where am I headed, and what do I need to change in and morph into?

0:10:07.4 KD: That is what we're talking about, of being able to do this, of being able to to follow through on what you say you're going to do like, how you crush next year is how you choose to show up day in and day out. It's not just going to be some random thing that lightning strikes you and you're like, oh my gosh let's crush next year. It is going to be through dedication, discipline, and accountability. That's how you guys are going to crush next year. Like when I look at success and failure, they are not radically different. When I see offices that are super successful meaning they're growing, they have a low overhead, doctors are taking home a paycheck, team members are super happy, the practice is growing, versus practices that are dying, practices who are stressed out of their minds, doctors are never ever ever ever sleeping, they're on the verge of bankruptcy or they're not as profitable as they'd like to be, maybe sitting at that 80%, 90% overhead, not taking paychecks home. You would think that there's a huge chasm between those two practices. The reality is, they are actually very very close together as far as what they did to get there. It wasn't some huge event. I mean, sometimes yes, maybe they get sick or maybe they lose an associate, but even that and what I found is, it's the consistent execution and staying accountable.

0:11:25.5 KD: Like someone who is stressed out and on the verge of bankruptcy, I'm like okay, you were not looking at your numbers, I can promise you that, you didn't know what your daily goal should be, you weren't perfecting your skills, you didn't have systems in place but yet the practice who is very successful, they were doing the day in, day out discipline of building the systems, of setting goals, of making sure that they're getting there, of perfecting their hand skills. That was the thing that that practice was doing, and again, they're small decisions that lead up to great chasms, but those small decisions were very very very similar just on opposite ends of the coin. So my question to you is, what do you need to change? What are the daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly disciplines? They could be meetings, they could be personal, like you guys, I think back to when I was in college and my first semester I didn't have a job and my grades were junk, and then year two, semester two, because I went from valedictorian, fun fact about Kiera, as valedictorian in high school to having, I think it was a 2.5 GPA my first semester of college. I got, oh I think it was a C minus, because if I got a D, I had to retake the class.

0:12:43.7 KD: Like you guys, I went from straight A, valedictorian to crash and burn, and I'm like, what was different? I was sleeping in, skipping class, not going into my TAs, thinking I was better than that, staying up super late, not eating healthy, like those are just small disciplines that I, like in four months guys, I let myself go, it was four months, it wasn't so long and so it was small things, so I then incorporated like I had to start eating healthy, and I went to bed at 10 o'clock every night, and I got a job actually and that job forced me to be more productive with my time, so I couldn't just lollygag and have all my time go away. So for you guys, what do you need to incorporate right now? Are they meetings? Are they systems? Do you need to get an operations manual done? Do you need to have an accountability coach that can like sort through the mess because you can't see it and tell you what your starting point is? What is the discipline that you need to do to change? And sometimes it's hard to see it within ourselves, so I often ask the question even to myself, hey Kiera, if you're consulting yourself, where would you tell yourself to start or what things would you tell yourself you need to change?

0:13:50.0 KD: And sometimes just asking that question can tell you the roadmap to what you need to get done, but that's only half of the equation, the other half is actually sticking to it and following through. So if you want to be that 1.1, have seven weeks off, have a 50% overhead, you've got to create the plan and then you've got to stick with it and pivot throughout. This is how you guys are going to crush next year. If we can be a resource for you, if our team can help hold you accountable, guys what we do is not radical, it is not anything life shattering or hard or anything we're like, wow, that's so brilliant. What it is, is truly just holding you accountable and helping you see what the next step is. You can do it on your own, but if you're like me, I need a personal trainer. So if we can help you guys, please reach out hello at thedentalateam.com, and guys, if nothing else, make a plan, create the meeting structures that you need to hold yourself accountable and then execute, because 2023 can be your best or your worst year and those two are not radically far apart, even if you have deaths, even if you have heartache and sorrow, even if life doesn't play out, they still are not radically far apart from each other.

0:15:03.4 KD: It's mental stamina, it's decisions, it's determination, and I'm not saying if those things happen to you, that you're a failure if you had a hard year. Guys, IVF did not work out for me, I had three failed zero embryos, you better believe like heart-wrenching, gut-crushing year for me. And then I found out my little sister is pregnant, like, oh my gosh, really? That was so hard for me, and I'm sure you all had your hard experiences but that doesn't mean that my year has to be completely overshadowed. I see some people who have lost family members, who have had a hard time and they had their best years, they've also had their worst years, but I feel like, again, it's the daily disciplines of who we decide we're going to be no matter what happens to us, is how you're going to crush next year. So guys, if we can help you, if we can help you crush it and you want to be part of our platinum family and network and connect with other people, please email us hello at thedentalateam.com, and as always guys, thanks for listening, let's crush 2023, guys this is your year, let's do it. And as always guys, thanks for listening, I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.

[music]

0:16:16.0 KD: And that wraps it up for another episode of the Dental A Team podcast. Thank you so much for listening and we'll talk to you next time.

[music]