Bounce back From Everything! - Bonus Episode

Welcome to Million Dollar Dentistry with your host, Gary Katie, brought to you by Next Level Practice. Next Level Practice is the leader in dental practice management. In fact, they are the best in the world at creating happy teams that implement sustainable results. Your host, Gary Katie welcomes you to this podcast as he discusses the common concerns, challenges and shares his decades of experience in empowering dentists and dental teams to go from good to world class. Gary Katie is the visionary voice of Next Level Practice and has for the past 20 years interrupted the status quo of the dental world. He continues to bring national attention to the oral systemic connection and believes in the complete health dentistry model. He is a powerful educator and advocate for dentistry, dentist and dental teams. He is inspired every day by the courage and personal successes of the doctors and team members he has the privilege of working with. Welcome, Gary.

Oh my God, Amber. Thank you. I am so grateful to be here and yes, I am so grateful for the men and women, the heroes of dentistry that we get a chance to work with, especially, especially now, really doing their job at removing people from emergency rooms by doing emergencies during this pandemic. As we reach the apex here at.

This episode, I'm very excited to kind of veer off of our normal path that we've been on and talk today about what's the next step, what are we doing right now, how are we going to help people get through, through this pandemic that's happening now and any kind of situation that might arise in a practice.

Well, what I decided was, you know, I am an accidental expert in crisis management, not just, you know, personally really going through 9 11. I maneuvered practices through 911 in downtown Manhattan and around the US after that crisis. And then of course, in 2008, practices in over 44 states, maneuvering and three provinces of Canada maneuvering, you know, practices through that. And what's most interesting is, you know, when you're in the middle of a crisis, it feels daunting, it feels, it just feels hopeless. You know, you just feel challenged. And as I've gotten this experience and also personal crisis, my son was diagnosed with autism, I had alcoholism, and now I'm 12 years sober. When you go through crisis, there's a training that you can either become the victim of that crisis or a victor through it. I've been really blessed and grateful to be a person that can create certainty in the face of an uncertain crisis. And, and that's really what we're going to talk about today is, you know, I'm writing Million Dollar Dentistry, the Next evolution, which is really the 8th edition, and it's going to be called A Million Dollar Dentistry. How to Bounce Back from Anything. And so, you know, I've identified the 12 Dirty Dozen, the dentist dirty dozen that you know of. Working with 6,000 practices, Amber, I found 12 common crises that dentists have gone through. And why don't we just start by highlighting those. I sent those over to you so we can start talking about those first.

Okay, that sounds great. So the first one that you listed here is that you might have an associate and they leave with half the practice. How do you bounce back from that?

Oh, yeah. I mean, that's one of, you know, one of the ones that comes up a lot. So often, you know, we have Larry Laser guy, you know, the founding dentist, brings on Charlie Chairside. Charlie Chairside comes in, builds a relationship with the patients, has an agreement not to come within five or seven miles and opens up three doors down and you lose half your patient base. So that's. That's been a challenge over the years. We've seen that happen often. And that's one, you know, you know, one situation that comes up, and we're going to go through the other 11, and then we'll begin to unfold. Because it's all a common way to think about the crisis and then a way to act. Thinking first, like, how to relate to it and think about it and then how to act. So let's go through them all, let's highlight them all and see if our listeners today can identify with any of these.

Okay, great. So the second one would be a big divorce. Cash flow is hammered. Oh, my goodness.

Yeah. This has been, unfortunately, 50% of the dentists that I work with, because that's about how many people get divorced. 50% usually has this happen inside of it. So, you know, here you are creating net worth and, you know, moving along, and then all of a sudden, your net worth is cut in half, and then you got to restart and you're. You're paying alimony, so you're paying out, and that's a new fixed cost that you got to deal with. You know, then there's the distraction of the divorce itself. You know, where you're emotionally might be going through. And, you know, sometimes these last three, four, five years, sometimes you can get off of them. Depending on where we meet the doctor, you know, about these crisis situations is really dictates the strategy. You know, sometimes the doctor needs to go through the emotional spectrum, if you will. Or sometimes they go, hey, I'm gonna. I'm Gonna dig in and get a strategy going early on this so I can get ahead of it. So divorce is a big one. What's next?

All right, key team members leave on good or bad terms.

Oh, yeah. You know, this is a really great distinction here. And when people think that team members leave, they always like, look at it from a bad perspective or the doctor is so entrenched with a team member. I remember this one doctor said to me, gary, when she retires, I retire. I don't, I don't work here without her. And here's the thing, I know about this, the evolution. If you're, if you, if you're continuing, continuing to grow. I think Oprah said it best. She went from her show to a channel, the own network, and she had a fledgling situation where a lot of people left. And she said, you know, people grow and when you're climbing a mountain, the air gets thinner and you need a different lung capacity and a different set of people. So, you know, when people leave, it's not necessarily a bad thing, but you need to know how to manage that. Right. And if you're personality based, only if you're only driving a personality based practice, Amber, when somebody leaves, it's going to be, you know, extremely a problem. Like you don't know what's there, what the systems are. See, and it actually shows your vulnerability when somebody leaves. Because if you don't understand how the business runs and you don't have a structure and systems and processes and training and you can't plug and play a person that shows vulnerability in a practice. Also, you can't scale that practice because it's only relevant. The scalability is only relative to the ability of the team member, not the business model itself. So shifting from a personality driven business to a platform driven business, a process driven business allows you to scale it and you don't, you know, the breakdown of a team member leaving just unveils what you need to tend to, whether it's good terms or bad terms. So we see this probably the highest out of all these 12. This will be probably the highest one that everybody can relate to.

Definitely. And that's, you know, good platforms. That's where we start talking about good platforms in place. Make a difference.

Oh, yeah.

All right, so number four, local economy sours.

Yeah, we're going to see this more with the pandemic. You're going to see different industries really getting clobbered. It's going to affect the business. It can affect the economies of local markets. You know, you're Going to see a lot of this going on in different pockets. But one of the things to really look at here, Amber, is, you know, you're not your circumstances. Now, while we want you in a group, we want you in a local geography that has great demographics, growth potential, we still, you know, I always say, instead of managing the external economy, manage the internal economy of your practice. And because, you know, so often people like to blame circumstances on their own internal inefficiencies. The doctors that really get that, you know, I always say it's, you create your own economy. And dentistry is so inefficient in so many ways. You know, from a patient retention standpoint, they come in the front door, they go out the back. From a case acceptance standpoint. So often we see practices anywhere from 17 to 34% case acceptance. You know, you just double that. Now all of a sudden, you doubled your practice in many cases. So, you know, and then new patient acquisition, you just have to get better at things. You just, you know, you just have to get better at patient education. If people are. Have different constraints on money, here's what we do know. Human beings always find the time and money for things they value. If you have a souring of the economy, you have to shift your ability to control what you can control, which is your patient education and how you educate people in order for them to understand the value and understand, you know, how to run an efficient and effective practice. And it's just a different intention and attention that when there's a circumstance, you adjust differently.

Okay, so there's a recovery there. There is a plan.

Always. Here's the thing, there's always a solution. Always, like 100%, always a solution. In my 6,000 practices that I've done this with, I've yet to find one that didn't find the solution as long as they were committed. You know, there's three types of dentists, Amber, that I've interacted with. There's the navigator. That's the person that, you know, I always think of the Titanic iceberg ahead, maneuver around it. The navigator, dentist. Then there's the waverunner. That's the doctor who, you know, takes whatever, you know, the masses are doing and then make sure that they get involved in that, whether it's whitening or sleep or, you know, they're just. They're just following the herd, what's going on in the study club. And then there's the professional drowner that no matter what kind of life source I throw that person, they want to pull me in with them. And I refuse to do that one. I'm sorry.

That's. I've seen those. Those types. I definitely know who you're talking about there with that.

And by the way, that's not to make fun of anybody.

No.

I've seen professional drowners come back and go, hey, Gary, I'm done professional drowning, and I'm ready. You know, remember this. There's only two types of people. Whether it's a dentist, a dental team member, or a patient. There's either the willing or the unwilling. You know, if a person's willing, that is the only two types of people that there are. And when you distinguish the willing from the unwilling, you know, they want to understand. If they seek to understand if they. They trust what you're saying, they will respond beautifully. So, yeah, that's that piece right there, Amber.

Getting back to that. Honest, open, and willing, most definitely. And there's. You definitely can bring people over to that because they really, truly want to be there. People don't want to be a professional drowner. They don't want to be, you know, always in that mode of being the victim. They don't like that. Not comfortable. And so. All right, so health issues keep him out or her out for months.

Oh, my gosh. My heart goes out to the dentist that, you know, without the dentist, the practice doesn't run. You know, it's, like, really centered around the dentist. And I know a lot of dentists. Their number one fear is that their hands, you know, don't work. And I've helped dentists maneuver my. My. Not my favorite, but my. The one that I recall the most is our dentist, Dr. Lowe, out in Hays, Kansas. And we. We've had the privilege of working together for over 13 years. And, you know, we saw our kids grow up, and now they're in college, and, you know, he gets his house, and he's on his atv, turns out of a path, and turns into a jeep head on, and, you know, fractures both of his hands, and he's out of, you know, he's completely out of commission for months. And, you know, we're able to maneuver around that. Or. I've had dentists that had cancer or, you know, they had to go to rehab, you know, all those types of things where, you know, the health, whether it's. And we really work in five domains of health, Amber. First is physical health. Second is financial health. We've had people, you know, destitute, bankrupt, and they've come back from poor financial health, social health. You know, they would Alienate themselves, isolate themselves, alienate their team. There's that kind of health and then there's the mental health. You know, people have had to go to rehab or, you know, their well being. And really, you know, unfortunately, I've lost a few doctors across the time to suicide. That's why I'm a big advocate in my new book, I'm going to dedicate all the profits to suicide prevention for dentists because, you know, it's sad, you know, and I've been there. I'm 12 years sober myself coming up on May 1st. And you know, you, you know, there was a time that I didn't want to live like I was living, but I didn't want to die either. I had a lot to live for, but I couldn't continue to live the way I was living. So, you know, all those types of health are. There's solutions to all of them. I may not be the practitioner, but I have practitioners that can support it. And, you know, I help with the business model and the leadership and getting into purpose and getting into passion. And, you know, a lot of times docs come to me and they go, well, hey, you know, I've lost my passion, I've lost my drive. I'm sick and tired. I want to hang my loops up because I can't go on like this. And it's largely because they're, you know, I created a new course called Rewirement. It's three things. They're doing something that they're not good at. They're doing something that they shouldn't be doing. Excuse me. Hello? Oh, my gosh. Don't edit that out. Please leave that in. I'm a human being. I'm inhaling my breakfast as I'm talking with you today. So excuse me, listeners. I mean, come on. But I need to, I need to keep you interested and laugh. So you don't know if I'm going to be burping, if I'm going to be farting. What is this guy going to be doing?

Oh, my goodness.

Now I'm going to be chewing.

Natural, natural body functions. That most definitely. So.

Oh my God, now I'm chewing. So let's just keep the ball going. Oh, my God.

Okay, so I do want to hit the fifth. The fifth one. You said physical, financial, social, mental health. I assume spiritual. Is that correct?

Yeah.

Okay.

I do that for methodical thinkers. I tell them five only do four and they can't move forward. So thank you. My methodical. I see it happen all the time, Amber. So Spiritual, it's like, that's what I'm talking about right here is imagine connecting, like turning your business over to a spiritual connection, whatever that is, like something greater than yourself. That's what I mean by that. I'm not talking about religion here, talking about being connected from your heart, going to work every day from your heart. And it's transparent and it's authentic and it's what you stand for in the world. And when you have that as the forefront and you put systems and processes in the believability and the truth and the trust that you have and the reviews, the positive reviews you get come from a spiritual connection, from the work you're doing. You follow me there?

Absolutely. And there's the trust. Once you, once you decentralize, is there not a trust that you trust the platforms that you have in place? You trust the people that are in the right places, doing the right things at the right, you know, all of those things, if they're in place, then it's all working. And when it's working, that's when you hit that spiritual high. To me, that's when you hit that, that moment of truth, per se.

Well, the nice. Well, yeah, and the nice thing about crisis is you can't, you know, you can't go back the same way. So for those that it's like, you know, it's retire or change at this point, you know, you know, the reason why I'm writing the book right now, which will be out soon, it's called Million Dollar Dentistry. Bounce back from anything is because, you know, you have to change. It's like, then what do I change? And that's why it's really important, this podcast, because I'm going to be talking about those things so you know what to do. And you know, again, you don't want to go at this from somebody who has not been through their own personal crisis, national crisis, and has a step by step proven system on how to maneuver through crisis. You know, I was On CNN after 9, 11. I don't know if you know that, Amber, but I was a little punk at the time. And because of what I was doing in dentistry, somebody found it out, recommended me. And, you know, we talked about, you know, grief and we talked about the denial and the anger and then the bargaining and the steps that you take when you go through a crisis, whether, you know, I just lost my mom to the coronavirus, as you know, and I'm so sorry. Yeah, yeah, thank you. And, you know, really brought me closer to this crisis. Other than any other ones. I mean, I lost. I lost people I've known in 9, 11, too. And, you know, it just makes things real. And like, you know, as you get older, it's like, you know, I know change is hard, you know, but during a crisis, you just have permission to do it. And if you fail, you fail. But you want to go at this with somebody who knows what the heck they're doing and knows how to maneuver a situation, because, you know, just slapping a bunch of systems and processes and ideas at a situation is not a good idea right now.

Definitely not. Definitely not. Okay, so moving on to number six, Family issues, kids, suicide, drugs, all the things that can pop up there.

Yeah, I mean, this is just the extension of the dentist, because obviously we have dentists that most of them have kids, and if they don't, they have other life situations. And, you know, Amber, it's a situation where, you know, if your child is, you know, just, you know, overdosed or, you know, is sick, you know, lost some children, you know, to illnesses and stuff, it just. It just tears you up as a parent. And, you know, you don't realize you take your eye off the ball. And in dentistry, you know, as we've learned with this pandemic cash flow, you only have, like, the average dentist has a month and a half if they're lucky. You know, you got to know how to run an efficient business, and that's what we're talking about, and how to come back and pay down the debt and get out of debt really fast. You know, you can do it all. It's all possible, but it's really the same thing, you know, as if the dentist is out. You know, they might be there physically, but they're not there mentally. If their child's not well and they need help or they need to go see them in the hospital and they need to shorten their hours, like, all those things. But it's all. It all goes back to. You have to take the dentist out of the center of the business. If you don't do that, if you don't decentralize the dentist and they're the ones that are in the center of it all, it's never going to work. So, yeah, that's a big one. And my heart goes out to anybody who had had this situation. And, you know, my heart goes out because there's nothing worse than a child going down and having to manage a business simultaneously.

Most definitely. And, you know, and I have. You might not know this about me, but my child, I Sent her out of state to college when she was supposed to go in state to college. We made a decision in a very quick amount of time. And it, it financially it was very devastating because I had planned her entire life for in state tuition. And at the last minute when we had to move her out of state to keep her safe from an ex boyfriend, we had to start paying out of state tuition, out of state, you know, real estate taxes, all kinds of things that we didn't plan for. And it was financially, you know, a very big hit because it wasn't what we had planned for. So I understand that piece most definitely firsthand.

Well, you, thank you for sharing that, Amber. And I really admire your dedication to your daughter for her safety. And as you might know, in 2008, my wife came to me and she said, you don't have to quit drinking, but you can stay here. We're going to be moving back to New York. We're living in Arizona at the time and I had a five year lease. I had 18 members working in Arizona. I had a house that was worth nothing because the houses in Arizona had no value in 2008. And by the way, the tuition is going to be X, Y and Z for his new school and you're going to be moving to the most expensive place on the planet. And here's what I've learned. That you always find the money for things that really matter.

Absolutely correct. And you know, I would spend, I can't even tell you how many, 10 times over what I did to make the change that made that we made for her in her life and where she is now and the person that she's become was because we made decisions as a family that was right. And that's the thing about it is, is that you make decisions for your office. That is right. And it is well worth it every single time.

Yeah, there's no doubt. And this is just to acknowledge the validation of what you're saying. We moved. My son was three at the time and we moved to New York. Now he's 15. 6. He's coming on 16 and he's in a mainstream school. He's on the honor roll. He's 6, 1, 2, 10, center of the basketball team. I never have to ask him to do his homework. He's like driven. He's on his app. And when he gets a grade, if it's not like the standard by which he set, he's calling the professor or the teacher to find out how he can correct it. And again, it goes back to you know, you might not have made that decision to send your daughter out of state, Right. You had this plan, and then like Mike Tyson says the best.

He goes, gary, plans are great till.

You get punched in the face.

Very true, by the way.

He never said Gary. I made that up. And obviously, I'm a bad Mike Tyson. And if Mike Tyson ever heard me, you know, interpreting him, he would probably knock me in the face. So, you know, plans are great until you get punched in the face, Amber, right?

Most definitely.

So, yeah, we found a way. It's like we find a way to get done what we need to get done. But, you know, there's a. Excuse me. There's a hard way, and there's a smart way, and we're going to be talking about the smart way to do it. What's next?

Well, what's next is that getting punched in the gut. Tax problems, getting audited, Nothing worse. Talking about getting punched there. Nothing like an audit to do that.

Well, you know, punched in the gut is one thing or being responsible is another. You know, the reason why I see guys getting into tax problems, there are a few reasons. And when I say guys, it's Jersey for guys and gals. So I want to make sure my. My ladies in the house are always.

Honored, you know, use guys then, isn't it? Used guys? If we're talking about.

No, we don't do use guys in New York. No, no, we don't do maybe down. But you do y' all down in North y'. All.

We do y' all here.

So Western Pennsylvania's Yuns. That's probably the Yuns is probably the. The hardest one for me to swallow. But anyway, I have fun with all of them. You know, first of all, some people don't believe, like, chronically that they should pay taxes. You know, I've had some people that say they haven't put taxes in. In 12 years, believe it or not. Like, how do you do that? Like, how do you live with yourself? And how does the government not track you down? Do you know.

That'S really. I would think that they would notice that you hadn't been paying your taxes.

Exactly. I. I mean, I stress over taxes because I want to be, you know, accurate. And in the past, I never wanted to pay them. Like, I used to be angry about taxes and the tax man and all that stuff. And I deserve more. And I went through all this crap until I got the right context. And the context is when I'm paying taxes, that means that I'm making a good amount of money. And it's, it's, it's a success tax. And, you know, it's also, it's my contribution to society. I had to shift my relationship to it. And then, you know, a lot of people don't pay taxes because they're not running an efficient business. So there's one, one of the reasons why I see taxes not being paid is they don't think they should pay them in the first place, believe it or not. And then the second one is I see often the, you know, that cash flow gets whacked and then they stop paying their quarterlies. Then they just start enjoying not paying their quarter lease, and then they get, you know, junked up on, you know, years of not paying quarterlies. And then, you know, it just gets ugly. So here's what I know. If you don't pay your taxes, that translates all the way down to your patients. You can't hold your patients accountable for paying you.

Exactly.

And it's really an interesting Ying Yang phenomenon that, you know, if you want to, if you want your patients to be on time, you need to be on time. And if you want patients to pay, you know, your, your fees, you have to pay yours to the rest of the universe. See, money is not a hoarding thing. My grandfather used to have a. His garage packed to the grill gills. He would hoard. And money is different. It's like flow through it's energy. Money is energy in and out, in and out. Obviously you want to have some stashed, of course, and then money spent for money returned. And when you have healthy flows of money and energy, money is just an exchange for a job well done. It's a validation, it's an acknowledgement for value created. And so if you want to make more money, you create more value in the world. But when you're in an integrity breach with someone or someone else or the government, it stops the flow of money both ways, going out to them and coming into you.

Definitely.

Now what.

You know, the other thing that can happen here, though, that I would see is you get audited, and that's when you find out that the person who's been balancing your books was balancing them incorrectly and or was not paying the taxes that you thought were being paid. You know, how do you, how do you come back from that type of thing?

Well, yeah, I mean, this is like, you know, you know, tax, you know, issue on, you know, of a tax, of a tax professional, first of all, or a bookkeeper. You know, this is also this person here. When I get them. They usually have highly susceptible to embezzlement because most dentists who hate dealing with numbers put their head in the sand around numbers. You know, when an embezzler or if they don't have a good team of people taking care of their responsibilities, Amber, they end up in this condition just because they're in denial and avoidance with regard to money. And, you know, it's not until our dentists pull that toward them and open their eyes, it doesn't mean that they have to be accountants. But we set it up where an hour a week, they're looking at their numbers and they're looking at their measures, and there's, you know, great results happening. And if not, they know where they stand. But they don't have to be accountable to the numbers. They just have to be responsible for the numbers. Responsible for the numbers means that you need to run a profitable business. Accountable for the numbers is, you know, I always like to have a check writer, a bookkeeper, and a cpa. And so often, you know, that's a check and balance system for a dental practice. So you don't have embezzlement. And those three people are three different people. So, you know, we can get into this specifically. But yeah, it's, it's a shame when I see an audit happen. And that, that really falls on the. Most of the time, the professional. I really recommend having a dental expert who has been proven. And this is the other thing about CPAs and accountants and bookkeepers. If you had the same accountant forever and they're a bean counter and you've expanded past bean counting and you need advisory, you want to really, you know, a lot of people are, you know, if it's not broke, they don't change it. And that's not the case with financial advisors, because a financial advisor that gets you to a certain point are actually hindrances to get you past that. And they don't understand the tax code. They're, you know, if you find, you know, you're dropping numbers in and they tell you on April 14th how much to pay, it's time to graduate from that guy or gal, because, you know, don't get stuck in the old school game. And now more than ever, having a dental specific CPA is really vital.

Definitely. Okay, so number eight, competition from corporate dentistry.

Yeah, it's a big one. You know, right Now I think 14% of practices are corporate. They're going more because it's practically private equity. And when we say corporate, you know, there's the ones that are owned by the corporation and then you had dentists work inside them. Then there's like the group where they allow the dentist to remain autonomous, but they're a part of a group and they have to follow the chassis of the business model. And then there's small groups as well. But really what's happening here is they are grabbing market share and you really have to look at their weakness is consistency. They don't have team members that they can retain. The quality of the dentistry is really low. They are selling, selling, selling in there. You'll never be able to keep up with the marketing that they do. So you want to really differentiate and having a differentiation in the position. We always say that there's two roads. My favorite Led Zeppelin song. There are two roads to go by, but if you're, if you're on the wrong one, you can change it in the long run or something like that. I'm kicking it old school Led Zeppelin. And I'm paraphrasing, but there's two, there's two roads. There's the, you know, drill, fill and PPO mill, and that's the corporate, you know, price and price and service, low quality. And then there's the private practitioner, which, you know, we really are looking for complete health dentistry, where you're doing inflammation, burden management, you're doing airway, you're doing customer service, creating an experience, consistency, value creation. And you're really selling quality and service and your prices are a little bit higher. So, you know, knowing your position, staying that position, knowing your lane, staying in your lane, you can't be all things to all people. The quality, service and price triangle is at play here. You know, it's the Bandana Republic, it's the Gap, it's the Old Navy, all owned by the same company, but they have three different positions. So know your lane, stay in your lane, exploit your lane, and there's more than enough to go around. This is an abundance mentality. We can't get to every tooth and every, every soft tissue that needs care on the planet. You just need to be able to know what your game is and how to play it.

Okay, that's great. It kind of leads into number nine, which was competition from smarter dentists.

Yeah, well, you know, right now we're seeing the next, you know, evolution of dentists. The millennials, the gen wires. They're really innovative, they're entrepreneurial, they're bringing in, you know, fresh perspectives, they're bringing in whole body health and, you know, a lot of the baby boomer doctors Are like, hey, you know, let me just. Let me just run this thing out, maximize it and sell it. And you know, that, you know, it's like, do you invest or do you retire? I always say invest because, you know, the average practice is running at 50%. If you're ready to retire, you should max out your asset before you sell it. And, you know, it's like, you've been sitting around. Most of my friends are in their 50s. Like, for instance, like, I had a guy who was, like, huge in mortgage, and then Rocket Mortgage came out a great example. You know, it's like he. He had a reinvent or die, and he hated it. He didn't. He wanted to sit back. He was sitting fat, cashing in, massive off of his referrals. His referrals started to retire, and then he had to reinvent himself. He's going against millennials and they're on social media and killing them. And he never reinvented. And. And finally I said, dude, get off your booty and let's do it. And now he's like, back on top. But, you know, guys that have been trying to run it out and not reinventing, and the world has changed with technology, with, you know, after this pandemic, well, you know, it's like, you know, go get an hourly job or crank it out. And cranking it out is the better alternative right now for most business owners, most definitely.

Okay. And number 10, now, you wrote a whole book about this one, the low deserve Level.

Oh, man. I mean, I might need a whole year's worth of podcast here, but I'm going to break it down for you.

Very simple, okay?

When I went through the backside of my alcoholism, I was three years into being sober, and I learned something that changed my life forever and changed the lives of my dentists that I've worked with. Is in life, you don't get what you deserve. You get what you think you deserve. Nothing more and nothing less. And so I kept, you know, Amber, I keep running up, I go, you know, I'd make this amount of money, and then I would kill it off. I would have this relationship, and then when it got too close, I would kill it off. I would have all this time and didn't know what to do with it and didn't think I deserved it and fill my time with bs. And so in this concept, you really look at what your values are and what you really want to create and put an infrastructure in and design your lifestyle so you're not in a defaulted lifestyle of what you think you deserve. You're in a designed lifestyle with structure that doesn't have you sabotage it. This is where we built our three year curriculum right here. Amber. You know, in year one we would build practices and you know, we just broke a record. You know, Dr. Maya down in the mid Atlantic states, she just broke a record from Dr. Jim up in Buffalo and she crushed it. She did 1.1 million a year later in a 12 month period. And it was because she knew she deserved it. She was also working six days a week. She did, you know, she did 2.1 and she went from six days to three days. And Dr. Jim had $450,000 in accounts receivable. He would give away free dentistry. He would, he wouldn't recommend dentistry. He would watch it all connected to this chronic, I call it a disease of unworthiness and undeserving. And my litmus test for this is when I say to somebody, you know what, you're beautiful or you're such a kind person, they go, no, no, no, that's not me. And they can't receive the acknowledgement. Well, that tells me that when money is given to them, they can't receive money. It's all together. It's B plus due equals half. See, most people want to have do be. When I have a million dollars, then I'm going to do what I want to do and then I'm going to be happy. It goes the other way. The only thing you can control is how you're being or who you're being, which is how you show up for yourself and other. Excuse me, how you show up for yourself and others. Then you do what you want to do like dentistry. And then you, you can't get in the way of the having that comes from, let's say the being is caring and loving, kind. Let's say doing the dentistry is awesome and the experience that people has is awesome. If you're caring, loving and kind and you have the right delivery system of dentistry, you're gonna kill it. What gets in the way is when you're chairside and you go, oh, should I present this crown or not? Your doubt about that, and then can I collect this money? Or your team going, oh, I don't think we deserve to get $1200 for this crown. And so you waiver when you present a case and that crown and the patient sniffs it out and they go, you don't think you deserve to receive it? Well, I can sense this and I'm not going to give you 1200 because and I'm going to say it's too expensive. And then you're going to go into agreement of it. All those things are rooted in deserve level. And this is where we see this because 99.9% of people, Amber, we would build this thing, we'd grow it like Maya or Jim. But by the way, Jim got rid of his 450, he grew a million. So Maya did 1.1. And what changed it was they knew that they deserved to get the money that they were providing a value proposition for. And when you shift that and then you put good systems and get a good team on board, everything shifts. And you don't feel like you have to give away dentistry. Now I do believe in charity dentistry, but you close the practice, you don't give it out to your buddy who like, you know that uncomfortable position where you go, oh, I'm going to give this guy a discount, I'm going to give this away to him for half. I'm not going to charge you for the build up stuff like that. No, it costs you to do that. So you need to charge for it, period. And there's ways to be, you know, add value if you want to do that, but you don't give stuff away. And you get, if you are going to give it away that you're acknowledging that you're giving it away on a certain day. And I believe in generosity, but I also believe in making sure that you're running an effective business and you get fair exchange for fair value. Creator.

Definitely. Most definitely. Oh, I love that one. I could talk about that one all day long. Most definitely.

Well, it's a blind spot for most. It's so blind for most people. They think it's like, oh, my system stock or my team sucks or the economy. This is where you create your own economy, Amber, because there's an abundance. If you look through the eyes of abundance instead of poverty, there's more than enough to do and more than enough people. And it's not like we're selling like yachts in, in the Sahara desert where there's no water. It's like we're selling health and wellness to people of which there's 8 billion and then most of them have more than 10 teeth, you know, if they don't take care of their airway or like every human being is a candidate for our work. So it's not like we're selling boats to a place there's no water.

Exactly. Most definitely. So, okay, so number 11, exhausted, hates running a business. Not the way it was. Oh, my goodness. How many of those. That Dr. Larry laser guy was. Was one of those at the beginning too.

Oh, yeah. And you know, my heart goes out to people. I mean, I hated going to work at my own company. I hated it. My team took over. The wrong people were leading my company. I'm a humanist acquiescer. You know, I say yes and mean no, and I'm afraid to confront things. I mean, I hate all that stuff. I want people like me. I'm a people pleaser, you know, and then I'm running a business and I'm like getting my butt whooped, and I'm not running profitably. And I'm like, okay, you know, the wrong person's leading. You know, you watch enough of the Dog Whisperer, you know, and Cesar Millan going, it's not the dog, it's the dog owner. And by the way, I think I'm on fire today, Amber.

Yes, you are. I'm over here fanning. I'm like, all right, Amber.

I'm wrapping in. I'm wrapping in Dog Whisper and Cesar Milan now. I mean, come on. I know.

I'm impressed. I am very impressed.

I'm self acknowledging today. I need love and acknowledgement, so I just self acknowledge myself today. Anyway. Oh, my God, I heard that you got got us on dental town, man. People are really gonna start listening to this podcast. So I'm super excited about it. And I. I want to thank my brother. My brother from another mother, or my sister from another. Mr. My man, Howard Ferrand. Howard, thank you so much for your love and support. Always, man. For our work to get out in the world, you're. You're just an amazing human being. I love who you are. Just a shout out to my boy Howard. Anyway, so, yeah, so, you know, going back to like hating, going into your own company and. And it's like, oh, crap. You know, it's just. Just how it is. And you go to your study club and everybody's complaining about the same thing. And I'm saying, no, no, please. Here's where. This is where my favorite statement comes in. Make the unacceptable unacceptable. Amber, you know, it's like, what. What happens is personality profile. You have your own personality profile. You're an acquiescer, you're avoider. You hate confrontation. You don't look looking at numbers. You let your team run the show, and then you're living in a world that you didn't create, and it's not of your making. And you're. You're now having to live in it, you know, and you're miserable about it. And I get it. I've been in that on my own. And I can't tell you how many of the dentists we work with are living in this world and just make the unacceptable. Unacceptable. Do not just make it acceptable. And this is going to change your life. It will be a life changing experience. Yes. It'll be uncomfortable at first. You're going to be uncomfortable being uncomfortable living in your own world. Start how you get from uncomfortable. Being comfortable is going, hey, I had enough of this and I'm going to start really designing instead of defaulting into my world. And you know, you're going to start taking and talking to the people and getting people clear in your world on what you want to create and help them help you create it. And you know, this is where you want to take on an advisor for sure. Don't do this alone. You know, there's the five P's and we're going to talk about those as we go into my new book. You know, the five pillars. You know, what is your purpose? Why did you become a dentist? Let's talk about the people setting the standards of a healthy team member. Baseline, right people, right places, right things with the right measures. We're going to talk about the right processes. There's three processes, only three. Case acceptance, retention and the experience and acquisition of new patients. Then we're going to talk about profitability. Listen, instead of working to pay everybody salaries, cut that out and paying yourself last. Hashtag duh. Let's say that you're going to now say, here's how much money I want to make. You're going to back into how much you're going to pay people and you're going to back into how much revenue you need to meet. You need to generate on a daily, weekly, monthly, annually basis. And then you're going to have structures called a platform, the last P platforms that are going to measure analytically what you need to do. And you're going to reverse engineer how much you need to do annually, how much you need to do monthly, much you need to do daily, and how much you need to do by person. And when you do this beautifully, step by step, and you just hold the line on this, you get to making, you get your paying yourself first instead of paying yourself last. And on a million bucks, you're getting paid 350 profit. You know, if you, you write off 30%, you produce 130, you collect 1 million. I mean, you collect you produce 1.3 million. If you're writing off 30%, that gets you to a million in collections. And if you're in a million in collections and your overhead 65% as a GP, you're taking home 350, you know. And you know, that also goes back to, you know, reverse engineering on your biggest expense, which is your payroll. How do you turn your payroll into a profit center? And there's a step by step process.

To do that, which is great. And I love the idea of those pillars because if you think about go to the ruins in Greece or Rome, you know, there's still pillars standing. You know, they may be crumbling in some places and all that, and the building may have crumbled around them, but you can still see those pillars standing. And that just tells you that your foundation is extremely important. Makes all the difference. Makes all the difference.

Amber, I love the way you interview me and, and, and then you add that southern accent, Southern belle, bless your heart accent, you know, it just like makes my day. Like, it just listeners from the Southeast conference, you know, and the big east, you can get it. I'm crossbred, living in San Diego for nine years and then, you know, I gotta have a house in az and you know, love the Midwest, all my Ohioers out there, you know. And of course I won't leave the Michiganders out, you know, because if I say Ohio, gotta say Michigan or they get mad, you know. But it's all good in the gated hood. It's all good in the gated hood. And my peeps down in the Florida, the country in and of itself, the two countries that exist in our southern part, which is Texas and Florida, of course, Texas is its own country. And you know, I think that, you know, I think Florida is like south, South Manhattan sometimes, you know. Anyway, I just, I just did a geography lesson. How cool is that?

I know exactly. I think we hit most of it there.

Oh my gosh. We don't have the Pacific Northwest in there and we don't have Canada. We got to make sure we gotta have no door to border, you know, from my brothers and sisters up north in hockey land, drinking beer, you know?

Exactly.

Yeah.

We can't leave anyone out, most definitely. So. Well, the last one that we got here is. I have it all handled. I'm the master. Got this.

Oh, it's, it's the uber successful dentist that has like that little glimmer of like. All right, I've read every. Dental economics. I've read every. The profitable dentist. I've read every article in Dental Town. I've listened to every podcast. I listen to every lecture, and they're really good, you know, implementers from, like, reading every book. I read Million dollar Dentistry. I read raise your health, you deserve love. I read Dentistry for Millennials. I've read, you know, stop the bleeding. I read every book, Gary, that you have. I'm on my seventh book, Amber. You believe that? Seven books. And I failed English. I mean, I was horrible in English. I was freaking horrible.

You failed it, but. Okay, all right.

Well, close to it. You know, I like to whack it around a little bit, but ultimately, it's like, you know, you just got it all handled and, like, you might need a little whack in the. In the snot locker. I love snot locker. Isn't that good? Snot locker.

I have to say that I referred to my child sometimes when she was little as my little snot box, so I completely did that one.

Oh, my gosh. That's horrible. That's horrible. I would never do anything like that. Amber must be a Southern. It must be a Southern thing.

Trust me, it's a Southern mother thing.

Well, you're an amazing mama. I know that, but so anyway, like, this whole thing about, you know, when you know it all, you're dead, you know, and. And if you can get to the place of. You know, what I found was, like, I went through this arrogance phase of, like, oh, man, I got it all handled. I know. You know, I got everything. You know, of course, I was 21 at the time, you know, but one of the things is when you get.

Humbled.

The wiser you get. Not the smarter, but the wiser you get. What you learn is the more you know, the less you don't. And, you know, my grandfather said it best. He said, gary, win, play, show. The winner might win by a nose. And the payoff is tenfold of the place and a hundredfold of the show. See, a lot of people get into this. Like, I know it all. We do it like that. We already have it handled. We follow that guy's suggestions. They're exactly like that. And see, there's. When you get to the win and the place, it's the nuances of all those things. It's the little. Excuse me, here I go again. Part of me is it was just bodily function podcast day today. Don't hate me. Don't hate me out there. But, you know, it goes back to, you know, when place show, and it's like, you can pull big levers you know, it's rock, sand, water. You know, when you're, when you're putting the rocks in, you put the rocks in first, then you put the sand and then you fill the container with water and it fills all the space of it. You know, when you get start reaching the higher levels, it's that one little thing that you either forgot or the one little thing that falls out or the one little way to bring sustainability to something, or the one little way that gets your team more engaged or your patients more engaged. And the payout is tenfold, you know, and the payouts are not always. And as you mature and grow, it isn't always like money, it might be time. You know, the things I found is the people that have money have no time. The people that have time have no money. But it's, how do you have a little, how do you have a balance of both? And so, you know, depending on what your, your goal and intentions are, you know, you might reduce your goals to meet, you know, reduce your goals to meet your behaviors and your outcomes or change your behaviors and outcomes to reach new goals. So in year one, it's about decentralizing the doctor and our curriculum. And year two is making sure that the team doesn't sabotage it, the doctor doesn't sabotage it. And year three and beyond where we have people with us for 15 years, 14 years, it's about the mission that you take on behind your work. And it's really about being of service to others. And it goes back to Maslow's hierarchy. You know, when people come to us, we evaluate are they in survival, safety, belonging, ego or self actualization needs. We really use Maslow's hierarchy as the next step to take people in. And they don't know what, they don't know when they first come in, if they're in this category, they don't know what's possible for themselves. And just doing a launch program with me where they get to have one on one. As you know, Amber, in the first session, what we do is we sit down and we set three specific measurable goals. And a lot of guys and gals that are stuck in, we've already done it all. It's time to uplevel their game and play a new game. And they just don't know what game to play, so they play the same one. And then they just relish in the boredom of being successful until they don't.

You know, and that's, you know, I wonder if this is the level here. This one, number 12 here is the place where they can get into burnout and not even realize it. It's kind of an almost unconscious kind of. Of burnout because they're just. They're kind of floating along at this level and they're not even realizing that there is another level to move up to.

No doubt. No doubt. And. And their ego, usually if they're really stuck here, the ego mind is going, you got it all handled. You're amazing. Don't look for the next thing because then it might show up like, you don't have it. This is usually where a strong ego kills off progress. And the one thing we do know is if you don't have a better future than your past and there's no gap, you have no gain. So no gap, no game. And we create gaps for people. I like challenging people and saying, hey, you did this. What about this? And they go, well, wow, that sounds great. I never thought I could do that. And, you know, the examples are like, turn your business into a service organization or like, completely step out and run your practice from a smartphone, you know, or have five or 10 practices, or have one practice and just have a churn out cash. Or, you know, you know, if I had a dentist who was really passionate about dogs, and we created a, you know, a place where they give back to rescues and they allow dogs in there in their reception area. And, you know, they tend. They do charity work with dogs. And, you know, it's just like, awesome.

You know, that'd be great. Having an emotional service dog that can calm patients down during a, you know, a procedure that some people would be really nervous about. I mean, there's. There's so many things that people can take it, you know, can move on to another level with.

Yeah, but they think that they stuck all these badges. We've done it all the time. We have comfort dogs and practices all the time. And some people, just because of their belief systems, would never think to do that. And that really altered everything, you know, so, yeah, it's. It's pretty awesome. Also, understanding demographics, like, you know, if you have, you know, different demographics that are. That have dogs and you attract that, you know, like one guy was, you know, he has, you know, his. His market is homosexuals and he puts the pride flag out. They have dogs, they. I'm like cater to your market and just exploded because it made the demographic feel at home and really tended to and designed for and honored and respected and they give to gay rights and it's just beautiful. But that's a real progressive practice. And then there's real conservative practices, and we respect whatever the values are of the individual, but sometimes they don't feel like they have permission to design a life and a practice that really matches what they stand for. So, yeah, it's pretty cool.

Definitely. Wow. Okay, so we, we hit all 12 points. I can't believe it. It's like, this is going to be some powerful, powerful information to help people bounce back from anything. So.

And then, you know, 13, you know, lucky 13 is the pandemic. And, you know, I'm not writing this next book for the pandemic because I think the next pandemic is going to be amnesia from the pandemic, because people are just going to be tired of this pandemic. And so I'm writing the book for the next 10 years and have. Just like I did for Million Dollar Dentistry. You know, it's been 15 years since its first edition. 100,000 books out in the public world. And I just thought it was time just to, you know, instead of adding nuances to the next edition, to flatten it and really start fresh. And there'll be a new Larry Laser guy, and I'll give you a little story about that's going to come up. You know, Charlie Chairside does some. Some wacky stuff, and we got, we got, we got Dr. Christine Cavatron coming in. So don't. Chris, Dr. Christine Cavatron is going to be coming in. There's all kinds of. We're going to hit on these 12 Dennis Dirty Dozen crisis. So you're going to be able to know how to maneuver through them all.

That's going to be wonderful. And, Gary, it's a real honor to be with you here today and to help keep you on track so that you can share your knowledge and your wisdom with us.

Thank you, Amber, and thank you all for listening. And I hope your families are safe and well. And hey, let's start marching here. Let's start rock and roll. And give us feedback on the podcast. Let me know how you like it. Tell me what you want more of. Tell me what you want less of. Probably burping and farting. We'll stop those things. If my wife heard me on this right now, she would be strangling me.

So, anyway, bless your heart. I'll do the Southern thing for you there. Bless your heart, Gary.

And I'll end on my favorite quote. Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens could change the. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. So keep marching forward. You got it.

Thank you for listening to Million Dollar Dentistry with Gary Katie. This podcast is brought to you by Next Level Practice. Next Level Practice is the leader in dental practice management. In fact, they're the best in the world at creating happy teams that implement sustainable results. If you would like a copy of Million Dollar Dentistry, please contact Amber Keithley at Next Level Practice. You may call us at 212-388-1712, extension 11 9, or go to nextlevelpractice. Com podcast and request a copy in our Ask a Question box. We look forward to brightening your smile.