45: 3 Attributes of a Successful Dentist w/ Dr. Chad Evans

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an entrepreneur in the dental industry.

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When I was working as an associate, right, at a school, I never imagined I could own these many practices with this amount of success.

So thank you.

You have helped build my marketing mind to a whole new level. You have this natural talent, this unique ability. Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of DSO Secrets. I'm your fearless host, Emmett Scott, and I'm really excited about this episode today because I get to bring someone on that. Man, I probably should have brought on the DSO secrets a long time ago. Dr. Chad Evans has been a friend of mine for now 40 years, man, that's crazy. Since we were two years old, we don't have a lot of things in our life that. Yeah, I just don't have a lot of things for reference of even 40 years, you know. So anyway, it's been an awesome friendship and we've had a really cool opportunity. Starting nine years ago, you made that fateful call to ask for help for your first practice, and now you're, you know, working towards your 30th location here that you're helping with. So, anyway, crazy, but so fun to have you on. Chad, appreciate you taking the time.

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I've been listening to your podcast and even. Even being friends for 40 years and even working with you on such a regular basis, I still find myself drawn to those. These podcasts that you make and some of the things that you're presenting and just what it does for our industry, and I just love it. So thank you. I appreciate it. Look forward to it.

And we can. Well, thank you. And we can get your testimony that I really am as good looking as I sound.

Right. Well, I've been saying for the whole time you've been doing this, you should do these as video podcasts. You're like, you're missing out on half the opportunity.

All right, now we're just lying. All right, so the reason I wanted to have you on was because there is this dynamic and I get to talk a lot about the elements of a DSO and our role, but we're supporting clinicians. Right. And so what I haven't been able to address is really, from the clinician's perspective, what are the key Things that are, I think are fundamental aspects of a successful doctor. And I'd love to go kind of granule on in the practice piece, but really this is about building multi location DSO support. But I think the foundations really start at the practice and then come up. We can kind of prove that out here in our discussion. But if I just kind of threw that big topic at you, we might not be able to consume all of that in this one podcast. But what have you found now as you've gone from one to almost 30 locations, was really foundational pieces and fundamental aspects of a successful doctor.

You know, and I love this, I love this topic. And as you know, you and I have talked about this so many times. Right. And we've really kind of discovered and realized that as a dso, you can only go so far. And the reality is you can be the best DSO in the world. But if this clinical piece is not in place, it's like you're supporting nothing, you're supporting a paper house. And you know, as you and I have discussed and how far the business side can carry a practice and then where I can personally best spend my time really developing and leading clinicians and getting clinicians to that next level is really just so critical to the entire success of either the business enterprise or the office. So it really can't be understated how important and how critical that component really, really is.

Yeah, you know, I think one of the things that we hit on is the DSO brand or name was actually, I think the best one that was ever created because it really states that this organization, the purpose, its mission is to support the clinician. But to your point, it can't outrun the clinician either. It's never going to be bigger than the vision of those leading clinicians. I think anytime that the staff, the business aspects, the business leadership have tried to outrun or create something more than the clinicians were interested in, I think that's where you really get that bad name, where it starts feeling like the business side's now stepping on standard of care, starting to create control environments that don't feel comfortable to clinicians anymore. As we think through building a dso and as I'm preaching, hey, always stay behind the clinician, provide them support to their vision. Well, then the other aspect has to be discussed, which is, so what does make a successful clinician and how do they create a vision that the DSO can really get behind?

Yeah, absolutely. And just for some perspective, just a little bit of background. As you know, I started working in my dad's dental lab at 11 years old. I've been in this business over 30 years now and I'm 42. So I mean, the vast majority of my life I've been around dentists. I've been working for dentists since, you know, in this current space, this current place that we're at. You know, we have over 50 active full time clinicians. Over the course last nine years that we've been building this, we've probably had a couple hundred dentists that I've supervised and trained and mentored. You know, throughout my career I've worked in group practices with it. I mean, so I've literally been exposed to, I mean, on an intimate level, exposed to hundreds of doctors where I'm literally evaluating their work and getting their phone calls on this, that or the other managing patient issues. So I've been around, I guess what I'm saying is I've been around the block a little bit.

Yeah.

And with kind of that perspective, I've seen clinicians that are just unbelievably successful and they're amazing. And then I've also seen clinicians that aren't, quite frankly, they just are not. And they usually don't have much success. It's amazing how standardized and how it's the same things that you find in the successful doctors are consistent and the same things that you find in the unsuccessful doctors are consistent.

It's interesting how those formulas and equations start to reveal themselves through just kind of the law of large numbers. Right. Things that you might think were unique really start to boil up to the top and you go, why is it every time a doctor is doing really well and is successful, however we're going to define that, Right? But they are successful financially, etc. They're always doing these core activities. Personalities are different. Certain things might be different, but they're always doing these core things. And when a doctor is struggling and yeah, just struggling in every aspect, there's always these components that are present there too.

Absolutely, absolutely. You know, I've really kind of narrowed it down to three items. I mean, when I'm looking at a clinician or evaluating a clinician that works for us, or I have somebody asking me for advice on, you know, how do I grow my practice. I mean, there's really three things that I've really narrowed it down to. One of them is clinical competency. Obviously you've got to be a capable and a competent clinician. Number two is essentially that patient interaction piece. And what that really boils down to is what kind of value are you bringing to your patient? Are you really a patient centered clinician? And then number three, is really that staff leadership and office leadership and interaction that you're having. How are you leading that team around you in your daily activities and how you're taking care of your patients. So, you know, it's interesting, in the dental space, we spend almost our entire education. Well, I'm not going to say almost. We spend our entire education and, and the entire industry is focused around that clinical skill aspect. And in all reality, that is the least important of the three. I don't want to say it's not important. It is important, but it is actually the least important when you're actually evaluating finding successful clinicians.

It's interesting because I was talking to a specialist the other day, real humble guy, he's going through residency and listening to the podcast. And he called and asked the question. It was really about this, like, I'm going to go buy a practice. I'm evaluating these. And so he had questions around that and he said, you know, what's some advice that you could give me? And I said, here's the most, like, painful advice, but reality that I can, that I can give you. And that is everything you've been focusing on for the last four, six, eight years. No one is going to appreciate when you step out of that door. Like, you never have a patient come in and say, oh my gosh, Dr. Evans, I am here because I heard that you can do fillings. Is that true? You can do fillings here, right? Like everything you put your heart and soul, they are not even going to talk to you about margins. I mean, what is wrong with these people?

Yeah.

You know, and so I said, being a specialist, the one negative I would tell you, you've picked up all these new skill sets. It's great. But your mindset has been indoctrinated that this is the world is clinical. And as soon as you step out, it will reduce down to about 5 to 10% of your total time, if you're lucky. And everything else will go into those other two components that you brought up, Chad, which is that patient interaction and can I communicate value and how do I lead this staff team? And then you get with that leadership, accounting and IT and all marketing and everything else that goes along with that, especially if you're going to be an owner. And I hadn't fully thought through that until he had asked that question. And I thought, wow, this is tough movement. Right? And, and what makes it even more difficult is you've got professors who are trying to bring their value and frankly extract your loan money and keep it there at the school by saying, no, everything is dependent upon this clinical component. And like you said, so important. But it's also, like, commoditized. Like, people just expect you to be good at that and now they want to know everything else.

You know? Absolutely. And you know what? Where the clinical skill and being clinically competent and capable, where that actually provides or the most value is brought, is when you gain that confidence and you and you are a competent clinical clinician and you and you have good clinical skill, it actually increases your confidence and it increases your capability, which then now bleeds over into these other two elements. So even being a skilled clinician that's technically sound and really good at those things, if that's not improving your patient interaction, if that's not improving your staff leadership, if that's not improving your interaction with your staff, then it's almost a waste. It's almost wasted because while there's certainly value in just the technical aspects of being a good clinician, that actually should be elevating these other two pieces, which is where you're really going to see success.

Okay, I get it. So, yeah, if you walk in and you don't know how to do a filling.

Right.

Or you've never done it, then obviously having to struggle with those components. Yeah. You're not going to have any bandwidth to take on steps two and three.

Right.

But you need to. You're saying you go into it with the mindset. I'm getting confidence and competence around this specifically for the reason to move to levels two and three, which is patient value creation and staff leadership.

Absolutely. And, you know, the other thing around that clinical skill piece, you know, I've had to clean up a lot of cases. I mean, being honest, I've had plenty of cases where that clinical competency, it really isn't where it needs to be. But some of the best clinicians that I've ever worked with, you know, I'm not going to say they were the best, most skilled clinicians, they were certainly capable, they were certainly competent, and they were more than adequate in their clinical delivery of care. There was no issues there. But what they were willing to do is they were willing to look at the patient and figure out on a value basis, what can I do that's going to bring the most value to this patient from their clinical skill set. And then the other thing that you see those particular types of doctors doing is they're willing to get outside their comfort zone, they're willing to expand that competency. They're willing to push themselves to figure out what their patients actually need and then develop themselves as a clinician to satisfy those patient needs, not necessarily where they're most comfortable. You know, so often, I got to say, I mean, and I'm a pretty big critic of this, of this industry as a whole, but this whole industry is built around clinicians. I mean, if you look traditionally, what the schedules are, you know, what kind of income expectations there are, what procedures are done in this particular office, and then you refer this out because of this, that and the other. Everything in this industry has been designed around what makes the clinician's life the most comfortable. And in all honesty, that is probably the worst way to actually, you know, practice and have a career. And so that's where I've seen the most success, is doctors who are breaking that mold, who are rejecting that mentality and really bringing it back to the patient. How do I take care of this patient? How do I develop myself into somebody who's most capable of taking care of this patient? And then how do I lead my team supporting me in that? I mean, when you get that mindset and you actually reject that clinician centered industry standard, and you reject that and you do bring it back to the patient, it's amazing, amazing the kind of success that you'll see with those types of clinicians.

Well, what I'm hearing is that being a successful clinician, I mean, you've probably given us mindset number one here, which is constantly push yourself out of your comfort zone, right? And what's so tempting, I think, especially with college education, and this isn't just a dentistry issue, but I think it's broken up more quickly in some of the other professions is you get that degree and it's so easy for the brain to say, I'm educated, I'm done, right? And what I'm hearing from you is, you got that degree, Congratulations, the education has begun, right? It's not done. It's begun. And so how much? Even again, more difficult if you've done extended education and so forth, hoping to gain those competencies, to still walk out with what we call that beginner's mind. And to say, great, now I'm going to expand my clinical competency even more than what I got in school. And once that's done, I'm actually got two more stages that I've got to go through. And right now we're just talking about being a successful associate, right? We're not even moving into. And I want to have multiple locations and I want passive income and I want to have a bigger impact on more patients. But step one, which I think you've nailed, is stop making yourself the center. Realize that you're coming out, you know, come out with a beginner's mind, make the patient the center. And would you say, start to cue off of what the patient's needs are and use that as your agenda of education? To some degree.

I mean, I would almost go so far as to say if you make patient needs and bringing value to your patients your central focus, you can't fail. You literally cannot fail. You know, and to your point, I get so many, you know, I get interact with a lot of young doctors coming right out of school and so many young doctors feel like this decision, this one decision they're about to make for which they have no basis for making, quite frankly, they've, they've received no training and all they know how to do is they know how to do dentistry, but they feel like they're about to make a lifelong, life altering decision on where to go practice, open their own practice. And I have the opportunity to talk with those doctors who are feeling the weight and the stress of thinking that they have to now make this incredibly huge and life directing decision. And what I tell them is, take a step back. You just opened the door. Like you said, you just got the ticket into the game. You aren't finishing a game. And I tell them, you know what, spend some time, join a group, interview some groups and find one that meets your values. That's in line with where you think you want to start heading in life and learn from it. You're not making the last decision of your life right now. You're just starting on that process and, and start to develop yourself. But view it like that, like, where can I go to deliver and bring the most value and how can I start learning and absorbing and being a sponge to this world around me?

That one's huge for guys coming right out of school. I had an entrepreneur coach that said, Emmett, your next decision is not your last decision. And it's just so easy in life sometimes. Whether you're buying a house or you know, you're making big decisions and kind of feeling like it's also the last one, like, hey, I need to buy the house that I'll be in forever, right? Or like you're saying I need to choose the next step in my career and plan on it being the 40 year, you know, place And I'll never leave. But if I'm approaching things as my next step, my next milestone is to learn this capability or to get more reps around that. That's the only reason I'm going to take this step. And if it ends up being more than that, great. I mean, that's a great way to reduce down some of the nerves and anxieties of making those next decisions. And you could really do that with the patient focus. So let's say you're in a practice now, you're either an associate or you own it. And you see that patient coming in that has a need, making the next decision to just say, I'm just going to learn this capability a little bit more and I'm going to take on this one that I haven't had as well. And so we're still kind of in stage one here, but expanding out stage one so that I could have a bigger impact on more patients.

Yeah. And, you know, just kind of a personal experience in this regard. I mean, you know, my personal story, but I came out of dental school, I started my first dental practice. After two and a half years. I had to close the doors, and quite frankly, I nearly had to file bankruptcy. My house was in foreclosure. It was a tough time. I thought I had just ruined the rest of my life. And now here we are, ready to open our 30th practice. So even if you misstep on those first steps, it's okay. It's okay. But what I learned from those process, from that process is those lessons were invaluable and they've served me every single day since then. And, you know, some of these things that we're talking about, those are some of the things that I learned throughout that process and really where to focus my time and where I could really, really have an impact and where I could really advance myself and my career and grow and build. Those are the things that I learned by, you know, what some would say making the wrong decision, but in retrospect were the exact right decision.

You know, I was talking to a clinician the other day, and he said, and I could tell his mindset is shifting. And as you start meeting with people who are having those shifting mindsets, they're kind of pushing against the past. You know, you said, I'm really frustrated with the aspects of our industry. And one of the things that he pointed out, which I think ties directly to why some of the beginner's mind gets killed in the industry, is he says, I'm Tired of getting on forums, clinical forums, and asking questions because all I'm getting is beat up rather than any feedback. And it's like there's such an intensity about being right that it doesn't leave any room for learning and failing, which is where all the growth happens.

Right.

And this is someone who was like, you know, and he was seeing other people as well. It wasn't just his, but. And I think he almost felt worse for the other guys, you know, who are saying, hey, here's how I did this treatment. Does anyone have any feedback, you know, and guys posted on there, oh, your patient should come to me. Like, the patient's gonna read that and come over. But yeah, it's just, it's mindset, you know, again, and having one that's humble, having one that's, that's willing to take some steps outside. So, so anyway, this has been awesome. I think, you know, clinical competency, grow it, but grow it with the patient in mind too. And in what way can I bring more value and service to them? All right, so maybe we'll come back to that a little bit more. But now let's move a little bit into, well, phase two, then, is patient focused. So we talked about kind of how that interacts on the clinical side. What other aspects are you seeing in the industry where things were focused around the dentist and now the industry is having to shift if you want to be successful and focus around the patient and the patients, you know, time frames, expectations. What, what other things are you saying?

Yeah, I mean, you know, we live in, we live in this modern age and, and you know, again, I'll be, I can, I can, I can be highly critical of the industry. But, but the industry is, is built for a time that's, that's passed. And when you look at the, I mean, something is as simple as the hours that were open. You know, dentists, my whole life, the idea was to be a dentist to work three days a week to earn a huge income. You're open from, you know, you're open from 8 to 4 o'clock on Monday and Tuesday, and then you're open from, you know, 8 to 12 on Wednesday, and then you're off Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. You know, those days are just really done. You know, nobody's willing to do that anymore. They'll go find somebody who's willing to be open more retail hours. And quite frankly, that's the way it should be. I mean, if you are truly patient focused and if the patient is really the core of who and what you're trying to serve. Well, when are people willing to come to the dentist? I always think, you know, there's. People talk poorly enough about going to the dentist as it, as it is, and now you throw on. Yeah, I get to go to the dentist, I get to pay a lot of money. I have to take time off work, I get a miss out on that income, you know, super inconvenience myself all to do something that I didn't want to do in the first place. That's not the world we live in anymore. You know, people are looking for convenience, they're looking for access, they're looking for easy, they're looking for positive experiences. I mean, the list goes on and on. And really our industry is not built to satisfy the needs of the modern consumer. So that's, you know, that's an easy one to point to, you know, quite frankly, what is your office design like? What is, how is it laid out? I mean, most the offices I see are still 2,000 square foot little boxes with, you know, a tiny little waiting room. You know, there's just, there's nothing really exciting about it. It's just, it's operatories, a tiny little waiting room and some dated magazines on the table. You know, the fact that that's still the norm.

Have to get rid of their coffee tables. I mean, that's going to be,

I mean, whether you have or don't have the coffee table, I just, people don't really enjoy those magazines anymore. The fact that that's still the norm, I mean, that's been the norm for how many decades now? I mean, what other industry is allowed to stick and stagnate in that place for that long? I can't even think of one.

I often hear of dentistry as kind of referred to as retail healthcare.

Right?

And in some ways we've embraced that because we've taken on retail locations. We love that because it gives us access to patients. We love them thinking of us as kind of a retail consumption because it gives us more patient flow from one mindset. But the other aspect of that is if people are starting to see the world as retail, which I think is true, and Amazon is setting the bar for that. Retail now is all about convenience. I ordered the other day. Well, about two weeks ago, I finally did my first full order on Kroger for my groceries. My wife had done it, but she was gone, so I had to do grocery shopping. I'm like, okay, I'm trying this online thing. I like the technology and so forth. Oh my goodness. I've shopped now three more times and have not stepped into a store. You know, like, and I told my wife, I don't think I ever want to walk into a grocery store ever again. You know, like, it's just so convenient to have your groceries here and you already have the aspect of having to put it away, but it was so much worse when you had to go and shop it all, then bring it home, unload it and put it away. And so that's what we're competing with mentally and emotionally, right, in the space of dentistry is people are constantly. Well, I should say our competitors, which has nothing to do with dentistry, our competitors in retail are raising the bar and we've got to match that if we're going to stay in existence.

Oh, absolutely. And just as a point, this isn't a. I don't want to be political at all, but as a point, to your point, there's actually a bill that's currently before the Texas legislature regarding teledentistry that would allow some aspect of diagnosis or consultation to be done over the telephone or through video conferencing. And the official position of the Texas Dental association and all the traditional dental organizations is opposition, you know, by traditional dental industry. They are opposing. This is, in my opinion, this is called progress. This is where the rest of the world is going. This is grocery shopping without leaving your house. And our organizations are, that are supposed to represent us, are trying to stifle it and fight it as much as they can. So again, that's kind of the traditional dental mindset to which the consumer just, they don't accept it anymore and we need to get there. And again, back to the successful clinician, the ones that have their mind in that place. How do I best and most conveniently serve my patient? They're the ones that are consistently successful,

you know, so you're hitting on a topic where I think stage one of the of clinical excellence and stage two of what does the patient value can have a little bit of a conflict, right? Like let's take in the pediatric world, nothing would be better than a four year old who sits still for three hours while you can make sure that everything you do is perfectly laid out. Like, honestly, that's not very, know, patient centric. But that is clinical excellence at its best. And it gives you the amount of time and focus. You know, there's nothing better than an adult who's willing to take off work, meet you at the time when you're mentally and emotionally at your best, you know, pay you for an entire day's worth of work so that you can just focus on them and get your margins and every aspect of your treatment just perfect. Right. So I'm obviously being very extremist here, but, you know, I think there is a mindset towards that. Now, the other piece that would be argued is patients don't value the clinical aspects. They want convenience, they want it fast. Sometimes it's just how cheap how fast. And so, you know, how do you get these two worlds to merge? If people are saying, I want teledentistry, and a clinician argues, but I can't do my best work over a video phone, or somebody wants you to be open later hours, and you say, yeah, but I'm going to be more tired at that point, or that's not convenient for me or whatever it might be. How would you merge those two? This is the part that I feel like having you on is perfect because this is where clinical and patients and customers start to merge together here,

you know, and I don't want to be too critical, but honestly, when I, when I kind of get that sort of feedback, I feel like those are more excuses than they are reality to say that there's no place for this level of convenience because then I wouldn't be able to reach perfection. The reality is nobody reaches perfection anyways. And, you know, again, I've been observing and working with dentists for so many years and for so long, and to say, oh, the only kind of acceptable work is the kind of work that happens before 7pm in the evening, that's just not true. That's not true. Now, would a clinician prefer to do all their work before. Yeah, we'd all prefer to do our work before 4 o' clock in the afternoon, quite frankly. But that's not the best service to the patient. The patient needs to dictate what's most convenient and what's most valuable to them, not the clinician. So we need to be able to adjust ourselves and adapt to what the patient needs and what the patient wants. The time that I truly learned and understood the value of a patient was when I had that practice that I first started right out of school, and I was sitting around a lot, not seeing patients. Those were the times that I really, really learned. And those lessons have never left me. Whether I have one office, 30 offices or 200 offices, someday I will never forget the value of a patient. And so we always should be striving to satisfy that patient need and always asking and going introspective on what can I do and what can be done to bring more value to this patient? The moment you take that for granted is really when you're done, in my opinion. That's, that's when you're done. And there's, you know, obviously I am extremely critical of my own work. Like I said, I grew up working in a dental lab. I was a lab technician before I was actually a dentist. And so I, you know, my work, I'm more critical of my own work than I am of anybody's. But so there's certainly a place to have good quality care. There is a minimum standard that absolutely has to and must be met in the delivery of this care. But to say that there's not a place for these new technologies, there's not a place to expand our hours, there's not a place that's honest. I just see those honestly as excuses and try and fear based. Really kind of scared of the future and what the future may hold.

Would it be like you get to a point, maybe it's not even right out of school, but now you said, okay, I had the beginner's mind when I came out of school, but I've been practicing 20 years. I don't want to have the beginner's mind again. I don't want to take on whether it be teledentistry or any other aspect. It's just so hard for people to step out of their comfort zone, different aspects of life. So that's just a human elements. Now, one thing I will tell you that you said was brilliant and I think you said it right at the beginning too, which is if you take care of your customer, it's really hard to go out of business.

Right.

Like, I mean, if you came to me and said, my biggest problem, Emma, is I just have lines and lines of patience and they're all just trying to come into my practice. Can you help me? You know, like, who wouldn't love to have that problem? And, and yet as an industry, like as a whole, we actually have the opposite happening. I think ADA has come out now and said that those going to the dentist is down to 35%. And so what's always interesting to me when there wants to be discussions around business models and how much are you paying for supplies and all of those things, I think where you're taking the industry, where you're thinking about it is what we really should be talking about is, so what's the next step to move that 65%? Not coming down to be the 35% not coming or the 10% not coming. Because I can tell you one way that you have really poor clinical care is never seeing the patient. Those patients have terrible clinical care. Right? So getting that access, and I think we've used access in the past to mean rural towns, to mean underserved markets. But I think we're seeing a tipping point now that access is you and me, who are distracted by Facebook and Fortnite and shopping online and doing our Amazon orders and so forth. And now we, we're not sure if we want to walk into a dental office or especially if the experience isn't perfect. Anyway, this has been a good discussion. I think there's a lot here we could talk about. Maybe we have another podcast and maybe we'll get a counter view or somebody on to talk that through. But okay, so we've moved from clinical excellence. We're talking about the patient experience. We've hit on the pieces of this retail, which again, maybe we'll have a podcast just on that. What are all those retail aspects? But I think for this one we can at least put a stake in the sand and say, you need to have a retail mindset. You need to have one where you're more worried about the patient's convenience than your own. And that's what I heard was successful dentist versus struggling dentist. Is that a good summary of those two points?

That is absolutely. As I mentioned at the beginning, the third one that I would throw in there is how you're leading your team in supporting you in that effort. That's absolutely. You know, again, nobody's successful all on their own. And that is especially true for clinicians and dentists. And if you don't have a team that's adequately supporting you in these efforts, and if you're not leading your team in these efforts, you can be as just as capable and patient centered as possible. But if you don't have a team supporting you, you're really not going to have much of an impact.

I have so much empathy too, because again, going all the way back at the beginning where the education was focused, and now we're all the way over here on stage three. You know, I've walked in the doors for the first day of being an associate or buying that practice, I'm so excited to get my clinical skills up and someone walks up to me and says, hey, I had this conversation with Susie and we're fighting about this and I think I'm going to quit. And, you know, then you look over and that front desk person's not making the phone calls you were hoping. And someone comes up and says, so are you doing payroll? Are we going to outsource that? And how do you want that done? You finally get back to the chair and you look at the X rays. The X rays are terrible. And you're like, I got to train this X ray. I mean, it's just all these things that have nothing to do, right, with all that schooling that you just came out of. And frankly, there's so much now components of it. It's not like you get to go, well, I have to learn clinical plus marketing. It's clinical hr compliance, IT components. So, you know, we can, I think we could talk a little bit about where the clinician could impact each of those, but maybe from some key principles that you've seen with these successful doctors. I mean, what's kind of, you know, principle one as far as leading the team and where have you seen some mistakes there? You know, let's start with someone, you know, let's just go back office. You know, someone doesn't have a good chairside assistant, you know, what's the best way to get them trained up? Or is that where you start?

Yeah, actually it starts a little bit earlier than that. And this is so fundamental and maybe even cliche, but it's really starting from a place of empathy and human connection. I do see a lot of clinicians, and I don't want to throw all of us under the bus, but I see a lot of clinicians that really come into some of these relationships and these circumstances with a lack of empathy and a lack of human appreciation and connection. And so the first place you've really got to start. And you know, it's interesting, we'll take a brand new doctor straight out of school. And I can already pretty much tell if they're going to be a successful clinician or not or have a successful career on how, just literally how they introduce and interact with their staff on the first day. Just that level of human to human personal interaction. And that transfers over to the way you interact with your patients as well. When you're interacting from a place of empathy, sincerity, compassion, from a human to human perspective, and you're really connecting with the people around you. And you've really got to start there. I mean, I can't even talk to you about X rays until I know your name, honestly. And honestly, I probably shouldn't even talk to you about X rays until I know your name. And I know, you know, what your three kids are doing, what grade they're in and what kind of activities that you're taking them to. Those are kind of. That's the place to start. That really is the place that you start. You start building those relationships, you build that trust, you build those connections, and then you get to start working on the technical aspects.

Yeah, that's an interesting mindset. Now, I know that you've given quite a few of the clinicians the book Leadership and Self Deception. So is that kind of a go to? I mean, if someone said. When you say empathy and you say connection, you know, a lot of people interpret that, you know, different ways. You know, well, I brought flowers. Well, I told them to stop crying. You know, whatever the level of empathy thought process is. But, you know, you gave a great example, which is authentically knowing someone.

Right.

Truly seeing them as a human versus an object.

Yeah. No, and you know, to that, to your point on that book, when we are having an issue with a particular clinician that might be struggling with their staff interaction, patient interactions, that particular book is probably the fastest means to get from point A to point B. Really some wonderful concepts around viewing other people as people and interacting on that human basis. But it even fundamentally goes a little bit further back. It really starts with yourself. It really does start with yourself and how you view yourself and how you view yourself in the world around you and what kind of impact you can have. You've really got to be good with yourself before you can be good with others. But if you are going to lead other people, you kind of have to lead yourself first. And then that puts you in a position to connect with and lead those around you.

I know at some point some listeners are thinking, oh, crap, I just wanted to be a dentist.

Well, that's. But that's. That's the thing. We're talking about, being a successful dentist.

Yeah.

Okay, so you get. You can still be a dentist. Everybody, I mean, anybody graduating dental school gets to be a dentist. The question becomes, do you want to be a successful dentist or not?

Right. Right. Yes. Can I just hire a DSO to take care of all this stuff for me? Could you learn. Could you learn the name for them for me and get them trained?

Here's. Here's what I'll say about the dso. And, you know, like, I am eternally grateful for this part, and that is by taking all of the noise and the busyness and so many of the difficult aspects of business out of the equation for me, it gives me the flexibility and the time to focus on these things that actually make me my Best. One of the things that I always. That I, you know, as when I talk about my story, when I was running my personal business for those two and a half years, I actually thought I was a bad clinician. I thought I was a poor clinician because I was such a failure at so many different things. And when I actually got out of that setting and I went to work somewhere where I was well supported, I realized, holy cow, I am actually a good clinician. I was just stressed out. I was overtaxed. I was doing things I had no expertise in. But when you got rid of those things and I actually got to just focus on my authentic self and connect with the world around me, holy cow. I'm actually a really good clinician. So that's where the dso, it actually opens that possibility up when you're so buried in those details. Good luck. I mean, I wish you the best. I really do, but. Oh, man.

You don't think you could switch over from QuickBooks to bringing patient value to, you know, fixing your computer? Like, yeah, that's a little taxing, isn't it? I hadn't thought that through in detail, but, yeah, that gets a little overwhelming.

No, I mean, like the scenario you pointed out earlier. I mean, those were like seven critical decisions you had to make before you even saw the first patient of the day. Just to get your office under. Under control so you can actually service the patient. I mean, that's a tough. That's a tough place to be, Emmett. I've been there, which is why I know it's a tough place to be.

Well, this has been awesome. And I think you've already given me some thoughts on probably some additional discussions I want to have here. And we'll also, you know, pull some from the DSO Secrets Facebook site. So as you all listen to these, if you have some places you want to challenge, and man, if you have some good challenges, maybe I'll have you on with Dr. Evans and we can really dig in on some of these pieces. But I think you've really laid out beautifully the three aspects that the clinician can really own. And we're saying this is a supported clinician, right? So we've kind of taken that assumption. We're hoping that they can get some of those other ancillary pieces off of them, whether they've done a great job outsourcing magically, or they're using a DSO support structure around them. But even so, with a dso, with kind of the perfect world, as an individual to be successful, you really need to be focusing on these three areas, you know, standardize your clinical capability and expand it out as much as you as you can to do number two, which is meet the patient need wherever they're at and really try to take on as much as you know is reasonable for you to expand your capability and to build value. And then number three is really learn how to connect and lead your team. So I think we're going to have to have some more podcasts because I'd love to drill down specifically on that. Okay, great. I've connected with my X ray tech. Now what? I just think there's more there, but this has been really awesome. Any final thoughts before we close this this podcast out?

No, I've loved this. I really appreciate, you know, you giving me the opportunity and taking the time. These topics are near and dear to my heart. As you know, we've been working on them for a long time and just love sharing them as much as we can.

Well, Chad, thanks for being on and if any of you again have any questions, come on to our Facebook sites at DSO Secrets. And until next time, keep smiling.

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