69: Team, Patients, Cash Flow - The 3 Step Framework For Cutting Through The Noise

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Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of DSO Secrets. I'm your fearless host, Emmett Scott. And today I'm here with Jake Poole, the CEO of the Dentist Entrepreneur Organization. And Jake and I were just jamming on some stuff here and we're like, okay, we gotta share this out because one, we want everybody else's comments and two, like we have some pretty good ideas coming together here that we wanted to share. So Jake, thanks for being on today.

Yeah, really excited. You know, one of the things we've talked about is kind of this crisis hits and things get crazy is the flow of information and the speed and sharing of information becomes crucial. So you know, you and I working together, we just try to turn that up. You know, we're trying to communicate as

much where you've been. Great. Jake is just like creating these frameworks for your members and then sharing those out. And so one of the frameworks that you have is this triangle, this three legged stool. Right. Of. All right, organize all this content around three things. How does it impact team or what do I need to be thinking about team? What do I need to be thinking about with patients? And then cash flow, you know, what needs to be happening around cash flow? Like where did that come from? Because those are like so helpful when you're like, what about this, what about that? You just, boom, come back to those three things.

Yeah, I mean when things get crazy, it's really about cutting through kind of the mess and really simplifying. And you know, as you know, you and I both, we kind of talked to dentists, entrepreneurs and emerging groups pretty much all day, every day. And it just became very clear to me within the first two weeks that these were gonna be the keys. In fact, the CA management side was really key probably three or four weeks ago. And so it's kind of varies and now it's becoming more your team. And then I think they're all important right now. But I think maybe three or four weeks is become patient. Is number one out of those three. They're oscillating.

Yeah. And, you know, one of the topics. So let's try it. Let's see if the framework works. But a lot of conversation, a lot of concern around the PPE launch. And I think the initial concern is, where's the regulatory bodies going to come in at? Are they going to be extreme? How much money am I going to have to invest to meet all the guidelines? And so step number one is everybody should follow the regulatory guidelines of their individual states. Disclaimer. Disclaimer. But what I think we've seen as states have rolled out is, okay, the guidelines aren't nearly as specific, not nearly as onerous as maybe all our Facebook groups have been discussing, and all our clinical teams have been going deep on which you'd say, that's really good. And I say, personally, I think it is really good. Because what it does now put is, so now you have the responsibility, right? So now what do you want to do? And for some people, this can really push them backwards because they're like, man, I wish somebody would just tell me what to do. Instead, they've kind of created these minimums, and now I need to drive the leadership, I need to drive the process. And boom, your framework comes into play

here, which is interesting, I think, because this is what's happening over and over. Right. If you think about the PPP loans, something came out and there's a lot of anxiety around it, but there's a lot of positivity. Everyone was excited. There was actually guidelines. So that hit. And then after about a week or two, everyone realized that the guidelines were actually very unclear and we were back to operating in a very muddy environment, which is kind of becoming the trend and kind of why all these principles of simplicity, creating a plan, communication, are where we fall back every time. So for you, how are you all dealing with the different kind of guidelines and unclarity and everything coming at you right now?

Yeah, I think the thing we're seeing on Facebook is really goes under your framework, which is team. Right. There's a lot of concern around team. Specifically, we're seeing recent things like the hygienist being very concerned about coming back. There's clinical docs, I've had several in DSO Secrets who've said, I'm done, it's been a good ride, but this is too much for me, et cetera. So I think using again, that framework team needs to be where you start. Where is Your team and how are you going to connect and lead them? I think a lot of people who are expressing concern, who are feeling kind of out of control, who are feeling overwhelmed and fearful, are lacking some leadership.

Right?

They're lacking that connection, they're lacking that alignment. What's right for our team is going to be different than what's right for another team. And for some, that drives them absolutely nuts. We need to have one standard across the board. Everybody needs to be doing the same thing. But the reality is, if you're seeing pediatric patients and you don't have any hygienists or whatever the framework might be, and then you're seeing geriatric patients putting in dentures and you've got hygienists doing X, Y and Z, like, you need to address those issues totally differently, right? So I think number one is we really worked with our clinical team and we have a clinical executive committee and said, all right, guys, let's do the research. You all decide what do you need to feel confident and comfortable and what do your teams need? And started a cadence of communication. I think that's critical. It's. It's interesting because you saw a lot of us getting excited about technology, equipment, what if I did this in each room, etc. But I think that leads to the cash flow, the investment. But the reality is that not connected to the customer, which is the team here, is meaningless. I could spend 100,000 on one thing and no one care about it. I could spend 10 cents on something else and everyone goes. That was the most important part to me. You really want to take the time to get to know that so you know that. Just be my thoughts. Step one is like, do the surveys, do the communication, and say for you to come back with confidence, what are you feeling and what do you need to understand too? I mean, the reality is there's a lot of question marks out there about what is safe, what isn't safe. There's a lot of emotion and opinion, and you really just want to create, you know, the logical approach going forward. So that was step one for us. And wow, that gave us tons of momentum.

Well, you just spurred a bunch of thoughts. So I've watched you. One of the things I think is so cool about you is the more unclear things get, the more you drive back into customer. I think you've trained yourself almost to fall back to customer, customer, customer. And the other interesting thing is we talk a lot about DSOs. The more employees you get, the more of a complex organization, the More your customers become your team. And in fact, we've heard DSOs even switch their mission from patient driven mission to a team driven mission. So go back to your customer. Especially in DSO land, which is essentially the team. Right?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, just to kind of speak to that. You know, I always say you become a dental support organization, the day you hire an associate, you are supporting another clinician. Right. And so your mindset of who your customer is needs to change that day. And now the patient really becomes the customer of your customer. And you're right, Jake. For me, when there's a lot going on, lots of opportunity, lots of vendors coming in, lots of cool ideas, if I kind of come back to the customer, which again is the clinician first and then the patients, then I know how to align all these other thoughts and ideas. Right. Because if you don't care about it, I don't need to care about it.

It's an amazing principle that, you know, it's almost needs to be remembered over and over again. But I've seen you do it and it's amazing. And you know, we've seen our. Some folks in the marketplace, some do members doing things like yes. Surveys. If things happen right now, would you want to come back? We're seeing things all across the board. You know, we're seeing some folks with 90% of their team wants to come back to 100%. We're seeing folks with less than that. They're working on it. So it's all over the board. We've seen folks driving around and giving gift baskets to their teams. We've seen obviously like weekly webinars, morning happy hours, all this stuff to keep your team kind of nurtured. But now it's really moving into communicating a plan. Right. I think that's where the team is becoming important. And you actually just got off a call, I think, communicating.

Yeah. Just did our Zoom webinar, you know, over 350 people on there. And we've had this great clinical executive committee. They've had support from the dso. We called it the PPE Committee. They put together, got feedback organized, pulled in as much of the science that exists and research, and then laid it out for the team. Of course, they're laying out for the team what they've already gotten alignment on, so forth, but it's that reinforcing. We heard you. And therefore these are the actions we are taking. You know, any questions or concerns. And they did a great job and got a lot of accolades and boom, we're in momentum. So you know, we're in Texas, you know, May 1st, we're talking two days from when this podcast is going and just found out last night. So, you know, there's a lot to get done there to get into that momentum.

So there's, there's the first customer when things are getting crazy, which they always are at this time. And then you're moving into the customer's customer, which is your team's customer, which is the patients. So how are you handling. Because the whole world of how to figure out the new world for patients. Right. So how are you guys approaching it at cdp?

You know, one of the hardest things as an entrepreneur and as a leader is not to impose your own feelings and thoughts on a product. Right. Like oftentimes entrepreneurs where they make a mistake and you'll see this like on Shark Tank or whatever else, right? Like they created something that's cool for them to and then they're trying to sell it to another demographic that could care less about that and doesn't think about it the same way and it doesn't appeal to them. And I think it's really easy for me or anyone else to make that same mistake is, well, this is what I'm concerned about, or I'm not concerned about, et cetera, put those buckets. And therefore that's how my patients feel. Right. And it's an amateur mistake that we've all made again and again, really thinking about the patients. Now we have team members who their responsibility for marketing is to design and organize who our avatar is. And they're kind of like our avatar advocates, right? So those who don't know what an avatar is, you're creating the customer in a virtual form. You know, we know what car they drive, so to speak, what phone services they use, their insecurities, their excitements, et cetera. And they're really the ones who are telling us this is what the market's scared about, right? So if I'm a 40 year old dentist and I'm servicing 70 year olds, I really need to hear from a 70 year old. What are you concerned about? If I'm servicing Hispanic families and low income and their kids, I need to hear from them. What are you concerned about? I'm just not in their network, in their conversations, and not in their Facebook groups for those who are even using Facebook or phone conversations. And so I think, you know, again, coming back to your framework, thinking about the patient, thinking about that customer and then saying, what do they really care about? And I can tell you that part of what they care about is what you care about, right? So if you're communicating to them, this is really scary. This is awful. You need to be careful. Then they'll think, this is really scary. You know, this is awful. I need to be careful. If you're communicating, this is safe. We got this handled. Here's the process we're using. This is safe. They got this handled. Right now they might have what they've heard from their groups. You gotta be able to address those things. So that's how we've been thinking about the patient piece. This is all before, by the way. We're making any purchases, right? Or we're looking at it like we might be looking at different things out there, but only to say, hmm, would they actually care about that? Would they actually.

Which is a little bit. And we're. And we're going to get to that. It's a little bit of a kind of cart before the horse. But I think this is another entrepreneurial characteristic that I see is it's kind of the best entrepreneurs are almost obsessed with their customers way of viewing things and thoughts and feelings and understanding the customer. And almost to the degree that you can dampen your own views and thoughts and go and just get the hard data. I can't tell you how many times I've been in conversations with different companies and even our own company where we're trying to kind of pontificate on what we think the customer thinks or wants. And then halfway through, somebody will be like, let's just go ask them. Why are we trying to guess here what people want?

It's like we're in our ivory tower, right? In our conference room or whatever. Right.

Mapping it out with like circles and on a whiteboard. And it was like, wait, let's just go ask them.

Right? Right. Yeah.

So it happens all the time.

You get like clarity instantly. Right? They give you a couple points and you're like, oh, got it.

You know, and the person who called the meeting is like, oh, yes, sorry about this, but. But it's just a great entrepreneurial quality, I think, so focusing on your. On your patients. And, you know, there's things going around. Obviously a lot of our DM members are trying to figure out patient flow. And, you know, where do you. Do you test people? Where do you test people? Is that parking lot or is it in the office? And what's. In. What kind of new plexiglass do you put up and where do you put your chairs? And there's just so many things that come along with that, I don't think you're gonna have real, like 100% clarity on right now. I don't know how you always.

You bring up something really interesting. Jake, though, like last night, after they did some of these local announcements, I drove around and just like, went to some stores. Okay. Cause I needed to. And. And I just looked at people now. I looked at. Not like in an eerie, like, staring them in the eyes, but I was looking like, okay, what percentage are wearing masks today? Cause I've been out in public enough. Like, I've seen the ebbs and flows. I've even seen kind of town by town. Like, we have some towns, you walk into them and like, you know, it's 100%. Everyone's wearing a mask, et cetera. You walk into others and like, nobody, you know, it's cowboy hats and, you know, forget about everything else. Right. So really kind of understanding, in fact, when we open a new office, one of the places before we open that practice is we're going to walk the Walmart, we're going to walk the Target, and we're going to go, is this a customer we understand and can we serve them? They're just nice gathering places that a lot of people go to that's easy for us to access. I've kind of used that same thing here. Like, where is everybody? And in fact, where's the stores out? There were some stores that previously were wearing masks and now they're not. So it tells me there's been some kind of shift that's happened or they ran out of ppe, one of those two things. But I've noticed too, some customers that were wearing masks that aren't now. I'm trying to just match. I'm not trying to judge. I don't care. Like, what I'm going to do with my team is going to be what they want. But I'm looking to what the community feel is and it is going to be different. Like each of our practices, we're gonna have to match them and meet them where they're at.

It's such a huge point because it will help you cut through a lot of the madness on Facebook right now, where everyone has kind of an idea or an opinion of what everyone thinks. But really everything's so localized. I can tell you here in Oregon, people are taking it very seriously. And like, if you don't have a mask on and you end up starting a conversation with somebody, there's a little bit of a shame going on. I was like, man, you know, maybe I need to have a mask. I'm talking to this person. But it's all different, right? It's all different. So the only way as an entrepreneur to understand that is go out and be with the people and see what's going on in your local community.

Yep, yep. Well, and we looked at, like, community outreach type events, and we're like, it would be very tone deaf for us to be out in the community even saying, hey, you need to get your dental care work done. And so we're kind of reshifting that, saying, hey, let's be out in the community. And if we can provide them, let's say, a level one mask that they can utilize for while walking into a grocery store or something like that, maybe that's more aligned with what that community's looking for and need. Now we're doing more like PSA public service type activities. So again, kind of meeting things where the customer's at. One thing I'd add to that too, like, if you are doing anything cool or you're not doing anything different, wherever you're at on that spectrum, communicate it. Not the I'm not doing anything cool, but like, hey, we've always done this. We just haven't been as blatant about it. Right now we have a signage that says, you might not have noticed this before, but here's things that we typically always have done. You might not know that we sterilize all of the equipment beforehand, et cetera. You might not know that we actually wiped down all the rooms utilizing these, you know, chemicals and materials. We're still doing that. And then maybe here's where we've amped up as well. But if you don't communicate it, this is another entrepreneur mistake I've made. Like, I'm doing something cool. I've spent so much time researching it. I don't know what I was thinking, but maybe I just got so into it that I just thought, the customer is going to know that I invested in this. The customer is going to see the machine and they're going to know all the specs of it and how it impacts the entire practice, et cetera. Right. And it's just not that you've got to continue to communicate it. So everyone who's like, into ppe, you've made a decision, make sure you're telling everybody, your team, your docs, you know, to the point where not only they understand, but, like, they can't misunderstand what you're doing.

It's almost like this. With every communication, it's just beating the drum as a leader in your organization over and very patiently, very empathetically, over and over. I mean, I've seen some DL members going to Facebook live every morning to their patients and just out to the public and just really saying the same message, reinforcing it over and over and over again. So we've got patients, or we've got your team as your first customer, your team's customer, which is the patient, and then you have the third leg of the stool, which is cash management and cash flow and all of that. So now that you've done that work, it kind of makes the third part a little bit easier where as we're seeing a lot of people that are starting with number one, although it is very important, right? And this stage in the game, it's almost like you kind of are saying it's the third part at this stage.

And now you have context at which to make your investment. And frankly, your roi, if you will, is a lot more clear. Right? Like, hey, buying this creates this group of people feeling very confident versus having all these conversations and why don't you care about me? And why aren't you looking at this, et cetera. Like, if I can eliminate that by making this investment and everyone lines up with it, I'm doing that all day long. But I have more clarity versus, like, but I bought this over here. Aren't you excited about this? You know, so now I've wasted that investment. And same with the patients, you just get alignment. So the ROI is there and then the cash flow management's way more clear that I'm going to be in momentum. The patients are going to be excited, the clinicians are excited, the team's excited. Now I can perform out how I think the flow is going to be. Now, I don't want to oversimplify that. Tons of complexity, we don't know, show rates and some other things right now. But at least one set of variables, if you will, or a couple 10 sets of variables we've eliminated by getting customer alignment.

Right. Ideally, after you've gone through your customer inquiry sessions and thinking and strategizing, it'll make things a little bit clearer on when you're talking about the investments, investments in, I guess, protective equipment and different ways of setting up your office and whatnot. Yeah, it's going to be very complicated no matter what. Some thoughts of mine is, you know, what if you invest heavily in the patient experience in that way, in equipment as a marketing tool, as a competitive advantage, what if it's for yourself, if you just happen to be as one of the dentists, you're like, you know what, I personally, personally want to make sure I've gone to the nth degree on all of this.

Yeah, humans are so smart. So that's a great point, Jake. Like, you know, we're talking about the customer and meeting the customer, but like, you need to feel confident because if you're looking into the eyes of your clinicians, hygienists, team members, and you're like, I don't know if this is going to play out very well, like they will read through that, right? So, yeah, that's a really good point is like, you need to figure out what minimum standard you're willing to live with. And if it happens to be higher than theirs, then you can say to them, listen, guys, I know you only care about this. I went ahead and went 10x higher than that because that's what I wanted. So congratulations, you're all 10x safer than you expected, right? So, yeah, yours can be like minimum standard. They can add to it, or you can be the high standard and they can be below that. But ultimately you do need to walk in with confidence and feel confident. So confident that you can be empathetic, right?

You can't have your brain. I always hear, I always hear the analogy. It's like when you're put underwater, all you can think about is getting air. And so if, if you're put as in a leadership position and all you can think about is your own safety and your own things going on, you don't have any capacity left over to be empathetic to the team. You know, you really got to take care of yourself, you know, put your own oxygen mask on first. And this also is a nice way to think about it with figuring out how much to stockpile your own PPE equipment. A lot of people are worried about that, worried it's going to run out. Some people, I mean, there's different ways to think about this, right? Like, am I, am I worried about it as a leader? Am I worried that the supply is going to go away? Do I need to stockpile on masks and all these things?

You know, it's interesting because supply chain, right? We're getting a little bit into supply chain theory here and it's definitely been disrupted. What's cool is we all did a big case study which was, hey, if we all go buy a lot of toilet paper, what does it do to the supply chain, right? So it's an interesting philosophy because in some ways to the extent we don't worry about supply chain, supply chain won't be a problem. And to the extent we worry about it, we could create our own problem. Right. So there's. It's interesting to kind of philosophy on. Ultimately, I think the higher your standard is going to be, let's say specifically, like, we will not operate without N95 masks.

Right.

Then you may be disrupted by the supply chain components, but that's okay. That's your philosophy and your customers are aligned with it, et cetera. Right. So I wouldn't overly worry about that because ultimately, if you live true to kind of what you need to accomplish, I have found it works out. Right. If you're aligned with your customers, it works out. If you're saying, hey, I can operate at a level three mask with a face shield, we have much more access to those things. Then you're going to be fine there too. So anyway, I think that's lower on the issues than people fully need to worry about, because again, ultimately, aligning with your customer is going to drive a lot of this. The other thing I'd say about cash, just real quick, I was thinking of is the reason I like your order from the team, the patients, and then the cash. I would never want to go to my customer and say, yeah, I know you want that, but it's too expensive. That would not be a good answer. Right. That's not alignment. That's like saying your life isn't as worth to me as this money is. Right.

So that's how they hear it. Yeah, that's how some people would hear it.

Yeah. Now you might be just like in your zone, like you said, underwater, like, how am I going to stay alive? And, you know, so that makes you a little unempathetic towards how they were going to communicate it. But if you've gone ahead and listened to them first, then come back, you know, one of the things that I think would happen, Jake, is maybe some of the equipment and things you're excited about, you realize they don't care about. And then you go, oh, well, I guess instead of investing the dollars there, I'll just invest them over here. So it's cash neutral. So that's where I'd get aligned with them first and then drive it down from there. Like a lot of DEO members, like, they're nailing this. And in fact, it was some of the older DEO members that really reminded me of this because they said during the AIDS epidemic, we heard about how blood could aerosol and we were all going to suck in aids. And you know, were living through that like actively. I can't imagine this, but like blood on your hands. Of course they didn't have gloves as much then and they were kind of watching the COVID 19 components during their time period. And a lot of them raced out, they said, and bought all this new equipment and capability and then they found, oh, gloves. It was like gloves solves this whole thing. And then they kind of moved forward from there. And so several of them said we wasted a lot of money trying to solve this in our own mindset versus kind of waiting and then playing it out. So that's been helpful to me to be patient through the process too.

Yeah, certainly not an easy time. If you need clarity every day and you need a really structured kind of outlook like this is. We're operating in an environment of just complete unclarity. Complete. Some days very chaotic. We've heard you say it's like building sandcastles every day and then having it get washed away. You do a lot of work and then the next day. So we didn't even get a chance to get into your team ramp up and how you're bringing your team on board. A lot of folks are hiring people back now. How much do you hire? There's so much more. So we just kind of touched on the. Yeah, this is the great.

What are you calling it, Jake? The great dental ramp up. Like.

Yeah, the great ramp up. Yeah, yeah.

It's been humbling. Like some of our docs today as they were going through the PPE presentation, these were side comments, but I thought it was, it was really cool, like the self awareness the clinical leaders talking about. It says, guys, this is unprecedented. How many of us thought we were invincible in the economy and now we're like having to step back. And again it is bringing them back to like customers too. Right. But they're saying, okay, we never thought our industry would be at 90% unemployment. Right. And now. And now they're, they're ramping back up into this. So yeah, this is the great dental ramp up.

Great ramp up. And we haven't even seen two other, two other greats that I have talked about, which is a friend of mine came up with this. But the great talent redistribution. So the great talent redistribution and then the great new patient land grab, which I think may be coming when you don't have everyone opening up at the same time and you have patients that need an office. So there's gonna be a lot of patients who are going to Be raising their hand, needing a place to go.

So there's so much probably less about timing and more about value offering.

Value offering. And how quickly are you able to come back? What hours are you able to come? You know, any office that. The offices that come back most quickly are going to be open most and most available to new patients. So that's a whole nother thing to discuss.

A lot going on here, like its own conversation that I have lots of opinions around. So that would be awesome. Okay, so we'll do that on, like our next. Yeah, our next jam section section here.

And maybe, maybe we should real quick just mention the summit that you're hosting with the deo. We're excited. It's the second year in a row, the DEO summit in June with Emmett Scott as the main host.

I'm really excited. And you guys, like, talk about pivoting, right? I mean, if there was one industry that really got nailed, right, it was the event industry. The networking, the coaching, the connection. You guys pivoted it hard, really created these platforms online. You had your first event, you know, just under a month ago. Like, it was amazing. I don't know. Did you, like, you got better feedback than probably your live event.

It scored equal, if not a little bit better than our live events and our. In our surveys.

And I totally agree. You know, it's just like participating and everything else. Like, it was amazing. So you guys have figured this out. So part of the reason I'd encourage all the listeners to go to it is like, see how an industry pivots and it can actually take you to the next level. You know, don't get stuck in the past. But two, like I used to go to. Used to, like six weeks ago, I'd be going to, like, you know, lots of events between now and then, they're like, gone, you know, so where do I network? Where do I get fresh ideas? Where do I kind of know where the new world's going at? Yeah, come to the DEO summit. Yeah.

And we're going to. We're going to dive deep into the patients team and cash. Those are kind of how we're going to look at it. And all the things that are. That are, you know, going to be prevalent, which seems forever for now, which is just a little over four weeks. So we'll see you there, Emmett. We'll be online. It will be a lot of networking, a lot of engagement. We're excited to be the first of its kind, the first of anything dental that will have been like this. Let's go. Let's do it.

Going to be awesome. Be huge. All right.

All right, we'll see you.

Hey, thank you, Jake, for being on. And thank you to all our listeners. If you have any other thought or comments around this, of course you can post those in the Facebook page. Please join us on our private Facebook page at DSO Secrets. And until next time, keep smiling.

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