Episode 647: Team CE Secrets

Consultants Brit and Tina answer the question asked by many: What is the right CE for my team to learn? They suggest ways to identify what education will improve your work as a dental practice, including what treatment could be explained better, what services you’re trying to expand, what soft skills could be fine-tuned, and what is fun to learn versus good to implement.

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Transcript:

0:00:05.6 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.

0:00:51.3 KD: Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and you guys, today is the day.

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0:00:58.7 KD: Consultants are taking over the podcast! I hope you guys are ready. I hope you love it. These ladies are incredible. They give you guys so much value, so much content. And guys, listen up, have the best time. And as always, thanks for listening. And I'll catch you next time on The Dental A Team podcast.

0:01:16.9 Brett: Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Brett, and you're here for Consultant Takeover. I know these are your favorite podcasts to listen to. We won't tell Kiera Dent, it's fine. [chuckle] But today you've got me here and we've got Tina, another one of our awesome consultants. So welcome Tina.

0:01:34.9 Tina: Thank you. I'm so excited for this.

0:01:37.4 Brett: I know. Kiera loves a competition, so I'll just throw that out there to her. We all love her on the podcast, but Consultant Takeover is fun too.

0:01:46.6 Tina: Definitely.

0:01:46.9 Brett: So guys, we get to come together with your awesome listeners and talk about things that we've learned from hundreds of practices across the nation that we get to work with who are awesome and we love them so much. We love working with them. We love learning new things from them as much as we love helping them with things that they need.

0:02:05.8 Brett: So today guys, we're like in learning mode. It's beginning of the year, I don't know about you guys, but for me, I've still got a hygiene license to keep up. So I'm like, "All right, January's my time. Plan out, what CE do I need? What do I wanna learn this year? What do I wanna focus on?" So today, Tina, let's dig into it. Let's talk about CE.

0:02:27.9 Tina: I like it.

0:02:28.0 Brett: Yeah, so how do we find... I mean, hygiene... I picked CE based off of, I live in Arizona so I've got certain requirements for certain things, I've gotta learn about each year. And that's kind of how I pick my CE. But for offices, how do we pick good CE for our offices?

0:02:48.6 Tina: I like it. I think that this sometimes becomes almost an afterthought. Like, people are more so focused on just getting it done rather than thinking of, "What do I really need to do so I can add value to my practice or, so that we can continue towards whatever the end goal is as far as adding services or so forth. And what do we need for those CEs to get there? So." I'm excited for this one.

0:03:11.4 Brett: I know. For sure. Sometimes, it is an afterthought, or like doctors will pick out stuff that they're interested in and they'll go do stuff. So I think with doctors picking out CE, there's always stuff out there for them. They've gotta meet some requirements, but doctors all say like, "What do you love doing? Or what do your patients need that you're not doing?" And those might be some good topics for CE for you to get into or learn more about what you love to do to be more efficient or things that your patients need that you might be open to learning because then you've already got the market there to take care of them, make their lives easier to be able to just do it in your office instead of having to refer it out.

0:03:51.1 Brett: So those are some good questions to think about when it comes to doctors finding CE. I'll also always put a bug in the ear with doctors. I love my doctors who'd love to learn and they'll go learn about a million different things, which is awesome. Like, don't stop doing that. I would say along with that is kind of, know the things you're wanting to bring back to incorporate in your office. Like, there's a different mindset of going into CE of like, "Hey, I'm gonna go into this because I wanna incorporate it." And, "Hey, I'm taking this for fun to learn a little bit more and maybe that's something we'll do down the road."

0:04:28.3 Tina: Yeah. Right. I think that's very true. And I tend to be the personality type too that almost is always doing both. So there's these out there ideas where I'm like, "Whoa, I wanna know more about this." But then there's this practical idea of like, "This is actually something I'm going to take back and implement." And then those are the ideas that I need to be aligning my team on too, and making sure that they're getting the training that they're needing so that when we get back to it, we are ready to implement it.

0:04:52.1 Brett: A hundred percent. And I always say, "Learn it." I'm not gonna say, "No, don't do it." Learn all the things. Go for it. While you're in there I think it's a little bit different mentality of like, "Oh, this is fun. Let my brain go in a million different directions and learn all the things." And then there's a different mentality when I'm like, "Hey, I'm gonna wanna implement this." So I need to think kind of in that mindset while I'm learning about it of how can I then go take this back to my practice to implement.

0:05:16.5 Tina: Yep. Very true.

0:05:17.7 Brett: And you hit on a really good point Tina. When it comes to CE for doctors, then like team? What do we do with team?

0:05:28.9 Tina: I know, right?

0:05:31.0 Brett: So doctors hygiene are usually ones that are going off to CE more often, but I feel like sometimes we forget about the rest of those team members.

0:05:39.5 Tina: And I think, I probably view it a little bit differently too, because you're always thinking like CE for your license. And so you're like, "What continuing education do I need for my license?" And so I do think about that for the providers, but then for the rest of the team I'm looking at, "What skills do they need to be learning to support what it is that we're learning?" So that could mean that my admin team needs to be focusing on some leadership skills or they need to be focusing on cells like how to communicate with patients and some of those cells skills.

0:06:08.4 Tina: And even for dental assistants, because I think a lot of times we forget that it's our dental assistants who are helping us with getting that buy-in and that trust with patients. How often are we really educating them to be ready to do that? And so it's like, I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna learn about implants and I'm ready now to present this. And it's great because insurance doesn't cover it. So now it's a fee that's based off of what I'm charging, not based off of what insurance allows. But really the only way that I'm actually going to do implants is if I have my team ready to support in presenting the cases and getting the cases closed. And so what am I doing to get them there too. And it's not just presenting that implant, but it's also their communication skills with patients and overcoming maybe some obstacles that the patients have in committing to that treatment and what have I done to get them there. And so not forgetting that you're dental assistants, they're a big part of that. And I think that sometimes we forget. We think treatment coordinator and presenting the treatment. That's it.

0:07:07.7 KD: If you know me, you know that I am obsessed with our Dental A Team podcast family. And because of that guys, I wanna give you guys a little bit of love for this season. So from today, Valentine's Day, all the way through March, I am giving our podcast family, sneak peak access to Dental A Teams virtual summit April 28th and 29th. You guys, this year we are doing Secrets of the Multimillion Dollar Practice. Full team, nine hours of CE. It is going to be explosively epic Amazing. You guys, you are not going to wanna miss this. Full team day on Friday where we're going to go through true practice life examples, case acceptance, your gap on your systems and how you can fix it from a full team's perspective. Plus I'm bringing in lots of offices that are truly going to come here and teach you guys exactly what they do.

0:07:56.3 KD: Saturday is going to be full leadership. You got it, I'm bringing in the best of the best, popular, proficient, amazing CEOs who are going to come tell you exactly what they do day in and day out, from hospitality to their ways that they're going to structure their lives to how to make an incredible associate. You guys, the speaker lineup is top notch. So right now, head on over to the dentalateam.com/summit2023, read up all of our speakers and use podcast code Love 2023. And you guys are gonna get early access. Tickets are not going on sale until March 6th. So from today until March 6th, guys, you have early access, and we are only saving 50 spots at this price point. So go sign up today, the dentalateam.com/summit2023 coupon code, Love 2023. And I will see you at summit April 28th and 29th.

0:08:52.0 Brett: For sure. And I think you make a really good point, I think of it as like, there's only one doctor, right? Or like, however many doctors in the practice, but they're the smallest number. It's like office manager, right? There's not that many of them and they've only got so much time in their day, but then they've got all these team members that are there that can help them, that if they're trained that they know how to speak about treatment. They just even know how to look for opportunities and start to bring up the conversation. Like, how much time can that save our doctors who are limiting factor? How much time can that save them? And how much can that improve our patient experience that like, I as a hygienist or I as an assistant have more time to be able to spend with that patient to give them a little more attention to talk about things and doctor who, they're juggling multiple things that, that our doctors can spend as much time as they need to to answer questions for the patient.

0:09:52.1 Brett: But if I can do my job really well and know how to talk about it, they don't need to spend that much time in there with that patient talking about that treatment.

0:10:01.2 Tina: Yep, very true.

0:10:01.7 Brett: So I love it. So when it comes to like getting the right CE for your team, I mean, think about what treatment do we need to explain better to patients, maybe? What treatment are we trying to grow within our practice? I think those are some questions to think about when it comes to finding CE. 'Cause if we're not confident in talking about something like, great, that would be something awesome for our whole team to learn about. So then one, it expands their skills, and two, it's gonna help and benefit our patients and our practice when they have that skill and can talk about that treatment. Or if we're trying to incorporate something new, it's always great when we know about it ahead of time, right?

0:10:47.0 Brett: So then once we actually start to incorporate it, we can talk about it. We know the process, our team is really confident because it's just gonna help that that new service we're adding take off a lot quicker, 'cause we're gonna be looking for the cases, we're gonna know how to talk about it and when we're educated we can come across a lot more confident to those patients, which means they're gonna be much more trusting and bought into getting that treatment done.

0:11:11.9 Tina: Yep. I think that's very true.

0:11:14.3 Brett: Okay, so think about that when it comes to CE. So doctors, providers, take all the CE you want to just know whether this is a fun one for me to learn, take out of it what I will or if it's like, "Hey, I need to actually figure out how to implement this coming out of it." And then for the team, don't forget about those team members, right? Think about what are things that we could speak better, educate our patients better on what are soft skills, even like Tina said, I loved that, right? Being able to talk to patients we're soft skills, whether it's sales, connecting with patients, communicating better with our patients, that would benefit our whole team. But don't forget about that whole team 'cause our patients interact with a lot of people, right?

0:11:57.9 Tina: Yep. Exactly.

0:12:00.4 Brett: Everybody plays a really important role in that patient's experience, and ultimately them getting that treatment taken care of. So don't forget about them, think about the things that would benefit the team as a whole for CE. And I'd say if you don't plan any training for the team, think about it, plan some training for them.

0:12:20.7 Tina: Yep. And I think that too, just like team members are motivated by learning more too. And so it's not even just you're going out and having fun learning some things that you don't plan to implement, but your team members could do that too. I mean, it's just about keeping them engaged, right? And getting them excited about things, but them also having the opportunity to learn about things that may not be implemented but that keep them excited.

0:12:43.2 Brett: And, for me, when my boss is willing to invest in me in some way, right? Like those are skills that yes, it's gonna benefit them in the moment, but team members, anything that your employer, your boss, your doctor's willing to do for you, it's investing in you in the long run, right? Like, it's adding to my skills that I will then have with me forever that I'm learning, which I'm super grateful for, whenever someone's able to invest in me and willing to invest in me.

0:13:14.2 Brett: So team members, take the opportunity. When doctors are wanting to plan something or they wanna know what you wanna learn about, speak up, take the opportunity because that says a lot about a doctor who's willing to invest in their team.

0:13:25.7 Tina: Yep. I agree. Absolutely.

0:13:28.4 Brett: Hey, all right. So if you haven't thought about it already for 2023, think about it. What's CEs you're gonna take? Who you gonna take with you? Is it doctors? Providers? Whole team? What are we gonna learn this year in 2023? And that's a wrap for consultant takeover today. Tina, you're awesome. Thanks for being here.

0:13:46.1 Tina: Thank you.

0:13:48.4 Brett: And then, all our listeners, thank you so much for joining us. We truly appreciate you and let us know what you think. We love hearing from our listeners. So drop us a five star review or email us over at [email protected]. Let us know what topics you wanna hear about. And thanks so much for listening, and we'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.

0:14:08.2 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.