Episode 715: Set Killer, Achievable Daily Goals

 It’s another consultant takeover episode, this time with Tiff and Denae, who talk about goal production and how that affects your schedule. The pair touches on:

• How to make scheduling to a daily goal not feel like numbers-only

• How to go about setting daily goals

• What to review to set up for success

Episode resources:

Reach out to Tiff and Denae: [email protected] 

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Transcript:

[music]

0:00:05.8 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, filler, 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.

0:00:51.4 KD: Hello Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and you guys, you are in for the best treat of your life. Consultant takeover. That's right. Get ready. They are dropping some dynamite. Our consulting team is incredible guys, and we are so blessed and so fortunate to have them sharing tips and tricks with you today. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.

0:01:13.3 Tiffany: Hey guys, I am so excited to be here today. This is my first official recording with our consultant, Dene. I'm so stoked, Dene that you're here. I know you've recorded with Kiera and you've got some other things out there. You've done a ton with her, but I have not had the pleasure of having you on my Friday consultant takeover yet, and I'm just stoked that you're here. Thank you for making the time today. And we're on the same time zone. That's so random. We both... We live across the country from each other, but I'm out here on your side of the country today. How are you?

0:01:44.9 Dene: I'm doing good, Tiff. Thanks for having me. How are you?

0:01:47.6 Tiffany: Of course. I'm so good. Thank you. So freaking good. I love these days. I think there's so much fun. I love just getting information out there and providing the best that we can for our clients and for the people who are out there who are not yet clients that one day will be or just love us from afar. So today, I thought it would be really fun. I know you are like our numbers queen at this point, like you and Brit and Kiera just love numbers, and I love numbers, but not as much as you do. So I thought, Oh my gosh, I wanna talk about production, I wanna talk about producing a goal and kind of how that affects the schedule. And I thought you were gonna be so perfect for that, and then to really just get that information out there.

0:02:26.7 Tiffany: So I was thinking about this this morning and there's just so many ways to run a schedule. Like so many... There's a million ways you can do it, right? You can like hodgepodge it, you can throw things on there. I think the most common thing I see is one big appointment and a million smalls to just like fill all the white space, right? And that was me way back in the day. I am like, no white space, that's all we need, right? And we're like, wow, we did like $1200 today, but we had no white space. So to me, I was like, this is fantastic. Like, doctor was busy, he wasn't up here asking me to make calls. So it was a great day. And then you have, you know, your block scheduling, your rocks pebbles and sand and water or whatever you wanna call it.

0:03:08.1 Tiffany: Different ways of doing it. But I think personally, and you might have a differing opinion, which I love, but I think that the most success I see in practices, no matter how you actually physically put the appointments on the schedule, is to ensure that you're looking at daily goals and that you're scheduling your production to a daily goal so that you can really track and meet your monthly goals for production, which translates into your collections goals.

0:03:33.1 Tiffany: So that's kind of my opinion there and what I wanted to chat about. But Dene, like what are you seeing in some of your practices even? I know you're working with a few practices, and you've got some massive practices that are working on some big growth and big change, which is right up your alley. So tell me a little bit about that and how you're working with them on production to goal and daily goals. What do you have going on over there?

0:03:57.9 Dene: Yeah, yeah. So the idea for me, what I've found is the idea of scheduling to a daily goal can be scary because then it feels like all we care about is numbers, right? All we care about is the production. And then we have this assumption that we start to look at patients as a dollar sign. And what I've found is that when you're scheduling to a daily goal, it actually does the exact opposite. What it does is help relieve some of the stress, relieve some of the unknown, so that you can truly focus on taking care of your patients.

0:04:32.6 Tiffany: Oh, my gosh, that's beautiful.

0:04:33.7 Dene: I have seen offices. Yep. And I have seen offices do templated scheduling. I've seen offices do just one high production column and one low production column. And honestly, both of them work. Both of them work as long as everybody in the team is in alignment with what is your daily goal and everybody knows in the office where the doctor is, where the assistant is, and where the hygienist is. So the schedule can tell you a story, but if you're scheduling to that daily goal, it truly does relieve that stress of the unknown and it get... It allows you to focus on your patients.

0:05:13.7 Tiffany: For sure. I love that. I love that you added that piece in there,'cause that is the scariest piece I think for a lot of our team members that are listening as well. Because our team members, we all are here in dentistry because we love people. Like on some level, we wanted to help people be healthier. So we joined dentistry because it was a beautiful path for that. So I think that was awesome.

0:05:31.1 Tiffany: And I truly agree. I think if you're looking at it every day, you're able to really see what each day, what each patient brings to the table. Like how are we able to help these patients even more? How can we get the most out of their appointments, which ultimately is getting the most out of their treatment. And I don't know about you, but I have... I think you have a busier schedule than I do with all the kids running around.

0:05:52.4 Tiffany: Like I have one kid and a very busy schedule. So coming back for appointments is really not an option for me most of the time. So if I can get the most done, that's how we increase business and how we increase patient care. So I love that. Now, question, Dene, how do you go about setting your daily goals? I think... I reverse engineer everything and I prefer to do everything as efficient as I can. But I might not have the best options or the best ideas. So how do you go about with your practices that you're working with, making sure that they have these daily goals set and they know what they are?

0:06:27.5 Tiffany: Yeah, so typically what I recommend is 75% of your daily goal is your high production procedures. So normally, you'll block out 75% of that schedule to allow your... Sorry, 75% of your production goal will be protected so that you can do high production crowns, implants, any of your bridge work, even your partials or your dentures, those high production procedures, 75%. Then 25% will take up the low or the no production procedures. So if I'm trying to figure out what the daily goal is, I'm gonna figure out what have you historically done. We don't wanna set goals that are completely out of left field. We wanna set goals that are realistic to your practice so that you can truly fill your schedules and have a well balance. So you wanna take the last three months of what has your doctor or your hygienist been averaging from a production stance, and then set that, give it a little bit of a bump, 'cause a goal should be something that you guys are striving for. So give it a little bit of a bump, maybe 10 or 15%, then take 75% of that, protect that for your high production, knowing that the rest of it is gonna get filled in with those like pebbles or those sand.

0:07:43.7 Tiffany: I love that. I love that. So that's a... That's awesome because I think you can take that, right? And that turns into like, I think both of our minds are like, okay, there's so much more that can be done. So I think that, that way that you're doing that, so the last three months of production, finding the average and then going from there, is a really great way to set all of the goals overall. So I think they could take that and really see what can they accomplish then, or what are they projected to accomplish within the year. So if they know what their year goal is, they can backtrack and kind of see, okay, well, if I'm trying to make this, or if I'm at 1.5 this year, how do I create that into monthly goals and then daily goals. So I think there's two different versions, right? So you can do the yearly goal divided by how many months you work.

0:08:27.7 Dene: Yep.

0:08:28.1 Tiffany: Then divide that by how many days per month that you're working, which will give you your daily goal and your monthly goal that can be hit. Or, you can do the opposite way, and build up. So you're looking at what your monthly average is, and what your daily average is. So if you just... If you do... Dene, like what you're saying here is really figure out what the average daily goal is based on the last three months of production, then you can build it out by day, by month, turning into the year. So then you would take every day, you would multiply your daily goal that you just came up with, that average. Multiply that by how many days that specific month you're working gives you your monthly goal, and then you can do that for every month.

0:09:06.1 Tiffany: So then I think both ways work. And I think the first way, reversing from your year down, gives you an easy looking path, but it's less defined per month. So it's not gonna be differing every month. You'll have the same monthly goal, so months like February, you're like turning and burning, trying to get that production in when you've got like eight to 11 days of actual production days. So your version the opposite, right, doing the daily average, average daily goal and then building out from there is gonna give you different months or different production per month that is achievable by day. So I love that. I love that. What do you think the biggest reason and the main importance on why we push for daily goals, what do you think that is? Like why do you feel like these practices listening today really need to consider this and start doing their daily production and pushing for those goals? What do you think?

0:10:07.4 Dene: So it creates balance in the schedule. It gives you something that you... Stability, right? You know, every day you're gonna be producing X amount, and so you're not stuck at the end of the month, stressed, not knowing how you're gonna pay your bills, not knowing how you're gonna pay your team. So you have a balance. It's like every day that we go to work, we go to work because we wanna collect a certain amount of money to be able to pay our bills and to be able to live our life. It's the same exact concept within your schedule. You wanna know every day that you're coming in, you're producing or really ultimately collecting X amount of money consistently instead of trying to cram everything into one really stressful day, just to turn around and produce nothing the next day. So instead of having that rollercoaster effect in your schedule, it's more of a well balance across the board and everybody knows what they can anticipate coming into work, ultimately allowing you to take care of your patients.

0:11:02.5 Tiffany: I love that. I love that. Okay, great. So I think the next layer of that... Well, let's recap first. So daily goals are super important. That's just... I think that's just how you're gonna reach your goals. I can't imagine doing it any other way. And I think adding a layer to that would then be taking your daily goals, scheduling to that production, which you talked about. I love the 75% is high production, 25% is everything else that you're ready to meet that goal. And I think the next layer to that is, we are looking at this every day, but if we're only looking at our daily goal every day, if we don't meet our daily goal yesterday, but we still only push for our daily goal today, and maybe we meet it, but tomorrow we don't, like, that's still gonna, we're still gonna get to the end of the month and be like, Oh, well why are we short?

0:11:48.6 Tiffany: We did our daily goal every day. How did we not meet them? And here at the Dental A Team, I know one of the things that I push my practices towards, and I'm sure we all do, is really being proactive rather than reactive. And the practices that I work with, I am constantly pushing them to look at where we are, where we have been and where we're going. And this daily production is can be done that way. It's a piece of that. So if we're only looking at today, we're not looking at where we've been been or where we're going, we could still miss the mark on our monthly and our yearly production goals and our collection goals. So I would suggest every single morning I do this at morning huddle, I put it on the sheets and we do this every day, is to look at what have we done so far this month plus what is on the schedule.

0:12:34.5 Tiffany: Are we projected to meet goal yet? And then if not, divide that by the remaining days of this month. How much more do we need to add each day to our daily goal in order to hit that monthly goal? So now we're not forgetting about that gap because what happens as we get to the end of the month still, and we're like, dang, there was a $3000 gap. How many times have we missed freaking bonus? Or we've missed the goal? We're like, we were so close, we were only 3000 off, that's like two crowns. Absolutely. Where could we have added two crowns? If we're talking about that every day, maybe at mid month we noticed we're $3000 off, if we just add $200 a day for the rest of the month, we could hit that goal. And that's much more manageable than getting to the end of the month that last day, like you're talking about and saying, Hey, it's August 31st, we need $3000 added to today.

0:13:28.2 Tiffany: And the team's like, are you crazy? We are jam-packed and we've got a ton of crown seats, where are you trying to add $3000? And my dental assistants are hating me 'cause they're working through lunch. So it's like, what could we have done? What are small pieces that we could have done throughout the month if we're paying attention to our daily goal that could have gotten us there? So I think that's kind of the next layer. And Dene, what do you feel like... We've reviewed scheduling tactics. So there's so many episodes on scheduling, and we help our clients constantly with those, so please feel free to reach out. Scheduling tactics and really how to get to that production, that daily production goal, both ways. So your yearly goal reversed and then your daily goal in progression. And really learning how to be proactive rather than reactive. So looking at those pieces today, yesterday and moving forward, where are we at and what do we need to add? Is there really... Is there anything else that's top of mind for you, Dene, that you feel like if we left this episode today and we did not tell them this thing, we did them a disservice? Is there anything else you can think that would be a layer on there?

0:14:28.8 Dene: So I think there's two things. First I would say, think about your schedule and your daily goals, like the game of Tetris. And you can actually play Tetris as a team so that you all have a really good understanding of how to manage the schedule. Just like what Tiffany's saying. Take either are you guys ahead on goal or are you guys behind on goal? And the rest of the month is where you're gonna be able to figure out where you can fit that in. So truly, a really fun game to work with the team on is Tetris. Pull it out in the team meeting and play that, and then tie it back to your daily goals and your schedule. So super fun, like hands-on, visual, tangible way to really see what the schedule... How you can manage the schedule.

0:15:14.3 Dene: When it comes to like the being more proactive with your schedule versus reactive, I would say follow up, follow up, follow up. You wanna make sure every day you're making those follow up calls. You're not waiting until the schedule's completely dead. Now you have time. If you make 10 calls a day, that's 10 more calls than you would've made today. So you constantly make those calls so that you don't have to come in to work and have a dead schedule, and all of a sudden be scrambling to fill the schedule. So great system to implement is that 2-2-2 system. Follow up two days after you present the treatment plan. Follow up two weeks after you present the treatment plan. Follow up two months after you present the treatment plan. Let the patients know that you care and you're concerned that they didn't schedule.

0:16:00.2 Tiffany: For sure. I love that. Good job. I love it. So... Okay, we talked about a lot today. I feel like we did... We busted out some solid information in this 15 minutes or whatever we've been here for. But I'm gonna recap. So we've got our daily goal. You guys, if you're gonna try to produce your daily goal, you gotta freaking know what it is. So we gave you two different versions, two different ways to do that. I want you to go home, go back to your practice, whatever it is, and figure out that daily goal so you can implement it right away. Structure your schedule with your team. I love Dene's option of practicing a game with it, Tetris. Sudoku is another great one. What can you guys do to really wrap your mind around how are we looking at the schedule? And the reason we say Tetris is not like to fill those white spaces.

0:16:42.0 Tiffany: Don't be old school Tiffany. It is to really see how things fit together and align and what matches with what. That's why we look at the schedule as a game of Tetris. So figure out your daily goal. Go do that right now, you guys. Structure your schedule. Talk with your team. You can come up with ideas, docs. Office managers or whoever's listening to this today. You have ideas, you guys are smart and you know how to do this. So come up with ideas, present it to the team, figure out what's gonna work best for your practice specifically. Practice it, practice it, practice it, practice it. And then be proactive daily. So once you get these numbers in line, once you get... Once you see what you need to track, start tracking them every day and be proactive.

0:17:19.2 Tiffany: What do you need to add in order to meet that goal? How can you do more for your patients while they're there in your chair? And then make sure you're following up. I love that. I love that last piece, Dene, 10 calls a day. 10 calls a day adds up, you guys. If you've got 15 days in the month and you're making 10 calls a day, that's 150 people that you've reached out to, or at least 150 calls that you've made to reach out to ensure that your patients are healthier leaving your practice than when they walked in. So go do those things. I love this. Dene, this was really great. I knew you'd be my like all star on this 'cause numbers are your jam. I tell everybody that. I'm like, if you want numbers you want, you want Dene.

0:17:57.4 Tiffany: Yeah. So, thank you. I appreciate you being here today. That's it. That's a wrap guys. I want you to go do these action items again. Figure out your daily goal. Figure out your schedule. Come up with the ideas. Take them to the team. Practice. Do a game. Do whatever needs to happen. Be proactive. Look at your daily goals, look at your monthly goals, see where you're going, and what needs to be done, and then follow up. And as always, we love having you guys here. We are so happy to call you our friends and our family, and we hope that you reach out to us. Any of this information or anything else that you guys think of that you may need, reach out [email protected]. We are happy, happy, happy to answer questions, to send you information. If you're looking for how we've worked with our practices on implementing these things, we're happy to help you, we're happy to help you personally implement them as well. And as always, leave us a five-star review down below, people. Read through those things, you guys. If you've done some of these things, if you loved the information, leave the information there in the comments because people actually really do read them and they do take it to heart. So thank you for being here. We can't wait to see you next time.

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0:19:04.3 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.