11: Hiring a COO

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Hello, everyone. This is your fearless host, Emmett Scott. And I'm so glad to have you here on another episode of DSO Secrets. Probably one of the most challenging positions to hire is the coo, because I think, number one, it's a broadly defined position. In other words, you can't just say, hey, I want a coo. And everyone knows what that means. It's very dependent on specifically what your needs are and what you're looking for. Which I think that's number two is depending on the stage of the company, there are different needs from that position. First, we've got to establish that we all probably inflate titles a little too early in our dso, partly in hopes to attract, I think, a better quality person. You know, if I call it a coo, then that means I'm going to get somebody who thinks at a better level and can really help me strategically solve problems. But I think we also partly overstate what level we're truly at and whether that's the right fit. I mean, do we need a CEO at five practices? 10, 20, 100, 200, 500? Or is it based on revenue or employees? Or is it simply based on the complexities that we're trying to solve? So when is the right time to hand out that title as a coo? And then what's the difference too, between a practice manager or office manager, an ops manager, a regional manager, an area director, an ops director and a coo? So you've got all these different terms and titles too. I guess VP of Ops is another one we could put in there. And really how you define those has a lot to do with. With how you want to define those. There isn't something that says this title has to do these things. There is. Directionally, if someone's a regional manager, you would think that they are over more than one location, and that probably wouldn't fit really well for them to be over one practice. But after that what parts they help with, what parts they dig into, that's really up to you and your business model. I think one thing we'd all be clear on is as you move up the chain of those titles, the person is becoming more strategic. They're an individual who hopefully can solve problems, not just implement your solutions. And so I think when we start handing out that title, we're asking for somebody who's maybe a little more innovative and a little bit more strategic in nature and can start to coordinate at the DSO level, all the coordination that needs to happen there. But then they're also doing something at the practice level as well. And again, that can heavily decide be decided on, determined by your stage, where you're at and, and what your needs are. I think the biggest struggle we always have for this position is how much strategic we need. You know, do we need them sitting in the office at a whiteboard, just solving through a thousand things there versus how much should they be at the practice? Do we want them neck deep, you know, answering phone calls, doing role plays with the practice managers? And you know, at some stages that might seem really obvious which level they should be at, but at other stages it's not really clear. You kind of need help in all of those areas. So I can't tell you exactly which you should hire, as every company has their own jargon, but I can tell you that the sooner you clearly define what you really need, the better. That's probably even more important than what title you give them because frankly, if I give someone the title of COO and I've defined it my way, and you give someone the title of COO and you define it your way, there's a lot of room there that we both can be right on. So I think getting clear on what are the problems that I really need solved that I think that an operationally minded individual could really help with, you know, having that self awareness and being very conscious that it is an adjusting, dynamic position. And I think having that mindset is probably the most fair you can be to yourself and to the person you've hired, being upfront about that, you know, saying, hey, this position is going to change over time. So we need to be talking consistently around what you perceive as the current needs of the company, what I perceive, and make sure that we are getting aligned. I mean, no matter if you're hiring a COO or an ops director, et cetera, you have to make sure that the responsibilities are clearly defined and that you've jointly determined that they are not clearly defined and that if they're not clearly defined, that you'll increase the communication and project clarity to ensure you're not running over them and that they're in a place where they can be successful and bring value to the company. I can tell you that since this industry is consolidating, we're all at growth stages and many COOs and Ops Directors can't handle that changing dynamic. So you've got to make sure that unless you're a very large company with really clear definition around that position, that if you're hiring from a bigger company, that person is going to be bringing their culture in. And though they might say to you, listen, I've been working in a bigger company, I want to be down in a smaller company where I can bring more value, etcetera, They've been working under a culture where everything they did was very clearly defined. And so though they, yes, want to bring impact to you, they are probably going to struggle tremendously in the lack of clarity that you end up providing them. And that's just a reality of trying to get those cultures to align. So, you know, some people can handle the lack of clarity, a lot of people can't. And so just be cognizant of that. If you think you've gotten this great COO because you hired him from this awesome company that was big, know that they may end up struggling in the fact that you're not clearly defined on what you want to do with this ops position. Now, the way that I rank where we are as a company and who would be the best fit for that coo ops position has a lot to do with how. How clear is my data and how clear are my systems and my onboarding training platform. So if I'm still struggling to figure out what my key metrics are going to be, then the ops person I need to hire needs to be comfortable with the fact that we don't have really clear metrics, or if we do, but it's really difficult to get, it's not in a nice, clean dashboard, I just need to make sure that the person I'm hiring understands that, hey, I want you to drive results, but the tools I'm going to be giving you are a little bit fresh, a little bit archaic compared to maybe somewhere else in an industry that's more matured out. And, you know, all of the metrics that they're trying to drive are clearly defined and they can, you know, pull off of their iPhone or whatever. So knowing where my data is helps me define who I need and how flexible they need to be ready to be. Also, if I don't have a good onboarding process for people, they're probably going to be helping a lot with that on the HR side or on the training side. And so I can start filling out in my mind I'm going to need them heavily involved in that. Now, if you're a company that you're onboarding and you're training and what you're going to do with employees for the first 90 days is very clearly defined and you've got these great dashboards and you just need somebody that is very strategic and can help you execute on bigger ideas, then that's different. If you've got a whole regional team and you need somebody who's going to run that regional team, interact with the CEO again, help create strategic ideas, prioritize those, then that's different than someone who's like, I need help, you know, consulting down at the practice level every day and helping to onboard a practice manager and staff, etc. So just be cognizant and humble about the fact of where are you really and what is it that you, that you really need so that you can hire the person that's going to fit the culture and the stage that you're at. I have found that as it gets more defined, I can hire someone from another corporate environment in though ironically, the more defined and clear it is, I feel even more comfortable hiring internally, someone who has dental experience and training them on the business side. So getting that more defined, it opens up the door to outside resources being able to help you more, but it also allows your team internally to support as well. The less defined you have the position, your data, your systems, the more you are relying on that position, constantly coming back and ensuring that they are aligned with you as a CEO and the rest of the team as well as you're relying a lot on their ability to be innovative, but you also want them to be consistent and to communicate constantly so it puts more on this person because they're in a dynamic changing environment. And again, you're asking constantly, how much time do I want them in the practices helping there? How much do I want them at the DSO helping us to strategize how to support the practices? I think two things you really want to be sensitive to that operations feels a heavy load that they're constantly trying to handle. Number one is everybody. And this doesn't go away as you grow. Everybody's got great ideas on how to improve the business model. What if we were open longer? What if we were open more days? What if we changed our technology? What if our scripting was better here? What if we did this to the facilities? What if we marketed this way? All of those things, at the end of the day, have to be organized and prioritized. They are all awesome ideas. They probably have great return on investment ROI for each of them. But somebody's got to own the fact that those things have to be organized and prioritized and not all worked on at once. And number two, which kind of leads into it is OPS is usually trying to control all of the communication going down to the practices. As you grow as a dso, it's very common for you to start to overwhelm the practices when you're trying to get them to do billing better and scripting better and review their financials and improve in this area and improve in that area. And we changed our marketing and now we're going to run this promotion, whatever it might be for your business. Change their it, improve their it. All of those things, at the end of the day though, they might be really awesome ideas. They have to be implemented by an office manager and their team and they can only handle so much. And then you got all the compliance and those things that feed down as well. So anyway, I think the operations, as you're thinking about this position, realize that there's somebody who needs to be able to push back and say, listen, these are all great ideas, but we need to organize and prioritize them and be conscious of how much we're feeding down to the practices so that we can have a successfully growing DSO and not one that is just torturing the practices with the next great idea. So anyway, I hope this is helpful. It's not a specific questionnaire on, you know, here's all the questions to ask a COO or a job description, but I think it's the base concepts that you need to start thinking about your operations and who is it that you really need. And at every stage, no matter how small or big you are, this is something that you keep coming back to and saying, all right, is this organizational chart and are these job descriptions still what we need? And in an industry like this that is changing, it's a conversation that you should have, you know, frequently, definitely touching base with whoever's over OPS on a consistent basis, but also just sitting down in bigger strategic planning and saying, does this org chart still work or have we grown past it? Do we need an additional type of help or a change in the leadership that we have there. So if you'd like more ideas on how to hire and define that right COO and OPS person, please join us on our DSO Secrets Facebook group. Love to see you there. Until next time, keep smiling. Thank you for listening to DSO Secrets. Join our community on Facebook at DSO Secrets and get answers and resources to some of your most challenging questions. 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