The Dentist’s Guide to Selling for Non-Confrontational People Pleasers

Thank you. We're so happy to be with you. I am Tanya Dunlap, and I'm thrilled to be here with Gary. Katie. Gary, this is the first time Catapult has not done a webinar with a formal PowerPoint presentation. So we're cutting edge here.

I love it, Tanya, and it's so great to be with you and be with the Catapult community, you know. And on this topic, man, I was at the ADA and I delivered this, the topic on why only 4% of dentists retire financially free, and this is the source of it. And we spent over half my two hours on this particular topic. So once we unpack this thing, we're going to pull the thread on something really special to open up, you know, if you want to make more money, if you want to have more fun, regain your passion, you know, if you want to get the steps to actually getting past this and get your team on board, well, this is going to be the webinar for you tonight. So I'm super excited. We had such a great turnout and, yeah, I'm so, you know, anytime you and I get to do things together, magic happens. You know, we've been doing this for eight years together.

We have, yeah. It is so much fun and it's great to be with you because we don't travel a lot anymore, so it's nice to see you on screen. I just want to explain to everybody why Periprotect is helping sponsor this. So, Gary, we've worked together, as you said, for eight years, and I have watched all this time the benefit that periprotect providers have gotten out of next level practice, and that is in terms of embracing their passion for dentistry, for getting patients healthier, and for being successful. And there's a formula here that you've honed, and I'm really happy to share it with people tonight because basically what we've learned, and with your research, too, is that a lot of healthcare providers, not just dentists, but all healthcare providers, really want people to like them and want to do the best they can. They don't want to have a confrontation. And yet you're dealing sometimes with really difficult issues. And frankly, in order for your business to be successful, you do have to be able to sell your healthcare services, and that can feel awkward. And you're able to put this into a different kind of context. So I'm so happy to be here with you. Let's just introduce ourselves. I'm Tanya Dunlap, the managing director at Paraprotect. You Are Gary, Katie, the CEO of Next Level Practice. And let's talk just a little bit about, you know, what the goal for tonight is like, uncovering those reasons why you might feel bad about having to sell.

Yeah, well, you know, as a dentist, you're not equipped. You leave dental school and you're not equipped to run a business, right? And then to be aware of your own personality type and then how that plays out with systems and processes. And then, you know, let's. Let's pile on, you know, insurance reimbursements, you know, down team members, not able to hire them, not able to follow through, managing money. You know, my heart goes out to the men and women that. That suit up every day and put their loops on and go to work under these conditions. It's not, in my opinion, it's not fair, and it shouldn't be this way. So, you know, I've really taken on my career. You know, I've worked with over 10,000 dentists, 6,000 directly in their practices. So when you. When. What happens is when. It's sort of like if you're, you know, a founder dentist, right? When. When someone opens their mouth, you can see nuances that an associate can't see. So tonight we're going. I've seen patterns, I've identified patterns, I've identified. There's a science behind this. I've had, you know, I. Everybody we work with, we do a personality profile, Myers Briggs personality profile on dentists, and there's four types of dentists. And see, let's play a quick game with our audience. That'd be fun. You know, there's the competitive dentist. You want to know what the game is, how to win it, you know, and you're like, you're steadfast to the, to the finish line. And then when you finish that race, you're on to the next one and you're just. You play games and you look to win them. That's a competitive. Then we have the spontaneous. You're, you know, you're like, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel, right? You're like whatever shiny object is in front of you. You're a lot of fun. You know, that's your primary game. Oh, your, Your dental practice is your comedic platform that you go to every day and entertain people. Like there's, you know, and they're outliers. That's 20% of dentists, 80% of dentists. 8, 0 are humanist, methodicals. They care deeply about people. They care if people like them. And they want to know the steps to get There and often get stuck in analysis paralysis because they don't want to make a mistake. So we had a retool. Because I'm a competitive humanist. So it's good for me in my position because I create games that help doctors get an outcome and I make sure people are taken care of along the way. Right, right.

And these competitive, human, not competitive, methodical humanists are great dentists and healthcare providers, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then when it comes to wearing the hat as a business owner, that's where the game gets sticky. And that's what we're going to distinguish because here's what we've learned. When you become aware, when you know better, you can do better and make better choices. And we're going to give you some structures so that you get to be you. You do you. But the structures and the team around you allow the business to run. So you don't have to change who you are. We love who you are. So, you know, it's really cool to, like, know who you are, that you are that humanist, methodical. And I give. I applaud you for being on tonight because it says that, you know, you have an opportunity to look at that, and there's some people that would just avoid that. So I really. I give a big handout for the people that are attending tonight, for sure.

Yes. And so tonight, what we want to be able to do for all of you is to provide some structure and certainty. Right. So you can, like, go forward in different ways. And if you hang out to the end, we've got some really special offers from Gary. And I want to thank you, Gary, for making yourself and your time available. We are going to be fielding questions. So this is more of a dialogue, right? Tonight. We do have some there. There's a few PowerPoints coming up, but this is more of a dialogue. If you have questions, use your Q and A button. We're super excited about that. So, Gary, one of the things that you are so good at, and your team for that matter, you got a team of coaches, a really great team. You guys are so good at helping doctors identify their goals and dreams. It's always interesting that a lot of people don't have those. They don't even think enough about themselves. But tell us a little bit what you've learned over all these years about why doctors don't get what they want.

Yeah, it's like. And I lived through this, so it's easy for me to speak inside of this, Tanya, but because I was taking care of everybody else, I would take care of my team, I would take care of my clients, and then I would leave myself for last. And you know, that would occur as selfish to me. And so as you know, I'm now in my 15th year of sobriety, which I'm so proud of. It's like my biggest, best accomplishment. I thank my wife for being a stand to say, you know, you don't have to quit drinking, but you can stay here.

And.

And my son at the time was diagnosed with autism. And now fast forward because my wife made a stand for me, because I wouldn't have made a stand for myself. I'm a people pleasing, non confrontational guy. I want you to like me. What's underneath it? Usually I call when you're a people pleaser and a perfectionist and non confrontational. Now I study psychology. But just to keep it brief, it's the rubber band effect from something that happened earlier in life that might have been traumatic, that might have actually forced you to have this desire to be liked and validated by people. Now that's really good. And you have good relationships and you know, but, but what happens is if you don't make a stand for yourself, you end up overworked, overwhelmed, underpaid, not setting up your business to have it run. And who's really running it is the wrong people. The team and the patients. And here you're going to be able to take your power back. And you know, one of the things I learned is self worth equals net worth. Tanya. People always ask me like bankruptcy. Bankruptcy happened from the inside out. It was like you were unworthy and undeserving to receive the value that you're putting out in the world. One of the key things to this whole conversation tonight, Tanya, is making money is very simple. Create value for somebody, then stay out of the way when they're about to pay you. This is where you'll see. You know, I saw in practices, Tanya, high accounts receivable, doctors giving away things for free, you know, overpaying team, all these elements of something called what I now call hdl. So we called it a thing. And HDL is healthy deserve level. And this healthy deserve level. And it's my second book because what we found was doctors would get all this money all this time and then they would kill it off, they would sabotage it because they couldn't be with it, they couldn't receive it. Healthy deserve level is defined as this in life and in practice, you don't get what you deserve. You get what you think you deserve. You Nothing more and nothing less. So if you begin and get one thing today that you can start taking notice to do, you resist. When someone is about to give you something like money for your services or your chair side, and you're about to present something but you don't feel worthy to present it, you start noticing that stuff. And that's a really powerful thing. So the first thing to identify is your relationship to your ability to receive. Makes sense, Tanya.

It does. And they might know, people might not understand it as I'm not worthy. But you feel that conflict. Right. You have to present treatment. You know it's going to cost. And suddenly there's like an uncomfortable feeling for you when really what you're doing is giving people really important information so they can make intelligent decisions.

Yep. And here, and underneath it, at our core, if you are, if you're unworthy and undeserving, you like might do the crown a year, you might be the crown a year person where it's like, oh, you know, like you're reading their, their wallet. I call it wallet biopsies. You scrape their wallet. If it's green, Tanya, you present the care. And this is about removing you as the, the Persona and focusing in on your purpose, on the, the reason, the oath you took to get people healthy. And when you can begin to separate these things, all of a sudden things start opening up. Right. So I want to share a little visual, Tanya, if I may here, that will really show people so they can get their, their, their minds wrapped around what we're talking about here. So the first thing I want to, I want to share with you is something called the value of avoidance and the value of awareness. I'm going to break out my, my Madden Telestrator here today. And you know, let's consider, you know, you're at a million dollar practice, right? This is, and mainly you've, this is a do it yourself. Like you got in there, maybe bought the practice or started it from scratch. And you're sitting there and you do what you know to do based upon your default Persona, which we know is an 80% humanist, methodical, and you built your business on that. Right. So it's basically a do it yourself and you got it to a million. Now what happens is you want to get to 2 million over here now to get there. You know, this is a big abyss to go across like that, especially when you have this here. So there's things that we know in the Personas, in the Myers Briggs Personas. Two things happen. You either acquiesce when, when you're under pressure as a humanist, methodical, you acquiesce, you say yes, but you really mean no. And then you harbor resentment. And then the other way is you just completely avoid and you ghost the situation and hopefully it goes away. And these are some of the things that we're seeing right now, Tanya. Like, you know, this one here is, you know, you, you have a brand new team. Like we, you know, in our coaching sessions we asked when, when people came on board and we, when we see a lot of 20, 20 ones, we know that, you know, the team left and there's a whole brand new team there, but nobody really created what they're there for. And they're kind of just like a bunch of individuals moving around. So you don't have a team, you have a bunch of individuals. Maybe you're down a person and you're just saying, hey, we can't hire, by the way, please don't use that as an excuse. Completely different. Now. There's a strategy to hire people you can get. There's people that want to work and there's people that want to work at a pay scale that is doable. So that's an old conversation. Or you have a person that's been in power and they shouldn't be in power, they're just dictating everything and you know, it's not the right thing to do. But you, you know, you're, you're a non confrontational people pleaser. Let me just hope, hopefully that'll go away. So all these things when they're sitting here, they, they're not going away. You got to deal with them. So when you find somebody that you can work with, you know, pick anybody that knows how to deal with these things, right, that knows how to figure out and, and come face to face and deal with these things, then what you do is you go across the bridge and they walk you across the bridge and then you get to your 2 million. So this is the non confrontational piece that we're talking about that really I want you to get present as if you're on this call tonight. I want you to get present. Not dealing with things is costing you time, money, your peace of mind, your joy of going to work every day. It costs you. It doesn't look like it costs you because you're like you're putting up with things and mainly getting through the day. If you're living your life like that, please make that unacceptable. Don't put up with that. You don't deserve that you deserve better. And again, can you see how it's an ecosystem of. It keeps you in the same spot and it doesn't allow you to move forward. So identifying where you're avoiding and coming face to face. And if you can't do it yourself, do it with somebody that has, is, you know, trained on how to do that.

And so it's a way to get out of your own head. Right. And it's a way to. To live in a healthy, like the healthy deserve level is about living in a healthy way. Right. And people pleasing. So one of the steps that you always talk about is, you know, patients have a problem usually when you have. When you have to present treatment. Right. But their problem is not really your personal problem. Right. To take that on.

Exactly. And what happens, Tanya, you know, we have doctors that, that they're sitting there and they're going, oh, my gosh. Like they actually, they have this empathy, but they're like living in the other person's world and they don't separate themselves. The number one thing here is don't make other people's problems your problems. You have enough, right. So when you separate you from them and then you get your purpose, let's call your purpose to getting. My purpose is to get people healthy. If you walk into that room and say, my purpose is to get people healthy, and then I care about people, but I'm not going to put their problem in my world. Now you have some separation, and that separation allows you to actually become the advisor, be the advisor to your patient. See, most people want to be friends with them, which is good. You can be friendly, but be friendly and an advisor simultaneously.

Right. And from our point of view at Perio protect, what we're concerned about is all of this undiagnosed disease. Periodontal disease is one of the most undiagnosed disease on the planet. But let's just talk about in our own communities. What I learned after doing this for a while is that there are a lot of dental professionals who are afraid of rejection, and they don't even present the options that would make a patient healthier.

Exactly. And what happens, Tanya, is you want to grow your practice. The easiest way to grow your practice is case acceptance. So the strategy here is to get. When you give people what they want, and what they want is their teeth cleaned, their mother told them, their grandmother told them, they said, go to your hygienist when you give them what they want and you put a patient education system in place, and I'm going to show you a bonus system, too, tonight. When you put those two things in, you create an engine and a machine and a systematic process that automatically handles all this. So I also want to give hope to people like, again, please hear. We love how you are as a humanist, methodical. Stay there. Just give yourself a little separation, be the advisor. Let the patient know what they need and why they need it. And we're going to give you a tool to do that and show you how to, how to have that happen. And then once you're in that position now all of a sudden you're, you're separated and free from that. And they're going to come to you as the guide. They're the hero, you're the guide. So you're going to guide them down a path. So when you hold the patient as a hero and you're the guide now, you're the advisor, right?

And so for those of you who love conservative dentistry, and Gary, you and I both love conservative dentistry, but conservative dentistry doesn't mean we're going to watch that, Right? Conservative dentistry means you're going to intervene with prevention and with great information, right? So it's super important that patients know that a problem exists before it gets to be too late. So, Gary, I know you help a lot of dentists and they sometimes buy other people's practices and incorporate them in, right? And then suddenly you are, they're diagnosing disease that they were with the other dentist for 30 years and they never even heard about it. Now, that's not conservative dentistry.

Well, yeah, and this is a huge problem. And we invented a tool that will allow us to put you in the power position. Not. You know, the biggest thing, my favorite thing is when, when a practice, we, we take a transition, when a doctor, a new doctor buys a practice or a practice down the street, goes out of business or shuts down, and then the new patients are coming in and you all of a sudden that you say the patient. How, how, how did you like your, your former doctor? Oh, I loved her. I loved him. You know, I went to him for 20 years and he didn't recommend anything to me. I had not. I have a beautiful smile. Meanwhile, you open it up and it's like summer teeth. Some are here, some are there. It's a mess, right? And like, you are now the bad person because you're recommending treatment and they trusted this guy or gal, and now you're the bad person, right? So repositioning yourself as the expert and as the benchmark and the standard and Then all of a sudden, you know, that, that, you know, supervised neglect that that dentist was practicing. And now all of a sudden, you have an opportunity to actually be an advisor and a trusted and respected. See, you know, one of the key things that's underneath this here is like, if you want to be like, think about this. If you're a people pleaser and you play for that, right, you're not going to want to be the bearer of bad news. So I had it in. I had to invent a system to have the patient understand and, and, and own their problem without being a bearer of bad news. Because, you know, I, I kept trying to change my dentist and say, guys, you need to be confrontational. You need to tell them the bad news. And it was just like, it wouldn't work. So, you know, we, we created a system where you get to be the buyer in the situation.

So now we're getting to the heart of it. Unpack that for us. What does it mean? Because really, what you're trying to do is accept, explain the services you offer for their benefit. But, but how do you become the buyer in that? What does that mean?

Well, you know, our philosophy is this. When you share intelligent things with intelligent patients, they can then make intelligent decisions. Tanya. Right. If you don't do that, well, then you know what you're doing. See, this all began all this, this funky scenario that, that, that muck that, like that chairside muck when you're having to present treatment that's in there all came from your, your professors training you to find the chief complaint and fix it. That's the source of the problem.

And here's a lot of dentistry that's needed to be done. Doesn't hurt.

Exactly. And by the way, if you're in the beginning. Well, yeah, if you're playing symptom, whack a mole. Like, you know, find a symptom, whack it down, Find a symptom, whack it down. And you walk in a room and you say, you know, what brings you in today? What's hurting you? What's bothering you? Do you have any. You know, what brings you in? You just gave your power away. And by the way, that works really well for a people pleaser because you don't have to confront anything. You're putting it out over there. The problem with that is you're not setting yourself up for asymptomatic care, which is 90% of dentistry, especially in the soft tissue realm. Right. And here's the other thing. You know, you're setting yourself up for do whatever my insurance covers. That's the other challenge that's going on here, because they're going, you haven't given me a reason to invest my money for this. So what happens is this concept of being the buyer. So I want to go back to my wife. I always use my wife as an example because I learned so much from her. And when I first met her, Tanya, she said, she sat me down. She goes, look, I like you, you like me. Let's get real straight here. If, here's if you want to be with me, okay? This is what I'm standing for. If you're interested in mediocrity in a relationship, I'm not your girl. If you're interested in being with other women when you're with me, there's not going to be a second chance with that. So just, I'm letting you know the standards by which you're stepping into this relationship. And, and you get to choose whether you want to do it or not. Now let's, let's bring back the alcoholism that I was talking to you about. We were about five years into our relationship and I was drinking because I didn't want to deal with my son and my son's autism. And she came to me and she goes, look, my nickname is Party Fresh Tanya. So you add a little alcohol, you add a little alcohol to me, I'm a fun drinker. But guess what? When your wife needs you and your son needs you, that's a real problem. And we deal with this all the time with our doctors. A lot of doctors that we work with, they don't know how to deal with this situation. So what happens is my wife took me back to the agreement that I made when I got into a relationship with her. She goes, remember, we're not dealing with mediocrity. This is mediocrity. The going is getting tough here. I need you to step up. And again, non confrontational, people pleaser. I said yes, and I meant really no. She goes, no where I'm moving on and either you get help or not. And like I said, I'm 15 years sober. My son, who was severely autistic, is now going to ASU next year for sports.

Exciting.

It's crazy.

Yeah, so exciting.

The reason why I bring this up is because when you make a stand for somebody beyond your, your own Persona and establish a benchmark, then you can just take people back to that benchmark and it's non confrontational at that point.

And they make the decision I do. And what I really have understood here tonight, which I didn't understand from the Judah story before when I heard it, is that really they're making the choice, right? You get to make the choice. Yeah. And that makes them the buyer.

Makes them selling to you and you the buyer. Yeah, I'm buying what Judith has. I know it's like a little discomfort, like it's a little hard to understand at first, but. But let me show you how it works in a dental practice.

Okay, let's see.

Yeah, so. And by the way, this tool right here directly affects you. You, not you not being the bad person when you're recommending treatment. Okay? So this is called the healthy mouth baseline. I mean, this is called the healthy mouth baseline. All right, so this healthy mouth baseline is invented and you can get it on my site and we can, we can give, give these away. What it does is it establishes the standard of care that what is healthy in your practice. Okay.

And most patients don't know this, right? This is good information for them?

Well, they have no clue. And there's no agreement amongst the team members, Tanya, to actually know what's healthy and what exactly is committed. So if you look here, the mouth is the gateway to the health of the rest of the body. Right. A healthy mouth allows you to live healthier and longer. Right. So you know, the way you introduce this is it goes up on the screen and every practice should have a big screen TV in front of the patient so they don't have to turn their neck. Not the smaller ones, the big ones for intra all camera pictures and the use of patient education materials. Game changer, low cost, high impact. Now when you have this up, the hygienist is doing this work for you, you're not having to do it. So you say, the hygienist sits down and says, Mr. Smith, thanks for coming in. I know you've been coming in for years. Our team and I got together and we found that our patients don't know what's healthy and what's not healthy. By the way, this is how this overcomes. If you start presenting treatment after you didn't present treatment, let's say even in your own practice, you were, you were practicing supervised neglect. You were, you had a watch factory, a Timex practice where you were watching things. This is how you get past it. And by the way, when, when you do this in hygiene, you increase the treatment presented dramatically, two to three times more than what you're doing now. And you're not selling anything. You're just giving, you know, doing your job of educating the patient, oral cancer, missing loose teeth, bad breath, headaches, grinding. If you're doing sleep, you can talk about snoring and then you talk about soft tissue, deep pockets, plaque, tartar gum disease, chronic fatigue, and then, you know, hard tissue issues. And then you leave this up here, you walk them through that and then you intra all camera shots, you know, lower anteriors with plaque buildup, cracked teeth, and you're putting it all up. Now what you just did, Tanya, is you created a gap between what you say is healthy and then what the, what the irrefutable pictures and, and probing and pocket depths are saying inside that mouth.

Right. And what this sets up as a standard allows patients to understand when they don't hit the healthy standard. And then their questions are, what do I need to do? I mean, people are coming to the dentist not just because they want to have their teeth cleaned, they're coming because they want to keep their teeth, they want to be healthy.

Yeah.

And the dentist and the hygienist and the entire team tends to be this trusted set of people and they're coming to you to make sure that they are healthy.

Exactly. But if you don't establish this, what you're going to end up doing is you're going to be delivering your, you want your practice to be beyond personalities. So if your personality, and we know it's 80%, have it run with a system to replace where you would sell out. And now watch this. If the hygienist is teeing this up, Tanya. So, so I want to give you the process now. I want to go back, show the process, the five step process, where this is incorporated into this is very important. So you can really see this.

And while you're pulling that up, I just want to remind people that if they do want a sample of this, it's available and we'll make this available for them after the presentation. Because there are plug and play versions that you have.

Exactly.

Yeah. The healthy patient blueprint.

This is the keystone system that explodes practices for non confrontational perfectionists who just want to do the right thing for people. So the first thing is people buy on why it's, people buy on what's important to them. So most of the time if you're saying is anything hurting, anything bothering you, you're really practicing transactional dentistry. Find the symptom, fix the symptom. Transactional. What we're talking about is what we call transformational dentistry, especially if you're, you're offering you know, aesthetics, invisalign airway, you know, the more you know, anything above bread and butter, you want to be able to have what the impact is on the patient. They want three things. They want to feel better and not be in pain. They want to look better and have higher self esteem and feel better about themselves. And they want to be healthier, look better, feel better and be healthier. That is at the core. And when you can get what they're motivated by, and I'm motivated by all three, I'm 59 years old, I want to look sexier. You know, my dad passed away from heart failure, my mom had dementia. You know, if you, you have, if you believe in the oral systemic health, you know, process. We have a whole educational system that ties to the chronic disease with soft tissue care, bacteria and you know, and bleeding. So you want to really have an education system that ties to what they're already motivated by. That's number one. And we teach your team. It's called form F O R M and this is an acronym that says tell me about your family. Tell me about your occupation. Tell me about your recreation. Let me look at your medical history form and see, you know, you'll see. I want to avoid what my parents went through and if you could help me do that by creating a healthy mouth that impacts my body, I'm all over that. If you're going to make me look better and white my teeth and straighten them, I'm all over that. Right. These are things that my occupation, my recreation, my, my medical history form will give you. And you tie the dentistry to that. That's step one.

Cool.

Right? Tanya, Emotional.

So just kind of unpack it a little bit for me. When would you do this form kind of assessment? Do you do it when, let's say it's a patient, let's say it's not a new patient or it could be. Is it, is it appropriate to do patient?

I'm sorry for interrupting. Intake form, your new patient.

Intake form. Okay. And then when they come, when they come back in and they're sitting in the chair and you're going, are you taking any new medications? Right. Because people forget to tell you these things. You have to ask, right?

I want to give you a different way to look at a medical history form. It's I, I see your medical history form here. Tell me about how you feel about taking this medication. Tell me about how, you know, what's your experience of being in, in this health. And they're going to tell you like they're either avoiding it and denial about it, or they're like, hey, I would do anything I can to get healthier. Now all of a sudden, you're speaking to that position. You see what I mean? That's the key. And then if you know what their occupation is, or if they want to get a better job or if they want to get into a relationship, you're listening for what they're motivated by. And then you're tying the dentistry. Because if you're selling crowns, fillings, and cleanings, if that's what you think you're selling, and offering a patient, that's very transactional. That's like, buy a hamburger. What we're talking about here is when you do this, your life is going to be like this.

And.

And people invest in that. They're happily investing in something that they want more of or less of.

And I think people hear best when they're ready to receive it. Meaning it's important to them at that moment.

Exactly. Like, I'll give you an example. I had a guy. We were sitting there. There was a guy in a chair, and he was going to his 20th class reunion. Sharon Hoenig was going to be there. He said, I want to look good for Sharon. I always wanted to date her.

He.

He goes, I'm losing weight. He goes, he's telling you like he wants to look good. So you. You really, if you have in office whitening, you want to, hey, would you have be for whitening your teeth? They're buying, like. And that window of purchase is only up until that. And then he's probably going to kind of forget about, you know, the urgency. So it's right there. That's when you take advantage and listen for. You're listening for what they're motivated by. That's what the personal motivator is. Then once you know what they're motivated by, you set the standard for what's happening. And so that's the healthy mouth baseline. I showed you that here. Right. This establishes the benchmark for it. Right? And then we go back, and then you highlight the problem consequences. And this is where you become the buyer. So, problem. You have a cracked tooth problem. You have plaque on your teeth problem. So you highlight that, and then you say, like, it's not going to heal itself, so we have to take action. It's, you know. And that's the consequence part. Right? What questions do you have for me? Now watch. You didn't sell anything. You didn't even offer anything. All you offered was, why are you here? That's a personal motivator. And here's what the standard is. And now we're highlighting the problems. By the way, before that, I would also acknowledge them for where they're healthy, because people don't only like to hear what's wrong, they want to hear what's right. So beautiful smile. Great job. You know, brushing. There's some opportunities here. Notice I'm using opportunities, not that there's something wrong. And then you highlight the problem, you highlight the consequence. And we used that. It's called PCs and Invisalign. I trained, you know, thousands of people in Invisalign this model, and they still use it today. Problem, consequence, shush. It used to be back in the day. Problem, consequence, solution. We don't want you to provide the solution. What we want you to do is be quiet and let the patient come to you. Now do you see? You just flip the script and they're buying from you. You're not having to confront them and sell them things.

This is the turn that shush can be so powerful in your own personal relationships. Because sometimes we don't need to talk. Sometimes we just need other people to. So, for example, they need time to process information. Right. If you've told somebody what I know best about periodontal disease, let's go there. You've told somebody that they have an active infection in their mouth, they're bleeding at 30 sites in their mouth. You're concerned about the health of their gums and ultimately the health of their teeth. There is a lot of information to process. Right. And so sometimes the shush just is like a moment to reset and let the page. And they're realizing we didn't, you know, they didn't tell me what to do. What am I going to do? This is important. Yeah. We're getting a few questions coming in here, Gary, and one of them was if you could go over form again, what for? M stands for.

Got it. I'll do that. Let me write it out for you.

Okay, good idea.

I'll write it on my. So listening for. So 4F is family. Right. F O is occupation. So what do they do for a living? Is it something. Are they standing on a stage? Are they doing webinars? You know what it like, something connected to how they look, how they feel. Right.

You get close to people. Do you really want fresh breath? Those kind of things.

Exactly. So you're, you're. And again, family and occupation are like the most important things to people. And then the next important thing is recreation. So you're like, hey, you know, I'm a cyclist, right? I want to be healthy, I want to be lean, I want to, I want to, you know, I, you know, I love traveling. I don't want to have something blow up while I'm in Italy. That would not be good, right? I don't know any dentists there. And then M, so if it's F, O, R M, M is the medical history. And if you just go in instead of saying, you know, I know legally you have to say, does anything change? And most people don't know from when. So you walk down and you just take a couple of points that are on there and just say, you know, what's your experience about, you know, having this? Like, you know, I want you to know I see myself as a health care provider. And by the way, establishing yourself as a complete health dentist or a complete health hygienist is very powerful because so often people in dentistry don't relate to themselves as healthcare providers. And then also the patient doesn't always do that. Like when we put, you know, we take, we recommend taking blood pressure on every visit. And you know, for some people, they go, why are you doing this? Well, they say, let me explain, because we see ourselves as health care providers. But it's interesting, you know, to establish yourself as that. And when you do that, you come from this place and you can ask questions. And now all of a sudden, here's what happens. For my perfectionist, for my people pleasers, for my non confrontational people, when you get in the other person's world now, it's not about you, it's about them. And that's why this is so important. That's that separation I was, I was looking for you to get, keeping you separate, keeping their problems over there, keeping you as the advisor and the advocate for their health and well being.

And just to let everybody know, if you've not been in the chat session, Ryan, who is a colleague that works with Gary, just dropped into the chat session. The link where they can get the healthy mouth baseline. So feel free to look it up there, guys.

Yeah, and I want to just finish this out, Tanya. So this process, I always say it plugs the bleeding points of a practice. These are all the bleeding points of a practice because you don't have the patient come into hygiene if you don't have an engine to educate the patient while they're in hygiene. That's why I like an hour, two thirds of the time doing the maintenance and education and then doing the patient education and the doc check at the last part, at the beginning or the middle of the session, as early as possible so that the patient can then assimilate. One other thing that I want to say about the shush. I talk a lot. My wife says, you talk too much. And I love that. My coach said to me, as I have a coach, too, he said to me, gary, this is what I want you to say. Does it need to be said? Does it need to be said by me? And then, does it need to be said by me now? So when you're ready to talk, does it need to be said? Does it need to be said by me? Does it need to be said by me now? It gives people space to actually process and come back. Another good. Sing Happy Birthday to the person in your head. But, you know, you know, it's that pregnant pause, Tanya, where it's like. It feels like forever, but like, you got to get that space where they think it and then respond to you. It's. You got to practice it.

Yeah. Because you can't receive it without having some time. So let's just take another example, Gary. Millions of Americans have type 2 diabetes, and. Millions of Americans have gum disease.

Yeah.

Right. So their medical history says they have type 2 diabetes and you are diagnosing gum disease.

Yep.

It's important to say, I'm aware on your medical history that you have type 2 diabetes. You also have gum disease. Let me tell you a little bit about this relationship. Right. And giving and then just shushing because they need a little bit of time to absorb it. And then they can say, well, what should I do? What do you recommend? How do I get my gums healthier? How do I unplug that chronic burden on my immune system from infected gums so that my body can focus more on managing my blood sugar? Right. That's not really the way they're going to say it, but that's what they're thinking. What. What am I supposed to do? Okay. So they get to that point. You've. You've done the problem. Consequence, shush. They've asked, right? And let's. What is the trust transfer?

Well, here's what happens. First you go, okay, now how do I get out of your mouth? Now you recommend the solution to them. Then here's the problem. You know. You know, you've seen this over and over again in practice. This is the biggest bleeding point. They said yes in the back, and then they walked down the hallway of amnesia.

Right.

Room 5, room 4, room 3, room 2, room 1. They get to the front office. You go, you ready to schedule? And they go, what schedule?

What?

What do you mean? Nothing hurts, I'm good, bye. And they walk out and then they do the six month boogie. They're like, I got out of there without committing to anything and I'll just get my teeth cleaned, you know, in the next time around. That is what we have. That's the bleeding point. We have to stop. And it's called the trust transfer, not a treatment transfer. So often people collapse these. A treatment transfer is here. Gary needs a couple fillings, some replaning and scaling drops. You know, either if you're still doing charts, drop the chart or says, you know, his charts ready for you and then you walk away and you go clean your room because you're too busy. That is a big collapse right there. Your case acceptance goes from 67% to, to 25% without this step. So what it looks like is you speak to the, the front office and you have to have a dedicated person doing treatment plans. If you don't have two people at the front desk come talk to me at our coaching session, which I'm going to offer offer you, there's going to be coaching opportunities for you to talk to us. We'll show you how to afford that person. Because if you don't have somebody dedicated to filling the schedule and keeping it filled and a person dedicated to doing everything, money, insurance, collecting money, presenting the treatment, it's very difficult to get past a million bucks. Forget it. You're going to get stuck at that same spot. You have to build it and then you create it. And the trust transfer looks like this. Let's say, Tanya, you're the treatment coordinator. Tanya, this is Gary. Gary is awesome. He's so much fun. He is, he's a speaker, he's an athlete. He is a proud dad and a proud husband and he wants to live a long life. His grandmother we were talking to his grandmother lived to 104 years old, but his dad died early and his mom had dementia and he wants to avoid chronic disease. So doctor recommended X, Y and Z, you go through it. And Gary, Tanya is going to take great care of you and she's going to fit the treatment into your lifestyle. So it's going to work for you. Get it all organized and scheduled for you so you can come in and get this all taken care of so you can look good, feel good and be healthier. Gary, I'm buying what you got.

And that's not an accident, that's practiced. You guys Have a system. And this is why, this is why it's so important to be thinking about these things and ways that you can really improve your practice and your treatment coordinating. So what that also says to me is the patient is that you heard me, you heard me, you understand what's important to me and that I matter.

Well, they got to hear it five times in the office. So if you don't hear it five times, it doesn't sink in. The first time, the first time is the hygienist to the patient. The second time is the hygienist to the doctor in front of the patient, the doctor to the patient, then the hygienist to the treatment coordinator and then the treatment coordinator to the patient. Five time trust transfer. It is a powerful tool. Thousands of offices use it and it is a game changer. And then the last thing is fitting the treatment into the patient's lifestyle. And by the way, if you have a people pleaser as your treatment coordinator, your case acceptance is in the 20 percentile guaranteed. So we the same thing for you to separate you from the problem in the patient's mouth. We train. You want to train your, your team leader because they all have money issues, right? They're making whatever dollars they're making, right? It, they usually map out their money issues on top of the patient. So that's why when the patient goes, I can't afford that. They don't work with them and work through things. They just kind of let them sit there and you know, and just, and just walk out. And so, you know, this is the second place where non confrontational people pleasing at the point of presentation. The same things apply. Separate your money from theirs. By the way. You know, my grandfather used to tell me, gary, we were going to buy my first car, Tanya. And he goes, you're dressed too nice. And we're going to go in the junky car because we have no negotiation. Don't judge your patients. You don't know how much money they have. A lot of these patients have more money than the bank sometimes. And you just don't present stuff to them because you, you did a while. You're, you know, you're, you're thinking they don't have any money.

Gary, you said that you're, you made just this remark about case acceptance being at 20%. What should, what do you, what do you want your offices to have their case acceptance number at 67.

And here's why, okay. A third will no matter what you say because you're trusted and they, they See you a third in the middle come over. When you put a good patient education system in, that's 67%. A third won't, no matter what you do or say at that moment. Now, I also want to. I also want to be careful of just using a percent, because if you're only presenting symptomatic care and your case acceptance will be very high because the patient knows that there's a problem, but the total presented and total accepted will be low. So it's not just the percentage. It's the total dollar amount presented and accepted. That healthy mouth baseline. This is a good. This is good. Doctors, look at this right now, and I'm going to ask you this question. Or hygienist, whoever's on the call tonight. When I showed you that healthy mouth baseline, what percentages of your patients are 100% healthy? Soft tissue and hard tissue.

Now pull that back up. You want to pull it back up just so they can see it. Because I think it's a good idea. Because the healthy mouth baseline is all about setting the standard of care. Like, what's healthy? How do you get there?

So when I ask this question, some doctors tell me, man, I have my patients. They are cleaned up, Gary. They are so clean. They are perfectly clean. They're 100% healthy. And I go, all right, is this your standard of care? This is your license, not me telling you how to practice. They say, yeah, this is it. I go looking at this. How many of your patients are healthy? Most Doctors will say 30 or 40 or maybe even 50%. Most hygienists would say two patients because.

High standards. Yeah, they're high standards.

But guess what, Tanya, do you know, like, you know, I've heard different numbers. You know, the average adult, at least 50%. I hear 60, 70, 80%. You know, I mean, you know better than I. Yeah. Have. Have some form of gingivitis, correct?

Oh, yeah, yeah. It's almost. I think some of the numbers are like 96% of American adults over the age of 30. And as the older you get the hot, the more severe your. Your stage becomes.

So we have metadata on 10,000 treat 10 million treatment plans. 10 million treatment plans.

10 million.

Okay. The average presented soft tissue nationwide in the U.S. 8% of patients. The average accepted, 4%.

And that is just tragic, honestly, because if you don't know you've got an issue, you can't even begin to address it.

Exactly. And that's why this system deals with the asymptomatic care. Because now the patient's going to come to you and you're tying it to what's emotional to them and now they're buying. And you didn't have to sell the darn thing. You just followed a system.

Okay, so Gary, in that five time trust transfer that you were talking about, you mentioned the hygienist and the treatment coordinator and the assistant and you're the doctor and you've got this team, right?

Yeah.

How do you get the team on board? Because you've got a great way that, a system that, that works.

Yeah. So it's like, you know this concept of being buyers, right. Like this, like the way I created this methodology that you're learning about tonight was how do I keep the people in their Personas and put a cyst, build a system around them so that they can have a practice run outside of where they would normally default. Because you know, most people have a defaulted practice rather than a high performing practice. So with patients, it's this patient education system. Now let's get your internal customer, your team, on board because. And we have to flip the script. So here's the biggest script that we have to flip. This is how you change the behavior of your team. Because doctors are you team leaders. Are you tired of, I call it blowing air, saying the same thing over and over. Blowing air because like the words don't mean anything. You, you're just blowing air and you're going, hey, can you fill the schedule? Hey, can you close that case? Hey, can you, can you do a trust transfer? And you just kind of repeat and repeat, repeat yourself. So here's, here's what I saw needed to be done. The doctors are the employer mentality. The team is the employee mentality. Employer mentality is risk reward. You take the risks. The better you perform, the better, more and better and faster and more efficient and more fulfilling things get. The team's mentality is trading time for money. That's a problem. You pay them this dollar amount and then they fill time. So they're just filling time rather than producing outcomes. So I'm like 25 years ago, I'm like, I'm tired of chasing this. How do I get them to come to me? Right? So this is how you do it. It's called the triple win bonus system. The triple win bonus system. So I'm going to put my little trusted Madden teleprompter up again. I hope you're liking this. Tanya, do you like the new, the new presentation system?

I do like it. I like it a lot.

All right, cool. So the triple win bonus system flips the script just like we did with the patient. Now we're going to do with the team. This is where the patients win because they get all the care they need. They're going to, they're going to have that five step healthy patient blueprint. They're going to follow through on that thing. They're going to be the one educating. They're not diagnosing, by the way. They're going to be the ones educating you as the doctor make that call in hygiene and you do the diagnosis and they build it around it. And this is how you get them to do what you want them to do. And so the practice wins. Now the team's going to win because they're going to win personally, professionally and financially. And then the patients are going to win. Okay? I mean, and the practice is going to win. Now this is also good for non confrontational business owners because now you're going to get the team to do what you want them to do. Now how often do you let just step over your team? I'll give you an example, like, because you're, you know, you don't want to confront things. I, a perfect example is everybody comes in, I just had a doctor this morning, everybody comes in at a different time, at the morning huddle because they want to do what they want to do. And you just say yes and you mean no. You want to say no, but you don't like, that's a one simple example. But there's many that happen throughout. So this is the way you do it. It's called the triple win bonus system. So I'm going to draw it out. Let's see, the first thing you need to do is figure out how much you're going to do per year. So it's called reverse engineering. Doctors. Who wants to take more time off out there? This is where you do it. All right, so let's just say you want to do a million dollars, okay, $1 million. And you want to take six weeks off, right? So now you have how much money you want to make and how much time you're going to be doing it. So then what we do is we reverse engineer and figure out, I'm just going to do, I'm going to, for time purposes, the doctor needs to do 5000 a day, right. And the hygienist needs to do 1200 a day. Now you're all of a sudden going to go, well, my fees, I can't do that. That's the design of this system. It's going to bring up all the reasons why you can't do it. And then we fill the gap. Just like the gap on the healthy patient blueprint creates a gap. This is going to create a gap. Like the hygienist is going to go, well, I can't do that. Or the, you know, the, the appointment coordinator is going to go, I can't do that. Because, you know, you know, we're doing profis all day and pro fees are, you know, $89. Well, when we look at the, the SRP to profi ratio, that's where you fix the problem. So they start seeing, oh, I gotta stop doing bloody profis. I gotta charge for this. So go ahead, Tanya.

It's not about charging patients and upselling. It's about doing the dentistry they need, right? About diagnosing disease. That's there giving people intelligent information, good information, so that the intelligent people can make the choice and then making the choices that are for the right reasons.

Exactly. And then you need to present 7,500 a day, and you get 5,000 a day accepted. This is a key number that most people don't manage. They don't look at treatment presented and treatment accepted at 67%. They don't look at that. And if you have, you should have one doctor to two hygiene. That should be your ratio. If you don't have two hygienists for each doctor, it means that you have an opportunity to do better at your patient retention. That means your patients aren't coming back twice a year. Okay? So the, your new numbers, your new measures are now mapped out, and they're figured out so that you can do a million dollars and you can take six weeks off. Now, each day it's going to be mapped out over the team. So the appointment coordinator, the appointment coordinator fills the doctor schedule, the 5000 and each hygienist to 1200 a day. Okay? So when you do that, their boat, they would be bonused $10 per day per column. $10 per day per column.

So up to $30 a day.

$30 a day times 16 days is $480. Now, you only pay it out if you collect 85,000. So each position, Tanya, has a measure, and then the entire group gets paid when the doctor can pay the bonus, when you collect the 85,000 and that.

85,000 for the month. Right? This is what we're talking about.

Yeah, for the month. So 85,000. So now you got your team focused on the two things. You need them to focus on the Appointment coordinator, filling the schedule and keeping it filled. That's why it's a dedicated role. The treatment coordinator presenting 7,500, getting 5,000 accepted. Okay, then the assistant. The dental assistant is 5,000 a day. Now look at how the behavior changes for the dental assistant. They think that they're unworthy and undeserving. They're like the low woman on the totem pole. They're the most trusted, Tanya. By. By the. Yeah. So now that. Now they know what their measure is, so they go to the huddle and they're going, hey, we're at 4800. I could have this patient stay and. And do these two. Two fillings. And now we're going to be at our number. So they start playing on the same playing field. Now you don't have. Now you're not playing golf and they're playing football. Everybody's playing the same sport on the same measure, turning it out and then getting rewarded equally. And then, you know, then there's the hygienist who produces 1200 and recommends half of the 7500. And then they get their bonus. You can get. My book. Will give my book out, and it describes this whole bonus system inside of the book. But I wanted to give you this. This is how you flip the script and have your team take ownership of it, because now they're on the same measures and the same outcomes that you're. You're creating, and then you create gaps. But.

And the ultimate goal here is to get the patients healthier. That's like the whole point, right, is to really improve patient health and to focus on that.

Exactly. Exactly, Tanya. And, you know, all this put together in one spot allows you to be who you are and love who you are, do dentistry and have your business model run the business and your team leader run that business side. And now you get to do what you love to do. It's amazing.

So I've been answering a couple of questions while you've been talking, Gary, and so has Ryan and everybody. If you would like to ask questions, we have just a few minutes to have some more. But we do want to make sure that you have an opportunity to get your phones out, check out that QR code, because Gary is very graciously offering time for free for those of you who really want. And, Gary, I want to thank you for doing this because it was a big ask, and I know how much the community in the dental community in general means to you, so thank you for that. But do you want to explain what this Is here.

Yeah, we, we put aside 30 minutes for catapult, the catapult community. And we put five hours aside so we have 10 slots available where we sit down with you and you, you give us what you took away from this and you share. Hey, I want to learn more about the bonus system. I want to learn more about the patient education system. I want to learn more about, you know, you can deepen it and personalize it and you can tell us your story. A lot of doctors want to tell us your, their story. Like I have this practice in a rural area. Does it work here? They have all these nuances that they want to get out or they go, man, you nailed me, man, you nailed me. You were like talking directly to me and I appreciate that. But like, here's what I got going on, you know, in my home life. Or like they just open up to us and tell us their story and then we give them the specific step by step action items that they can go and start, you know, this implementation. So it's really a customized one on one session with no obligation, you know, just pure value creation on that meeting.

Yep. And I know the, the paraprotect providers who've done this, what kind of has opened up for them is the whole possibility of it getting better. Right. And, and hope that there's a way that you can actually love your job, be happy with your team. And let's just admit it's been a hard couple of years, especially to have a rock solid team. We've been through a lot. But docs and hygienists and team members out there, we really do salute you because the work you're doing matters so much to patient health. And it is our privilege to partner with you whether you're with periprotect or next level practice. We value what you do. And it's important to us that you have these resources. And that's one of the reasons why we sponsor the webinar tonight. Gary, I want to thank you for being here with us and for making your time available. And I want to thank Catapult very much for this.

Absolutely. Lisa and team over at Catapult and I want to salute the doctors and I want to leave everyone with my favorite quote. And it's never doubt that a small group of thought, thoughtful, committed citizens could ever change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. And we in the dental industry have an opportunity to dig in and transform communities. You know, you're the only provider, healthcare provider that patients can come in twice to and you can change their life. And if you begin to start taking that on and knowing you make that kind of difference, and if we just did that with one person tonight, that would be amazing. Amazing. Amazing. Tanya, last parting thoughts from you?

No, I just would like you to know that people really appreciate your presentation. We're getting some chats in here and some Q and A, so thank you all for that. Be sure to reach out if something comes up or if this has stirred something up in you. These opportunities are great to be together. Gary, thank you for being with us. And again, Catapult, thanks so much.