The Growth Masterclass- "How to get your team addicted to productivity" July 2021

Welcome everybody to the first in this series of the Growth Masterclass with the man the myth. Gary, Katie, thank you for being here. My brother and I'm Dr. Brian Laskin, your host. Thank you.

You bet.

Yeah. I'm, you know, Gary, you're just a wealth of knowledge to the dental industry and I'm just so grateful that I get to share this Growth masterclass with you where we can help people at a crucial time. As the offices are opening back up, some offices are really feeling pinched. And I think that we have put together a great curriculum for people today and across the entire Growth Masterclass. But this topic particularly, I think is it's one of those things in dentistry, like right now, I believe that's going on where it can either tremendously help or tremendously hurt a dental practice. And it's really talking about the essential role of a bonus system within your practice. Right. And I mentioned it kind of like leading into this, but I've had dental, I've had bonuses systems in my practice where it was completely demotivating. Like maybe it worked for a month, maybe it worked for two and then people expected it and it just withered and was actually the opposite of a bonus system. It was like expected. And when the people didn't get it, they felt bad. And I think there's a lot of broken bonus systems out there. And so, you know, this is, you came up with this topic and when you said, I was like, that is I think one of the keys to turbocharging a dental practice.

You bet, you bet. And Brian, one of the things that this really helps a relevant issue because as you know, this is the biggest talent shift in dentistry that has ever seen. You know, we were talking the other day like 50% of team members are looking for another practice.

Right.

And the other 1.

And 2.

1 and 2 are looking for another, you know, another position. Now the other thing is that's really going on is the peep because there's a supply and demand issue. You know, shrinkage has happened. You know, there's 10% less hygienists now because they've either done other careers or they're being at home with their kids. And so that's really caused tension as well. Now what we're going to talk about in the Growth Masterclass class is there's these old school problems and we're going to bring new school answers and solutions to these age old problems. I know your community is crazy on the innovative edge and they don't want to apply the same thing. Over and over again that they've heard. So we're going to really go to work and bring the most innovative solutions, the most simple solutions, so you can work smarter, not harder, Right?

Oh, great. Yeah. And, you know, the. We're all having the same problems in dentistry right now. Like you said, the number 1, 2, and 3 is the team getting good people. And we've had a shrinkage. Like, I hate shrinkage. But, you know, in the. In the industry, having people just fleeing. Fleeing the industry and then everybody shifting around, like you said, I think it's absolutely key, and I think that a bonus system is one of those things that you can differentiate if you think, oh, well, last time it took us three weeks by putting a Craigslist ad to get a hygienist. Well, everybody's doing that, so you've got to do something to set yourself up different.

Exactly.

I think you know what you're going to be talking about today with a bonus system. I just love it because it's the kind of thing where dentists will be like. It'll make them a little. The right. Kind of nervous, right?

Yep, exactly. And it's like, oh, my gosh, I got to pay this. Yes. I love when doctors go, I can't wait for bonus day because they're giving 10 cents on every dollar. And they're. Every dollar they're making. They're making 90 on. And they are happy doing that. Right. So the other thing that this is going to affect, too, Brian, is it's going to affect a lot of new people coming in are asking for more money than the people that exist, that have been dedicated through the pandemic, work through the pandemic. So they're like asking for crazy numbers and some people are paying them. But how do you overcome that issue where you have existing people and you have new people coming in and you don't want to pay them a higher rate because it's not fair to the existing people. Well, this will solve that problem as well. And, you know, just to reverse a little bit, you know, why do people want to put bonus systems in? This is what I've learned over the years. First is they want to motivate their team.

Right.

The second thing is, is that they want to put accountability in and work on the drivers that build the practice.

Right.

One of the things that my coach always told me is like, Gary, your team is not there to make you rich. And so they don't think like an entrepreneur. They think about what they need to do not to lose their Job mainly most team members are playing not to lose their job and not make mistakes. You and your spouse and your CPA and everybody involved in your organization that are at a top level are playing to win. And you have this combination of team playing not to lose and you trying to play to win and it doesn't work. So the other thing that this is going to do today is really get that motivation, get that accountability and get them playing on a growth mindset, not the employer employee mindset that I was talking about. And that's really the other third reason why we want to do a bonus is because you want to grow. You're stuck, you know, you don't want to, you know, you don't want to stay the same. Right. But here's the problem. 99% of the bonus systems that when I meet them, because I pick them up from practices, here's what they end up being. Bry. This is really important to note that they become. The team thinks it's their salary, like they should be getting it. But here's the problem. The practice isn't any more profitable or behaviors were not changed. That's the other thing. They want to change practices behavior to focus in on bottom line outcomes. And they, the same people that were doing 20% of the work, that made 20% of the revenue in the practice are doing it. And now there's a mismatch because the people that are doing the work to cause the outcome are resentful of the other people because they're getting a bonus and they haven't done anything to help get that bonus.

Right.

You see this all the time, right, Brian?

Oh yeah. I mean, I was the guy who had the bonus system. My first bonus system was like, well, okay, at the end of the month I'll see where there's profit. And then if there's profit and it's like, you're exactly right. Like the, my assistant who is, you know, just worried about, you know, putting food on the table and not getting fired, isn't thinking about profitability at the end of the month. Right. And by the way, then I'm setting us up to both be disappointed. Exactly. Yeah.

I'm sorry for interrupting. It's like, you know, so you have that. Now here's the other thing. Do you know who the biggest arsonists are? The biggest arsonists?

I don't know if there's a good. If I say yes, I do know who they are. I think that's worse than if I say no. And the answer is no, I don't know, I don't know who the best arsonists are, Gary. So please, please tell me.

The biggest arsonist. And if you knew this, it would be like, okay, you'd be in collusion with him, right? You know the biggest arsonists are firemen.

I got it right, I guess.

Yes, yes, firemen. Why? Because they want something to do. They want to do what they love to do and put out fires. Right. Now, get this, watch. This is why practices get stuck. Because a team member is playing not to lose their game. They manifest the same problems over and over and there's no interruption of that. And they occur as busy but not productive difference between activity and proactivity and the difference between activity and outcome. And so again, by the way, I'm not blaming team members. This is a subconscious thing that goes on in human behavior where you fill time with or you spend time fixing problems. And that's a safe zone, even though it's not a profitable zone. So a lot of bonuses don't interrupt the pattern of arson happening in practice. So again, I'm sharing all this with you because I want you to know what the, what the context or backdrop is that when I design this thing, it allows for the all these things to happen. Number one, not to have the bonus be seen as a salary. Number two, shift from being busy to being outcome based. Number three, have the team focus on the outcomes that you want them to focus on. And what's the biggest expense in a dental practice?

Wages.

Wages. Right. And most doctors are looking at commodities to cut and slice and shrink from. You know, we talked about it last week. You can't shrink your way to growth. So where the growth lies and where the profitability lies is in one place. Return on investment from wages. Turning your payroll into a profit center. Turning. If, if I pay $15 an hour for this person, I should get this much productivity. And then if they go past that, I should reward them on new money only, not. You know, you had mentioned something like you looked at most. Most bonus systems, Brian, are built on collections at the end of the month in a collective group. That is recipe for disaster because watch what happens. You get five, you're a cosmetic dentist, you're a sleep dentist, you get five big cases. There's just happenstances in that month. And now you're sharing money that, that the team did not cause an outcome for or new money for. And you're now paying for something that mainly you as a doctor generated because of your reputation or marketing or whatever you did to create those big cases in that one particular month, and now you're having to pay for. It's not what we call the triple win. So I want to highlight this distinction, too. The triple win is the patient wins. They get all the care they need, the team wins, they grow personally, professionally, and financially, and then the practice owner wins because the business is profitable. Does that make sense?

Oh, yeah, totally. I mean, that's one of the things that I love about. One of my favorite things about dentistry is that when I believe to my core that when done right, everybody wins. And I think that that is definitely true with bonus systems, too, that there's no reason why everybody can't win when it's done right.

Exactly. And then the last thing about this is I wanted to have the doctor decentralized out of the middle of their business. We call it decentralizing the practice owner so that he or she can be like. What we look for is this is what we provide for the practice owner using this bonus system. Economic security. Economic security is number one. Number two is clinically satisfied. Imagine not. You know, I can't tell you how many times doctors go, man, I just want to sell out. I'm so sick and tired of this. I don't want to deal with it anymore. Because I go, what do you really want to do? They go, I want to do what I signed up for, not what I didn't sign up for. I signed up to be a great clinician. And I'm so good at it. I'm so badass at it. And that's what I want to. That's where I want to spend my time. So clinically satisfied. And the last thing is having the time to enjoy it. Because if you can enjoy, you know, the wealth, like I have a lot. I know a lot of rich guys that don't have the time to enjoy their wealth. They. They're not around for their kids and their family. They don't get to travel when they're on vacation, they're working. And when they're working, they wish they were on vacation. They're never where they say they're never where they are. Right. So what this is going to do is it's going to give you a super low cost, all high return. And once you put the system in, the system runs itself. And then you can then be free from it. And then we have, you know, docs that want to go from one practice to two, two to three, four. Three.

Right.

You can do that. Or if you want to stay in that one practice, maximize it and Spend less time chairside and more time poolside. You can do that, too. So that's what this is available to, you know, as we unpack this bonus system.

Well, that's great. I mean, I think you hit on so much of what. What dentists are looking for, right? I mean, and I think the other, the other pain point that I think the right bonus system does, like this is. It is. It removes stress and tension and conflict with the team, right. Which I think is a huge issue with practices. And, you know, it goes to what you're talking about that. Because that decreases economic stability. It makes. It sucks up your time and energy. And so, yeah, I think it's great. I think it's great.

Now let's jump on the court. Now I'll do it. I always like metaphors. I like visuals to understand things. And so I came up with this idea, and this is usually how I explain the beginning of building this thing so it puts your. Your attention in the right spot. And so, you know, I use like, you know, we have a mutual friend, Alec, and his. He's like a master chess man. Like the, I think he's like the, The. The guru in, in his country. His daughter is like seven, and she's the. Now the new guru, right? And you know, this idea of chess, and I said, if you could pick any piece of a chess game to beat me, and you get this piece and I don't get this piece, I will still beat you. And this is the champion, you know, he's. He's like the best in the world.

Okay?

So I go. I go, yeah. He goes, yeah. He goes, I'll take the queen because she can move as many places, and if you don't have a queen, I'm going to be able to dominate you. And I go, I got you beat. And he said, I don't know about that. I go, yes, I do. I. It was a little, you know, I asked the question in a unique way. I said, any piece to the game, the piece I'm picking is the game board. Why? Because when I got the game board, I can tell the pieces how to move. So I can tell your queen to move like a pawn, and I can tell all my pawns to move like a queen, and I got you beat. And most people don't look at their practice, Brian, as a. You know that if I own the game board, then I could put great controls in place to solve the reoccurring problems in dentistry and at the root cause. Does that make sense?

Oh, totally, yeah. Yeah. I think that's. It's one of those things, too, that, you know, I think many, many dentists probably inherited a bonus system or they, they talked to a friend and put it in place, and they didn't, like, take a step back and, and look at the psychology of what goes into it. Like, you have. And unpacked it to a way that, that really motivates people, that makes sense for everybody. So. Yeah, And I like the analogy of taking the board, because if I was playing with Alec, I wouldn't even put the board down. I'd hide it.

I wouldn't step on that playing field.

No, not a chance.

But here's what we want to do. We want to get the team addicted to high performance and high productivity, not high maintenance. We want to move the team from high maintenance to high performance. We want to put the right people in the right places doing the right things. All right? So in order to do that in the dental practice, you know, I'm a big, big, big Yankee fan. You know, here I am, I got my Yankee gear on. Right. I love baseball. I won't talk to you about it because we share different joys together, but baseball is awesome. Right? And, you know, if you don't have the right people in the right place doing the right things, especially in dentistry, see, in the back office. I'll just do a quick overview. The back office has delineated natural responsibilities. There's dental assistants, hygienists, doctors, right associates. So that's the back. And you. You default into delineation. The front office doesn't have that. Do you see that?

Yeah.

When every. When everyone's accountable for everything, no one's accountable for nada. And what a dental practice must have accountabilities in, in order to be profitable is you need somebody managing your time and somebody managing your money. If you don't break that front office into those two roles, what happens is you end up having everybody being busy because they don't want to do the most confronting things, like fill the schedule, like overcome objections in the treatment plan. That, that the ability to do that ethically and responsibly is what changes the game and takes. My grandfather said it best. He said, win, play, show the wind. Horse might only win by a nose, but the payoff is tenfold. These are the nuances that people don't put their attention on in the front office. And if you don't have that structure of having the right people in the right places, like if Derek Jeter is not on shortstop, and that the twins are going to hit the ball through shortstop. And that's what happens in a dental practice. There's no accountabilities for time and money, and they just throw people at the problem. Not, not roles at the problem. So when you delegate tasks, Brian, instead of responsibilities and outcomes, you're chasing what people are doing throughout their day versus the having them own the outcome that they're responsible for. Is that clear?

Oh, yeah. And, you know, I, I love the idea of having those to be two separate roles. Managing time and managing production. Right. I think that that's, that's genius. So do you. In the bonus system, do you? Because those are, those two are related when it comes to bonusing. Right. So how, how, how does the. Let's get into it a little bit. Like, like, how does the bonus system work to account for both those.

Yeah. So let's, let's start with. We design instead of having our dentists live a defaulted life, meaning that you work your butt off, you run as hard as you can, and then you reduce your expenses as much as you can and you keep as much as you can. That's the typical. Get on the treadmill and run. We do it completely different. We ask our doctors how much they want to make and how much time they want to spend doing it. I'm going to do an easy, quick example. One doctor, one hygienist. And we could do this for 10 doctors and 20 hygienists. Let's say you want to do a million dollars. Let's say you write off, you know, 20%. That means you have to do 1.2 million. And then you want to profit. Let's just say, you know, you want to profit 35% of your million. Right. So that's a, that's a clear now algorithm to get there. Right. And then what we do is we reverse engineer. So you have to do 100,000amonth if you have one doctor. And let's say two hygiene, you would need to do 5000 in the doctor's schedule and 1500 in each of the hygiene schedules. That appointment coordinator is responsible for those outcomes per day. So a lot of people are block scheduling and they're doing all this stuff and they're just like what I call white space fillers. They're filling the white space versus. Is it filled to 5000? 1200 and 1500. 1500. And is it. Does it end up there in that day? When it does, you pay this person. And I'm just going to do a cursory. We adjust and customize this. $10 per column per day. So now my appointment coordinator can make $30 a day when 5000, 1500 and 1500 shows up. $30 a day times 16 days worked is $480. Now watch this. You only get that paid if we collect $100,000 at the end of the month. Now we have the triple win. In effect, the patients win because now they're showing up and getting the care they need. The team member wins because they know and they're getting dopamine every day. See, the other thing we need to get is dopamine flowing every day. When you have a monthly bonus, it's too far out, and they only think about it on the 26th, 27th, 28th, 29th of the month. And if you're not close, they let it go and they don't play. But when you play in the first hour of each month individually by position, and you do it on production and collection, now you have everything handled, then you're not handing out bonuses based upon whether you got five big cases in or not. Here's the other thing this does. If you have roller coaster production days, some busy days where you're running with roller skates on and you make 20 cents, and some days where you don't have enough in there, it goes away. And you get this beautifully designed, consistent schedule created by a person who's owning it. And you don't have to train them on all the nuances of it because they either did it or they didn't on the outcome. Now they're coming to you for training and development. If they're not hitting their number because they got some skin in the game.

It'S great. You said a lot of fantastic things there. And so one thing I want to highlight is the value of, you know, I mentioned with, like, the bonus system that I had that didn't work, which was trying to incentivize your assistant at a monthly goal. It's too big. It's so hard to see is if I do this sealant over lunch, I'm going to somehow maybe be more profitable than I'll get. You just can't do it, Right. And for some reason, that feels better as a dentist, but it doesn't. Once you see, like, if you know your $8,000 day is scheduled, is that worth 30 bucks to you? Hell yes. Right? I mean, come on. Right? I mean, all day long, every day. And that's, like you said, the roller coaster thing. What I've experienced with the roller coaster is that you know, you're like, oh, my gosh, all the money's coming in. You see the QuickBooks going out. Okay. Oh, all the bills are being paid, all the money's good. And, like, you don't even know if you're profitable. But if you reverse engineer it like you said, and you are, you're gamifying this, you're giving dopamine shots to your scheduling coordinator so that you're setting your days up like that, you know exactly what's going on all the time. The roller coaster, it's annoying, but the stress comes in when you don't know where the money's going to. Right? And you're doing that right. You're. You're doing that on the front end and you're. That's worth 30 bucks for sure.

Totally. Now look what happens. That 30 bucks for you as a business owner is not that bad. Now, we're going to keep adding a few more here to each position, but to that person, to make $480 more for the month. And you're only doing it on, like, having your life work exactly the way you want it. I mean, it's just. And look, you know, I've installed this all around the world, you know, thousands and thousands of practices, so it's been perfected. You know, there's some nuances. Like, if you're picking up an old bonus system, people are afraid with a new one, and there's a transition plan, and then, you know, there's like, you know, there's all kinds of, like, general nuances. But today, you know, we want to give concept to people so you can get a sense of it. And it's in my book, Million Dollar Dentistry, you know, and people will be able to get a copy of this. We have audio, we have digital, we have, you know, printed, you know, and it's crazy, Brian. People will just go and create that thing. And. And they say, I get. I get emails all the time about how it's changed people's lives. And, and what's really fun is when I get it from team members saying, I thought I was stuck. I didn't think I could, you know, grow past where I am. And to make a 5,$500 extra from my position is. Is awesome and I'll never leave. And when you get, you know, when this, you can attract a bonus system and you can retain them, you know, it's just amazing. So that's the appointment coordinator. And then, you know, let's go around and unpack each position real quick here. I Think it'd be really valuable to people, you know. The next is the. So what's really cool is in this system, it's like a crisscross system. You'll have a front accountability and a back accountability. So, you know, what happens is, is that the appointment coordinator and the hygienist really work beautifully together. Because what happens now is we work on the average annual value of a patient. So two profis, two exams, set of bitewings, a crown to build up annually is the annual value of a patient. Let's just say a PPO practice. Let's just call it $1,300. $650 now goes unused. If one hour goes away, if you begin to look at every patient's value of 1300, if they're coming in twice now, all of a sudden, your intention and attention of making sure every single hygiene appointment is filled is. Is a must. So it changes the intentionality of it. The other thing that happens is with a hygienist, most hygienists are stuck in the old model of, you know, either, you know, polishing teeth, gum, gardening. You know, there's very few, you know, whole body health. We talk about the four levels of. Of practice, the maintenance. In your book, you know, you beautifully depict this, which is, it's. It's emergency maintenance, optimal, and then what we call complete health. And, you know, when you get your hygienist educating from whole body health, the impact, the mouth being the gateway to whole body health. Now all of a sudden, you know.

What do you think?

The average. Now this, this is a big one. The average. Nationwide, we have 10. We have access to 10 million treatment plans. Bryce, percentage wise, what do you think profi to perio ratio is? How many people get a chance? Let's say if there's 50% of adults have some form of perio, how many do you think get diagnosed in treatment plant and accepted?

Oh, that's gonna be a grim number, my friend. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. 50% have perio. I will say 20%. Nice.

Nice. I mean, you're closer than anybody I've ever heard. It's 8% diagnosed, 4% treated. 8.

I'm less than halfway there, but yes.

No, you're close. Because I'm telling you, a lot of people go, oh, you know, 40, 50%. I mean, we have, you know. Oh, yeah, I know, it's crazy. No, I'm telling you right now, it's 8 and 4. So 4% of people are diagnosed and treated, and that's insane. That's insane. I mean, look, we can't get to all the dentistry that needs to be done in the world if you just really, if somebody set a standard of care, a healthy mouth baseline. And that's one of the things we do in a dental, in the. In the hygiene office is set a standard of. These are all the symptoms that exist. If you don't have what the benchmark is, it's just anecdotal people feelings, if they have time to talk about it. It's like the most archaic business model I've ever seen in my life, the traditional dental business model. And when you give a hygienist, these are all the symptoms in a patient education tool, it's like, how many people are healthy that walk through a hygiene chair, you know, in a day? How many people are soft tissue, hard tissue healthy? What do you. I mean.

I mean, in a column of eight, maybe one.

Exactly, right? So, like, think about how much possibility we have. And then we have people who are, like, letting these patients go through and. And operate from supervised neglect. You know, it's like, you know, oh, it's brutal.

No, and I mean, I even think back to, like, you know, before we would calibrate with our team members to make sure we're on the same page, like, if. If that. If. If there's a patient that needed Crown on number 18. And last time I had done number 31, and it was a pain, the likelihood of me treatment, like, I hate to say it, but, like, I don't want to go through that hour again, you know, But. And so, I mean, it's just. You're right. It's all feel. I mean, even when, you know, it's like the feelings come into play and it doesn't. You're hurting everybody, right? You're hurting the practice, you're hurting the team, you're hurting the patient. It's just. It's having it set up. Set it, set it and forget it.

Right, exactly. So the hygienist is. In order to get him or her to think bigger and really change behaviors, we give them 10% above the benchmark. So if they do, they have a $2,000 day. There's $500 difference. 10% of that $500 is 50 bucks. And they get 1% of the treatment that comes out of that room for that day that gets agreed to, paid for, and scheduled. That's pretty awesome.

Oh, that is awesome. That is awesome.

So you get a $10,000 case. You know, do the numbers. It's you know, on average, an average day of eight patients is somewhere from 10 to $15,000 a day of dentistry. Do the math. If you're a hygienist now, all of a sudden you have two ways to make it. On your own production and then on the production that you generate, that gets created. Because here's the thing. In today's single office practices, if the dentist has to do all the education and the closing of cases, you can't possibly run an efficient practice. So if you should have one doctor to two hygiene, and if you have an hour of dentistry that needs to be done at the chair and you have to do two hygiene checks, it should be five minutes in each hygiene check. And if your hygienist does all the education, you walk in and call balls and strikes because you're the only one that can diagnose. You're back at the chair for 50 minutes and you close two cases and the team did all the work, not you. That's decentralizing the doctor.

That's absolutely key. And I want to point out to the dentists that are listening too, because I know when I started bonusing like this, I had this IDEA like, what's $5? Or what's, you know, what's, what's $3? Or. And I think two things happen. One, $5 is a big deal. And two, it shows that it's really just the showing that you were rolling in the same direction, right? When I win, you win. And even if it was at 50 cents, I feel like that showing that you're working, that you're both on the same team, working in the right, same direction, I think has magical effects in an immediate way, like you're talking about. I mean, if, if I do this, then I know, I get that it's it that is making it clear and simple, like that means everything. And I want to go back to your, your dopamine hitting, your gamifying this. If people think that this is, this is kind of flippant. This is how Facebook is so huge, right? I mean, this is why social media is changing our social structure as right now completely, right? It's using these hardwired tactics to our brains, but we're using it to elevate people's oral health, not to grab their attention and sell them stuff on YouTube or whatever, right? So I think it's easy to discount the power of a $5 incentive that's done right like this.

There's no doubt watch social dilemma. If you haven't seen it, it will show you the science behind how Facebook, you know, did not become MySpace because they know how to get that dopamine fix. Like, I have a lot of doctors like who. It's really interesting who, who are, who are going on social media diets. And the addiction is so it's like carbohydrates for people. And. But they're creating so much time for themselves because they didn't realize how much time they were spend flipping around and also getting negative emotions by saying, I'm not as good as this person. And we'll spend less time. You know, we can go deep here, but psychologically science based, you know, motivation. And here's the thing, automation acknowledgement is the number one thing team members want that they're not getting. This puts an automated acknowledgment system in place that, you know, communication. That doesn't happen. Like, I don't say that I love and respect you as much as I should, because I do. You're awesome. But I don't say it. So when you put the system in, the system actually does it. And we'll take this, you know, the advanced levels of this just to paint a picture is you actually tie your employees to what we call our Dream program. So millennials love this, especially the Dream program. And we can deepen this at another session down the road. Dream program is very important because when. Here is what happens. The team writes out 100 dreams. Now those hundred dreams, the bonus goes to fulfill on those hundred dreams. Most people forget about dreaming team members. They're just in survival and scarcity. Some of the biggest dreams is go on a Disney cruise, stuff like that. But if they don't dream it and they don't have a mechanism to make the money to pay toward it, they don't do it. And we actually celebrate those. It's in the team room with the pictures. So it's like a visual. So there's like this goes downstream even more. But I want to get the foundation in, in this session. But can you see, like the power of like relating your team member to fulfilling on their dreams? And now all of a sudden, you're enrolling the whole family. Now when you go home and complain about the office, the husband goes, don't forget, they really helped you live our dreams. So you should be a little nicer to your boss.

Oh, yeah. And there was one study that I saw that I, that I always think about is they studied people going on vacation and it wasn't going on. It wasn't the actual vacation that people appreciate that, like, enjoyed the most or actually the memory. It was the anticipation of going on vacation. This is why, like, I'm always like, we surprised our kids with a trip to Disney World. Why would you do that? I'm gonna tell my kids in 20 years, we're going to Disney World. Right. I think, I mean, you really gotta build that. And like, when we would have, like a team trip or a team event, we would build it up. And what you're doing here is you're into. You're individualizing that anticipation building and then doing the gamified appreciation, $5, $10, $20 a day up to. It's a fantastic system. I love it.

Yeah, Let me just finish them all out so people can get it. The assistant feels like she is or he is on the low man or woman on the totem pole. And they're the most trusted by the patient, and they're the least engaged in patient education or knowing numbers. So now, you know, the number that they're associated with is the. They're the co pilot for the dentist, but not from turning rooms and sterilizing instruments and comforting people. Did the dentist do their number at 5,000 for the end of the day? If you walk in the morning huddle, that's when we alert all these numbers. It brings the scoreboard up. And by the way, humanist people hate numbers. So you go, this is a scoreboard for how healthy we're getting people today. And the scoreboard is not matching for what we know is a win. We're at 4800 in Dr. Laskin's office. The assistant immediately, because now he or she is bonused, let's just say $20 for her column, or $30, let's say it's 30 to match the equivalent of the front office. $30 for that day. Now all of a sudden, she's going, or he's going, hey, Mrs. Smith's got, you know, a crown to do. I'm going to educate her. We have a half hour. Let's get it done and let's do it, you know, so now all of a sudden, they're looking at the currency of what the practice needs, what the patient needs, and it changes their behavior. Right? And then the treatment coordinator is 1% on treatment that gets signed, paid, and closed and scheduled into the schedule. So now you have people creating the demand and the interest people closing it down before the patient leaves. Having them show up in the number that we need for the day and then keeps the machine going. And the reason why the safest place for people to invest like banks and private equity firms in dentistry is because we're the only business that has a reoccurring business model. Patients know they need to come back every six months. And so this machine, once built, bride is, is a, it's better than McDonald's. It is. Like I would have a thousand dental practices built like this before I have a thousand McDonald's.

Like, oh, yeah. And I, as you know, I've got McDonald's in my parking lot and that has two drive thru lanes going 24 7. But I would not trade. For sure, you are 100% correct.

Yeah, yeah. So that's the, that's the general business model. Did I leave anything out from a listener standpoint that you might have not heard?

I'm thinking like from the dentist perspective, like, what are the pitfalls? I'm thinking, like to play devil's advocate, if I'm a dentist and I'm going, well, I'm at a $5,000 a day scheduled, and then what if I have a $5,000 case? Does my team go? Well, now let's spread the next out for the next two and a half years. So we choke our production. Yeah.

No, and look, there's always going to be nuances like that. Like, all right, I had a $5,000 case. So that day they get a free zone. It's like every day they're working on the same playing field. I want to give you more context to it. So often it's easy to see like nickel and diming, like, hey, I had the $5,000 case and I closed it. And should they get it, like, when you get into that, you're missing the big picture. You're really looking myopically. Because if your life works and you get to work instead of four days a week, you're working three days a week. Instead of taking two weeks off, you're taking four or six. And you're making the same amount of, you know, same amount of money consistently. Like an insurance policy. You don't have to stress over wondering if you don't, if you're going to pay, you know, if you can go on vacation this month and you're going to have a schedule filled, yes, you will. Because the machine takes care of when you close cases this month, you know they're going to show up next month. It gives you peace of mind, the time you want the money consistently being delivered without worry. What is that worth? Is that worth more to you than you gave a free day to somebody because they made their number Just because it automatically happened, right. If you really start getting it right.

Yeah, I think it's fantastic. Plus, then you don't have the. If you have the days where everybody's on the treadmill, then you have to deal with the fallout of the team versus people who are. You know, I think that's what. What, what. The reason why 50% of dental team members are looking for another practice right now, because they're not happy where they are. And if you, you know, if anybody's online, looking at how, you know, there's fights going off between hygienists and dentists all over the place, right? It's like, let's just. Let's just align in the interest of the practice and the patient, and that's kind of what this does.

Yeah, well, the. The. It's really interesting because, yes, there's 50% that are looking for a position, but the problem is people can't get them over to their practice because they haven't differentiated themselves, and they're going, why should. They're staying in the hell that they know versus the hell that they don't know, right? So, like, I'd rather stay with this devil than the devil. I don't know.

Right.

And, you know, I say that lightly, but it's like, you know, Brian, it's like. It's like if you show somebody that your life is going to be better, you're going to fulfill in your dreams, you're going to be able to make more money, you're going to have more fun. See, that's what I want to get into right now. I want to talk about the different Personas. There's four different Personas. So, like, even if you're watching this right now, you've processed this from your primary Persona. I want to highlight this because this is a nuance here, not only for you and how you interpret what we just shared, but for the receiver when you implement it. Okay, so there's four Personas here, Brian. One is the competitive. It's like you and I. What is the game? How do we play it?

I'm more competitive than you are.

Yes, you are, because you're silently more competitive than I am. But I freaking love it because, like, you know, whenever I play a tennis player who's better than me, it brings my game up. So you're awesome like that. I dig it because, like, that's why I love playing with you, because it's like passing the ball, playing the ball.

I was just trying to be competitive and saying, I'm More competitive?

No, but you do it. You're like a silent competitive, like you don't even know it's happening and you're like crushing the ball. It's awesome, right? So you and I are competitive. I'm secondary humanist. I care deeply about people. So you know, you know. But if your primary humanist, everything you just heard me say, if you're a dentist sitting there, you're going, this is all about selling in numbers. This isn't going to work in my practice. You know, I'm not going to do that. In fact, you know my team, the minute you show them numbers, the game's over because you attracted a bunch of other humanists and then meanwhile there's nothing getting sold in your practice. And when I say sell, that's not a bad word. When I say sold, the humanist goes, we don't sell anything here.

So.

And again, I'm not invalidating any of the humanists because I am one. So I'm a competitive humanist, care about people, what's the game? How do we win it? Humanist currency is being validated. So like, if we have a humanist hygienist, it would be like, how'd you do today? Did you do your 1500? She goes, I don't even know. I go, did you have a good day? She goes, yeah, I did, because I had eight patients and every one of them told me I was amazing. That's their currency. So you have to know when you implement this, the nuance of speaking to the humanist is this is going to be your scoreboard. You care deeply about people. You want to make a big difference. We needed some form of way of tracking whether this is actually happening in your responsibility or not. And this is what we've come up with as the scoreboard for how healthy and the impact you're making on people. It's 1500 bucks. Now all of a sudden that person can hear differently, right?

No, totally.

Now 75% of people are humanist. The other one is methodical. And this I'm not. I don't need to know the steps to get there, but I had to retrain myself on how I explained things into steps and methodical bite sized pieces so people can understand them. Because 75% of the people I work with either care about people pleasing and validation and not making a mistake. A methodical does not want to make a mistake. They're risk adverse. So that's where the analysis paralysis comes in. That's where resistance to new thinking comes in. Think about the odds of this. And this is why Dentists always have trouble implementing, Brian. It's because if you put numbers in, the humanists resist. And if you put a new initiative in the methodical resist because they don't want to make a mistake, you're not going to implement anything.

Yeah. I feel that through dental practices across the country, 100%. And you know, if you, if you, if you do what you did yesterday, you're not going to be attracting the team that you need to track going.

Exactly a hundred percent.

Yeah. So how. So I'm thinking about like when I bring on new team members, the practice. We oftentimes talk about how other, other dental practices say they're a family. Right. And I think that I look at us as, and this is, I shouldn't be telling you this because you're a sports guy and I'm not. But, but I like, we're, we're like, we're like, we're like the Yankees going to win the World Series. Right. And we don't allow peewee players on our team. Right. And, and what I love about your bonus system that you're just, that you're sharing is that it attracts the world class player. Right. If you tell somebody this is how we compensate, you're gonna be like, ooh, game on. Right. And this is how I want, this is the team. This team isn't playing peewee ball. They're playing, they're playing to win. Right. So how do you, how do you communicate to the, to attract those people? Yeah.

Well, there's the competitive. The way to communicate to a competitive is, is to speak. What do you.

I just, I just attract more competitives is what you're saying.

Yeah, and what I'm saying is you, you want a mix of everybody because if you have too many competitives, you're going to have a new set of problems called paymakers going off all day, people beating the crap out of each other. Like I believe in there.

Yeah.

I believe in a very balanced, balanced team. Now you could be a humanist and a high performing player. You could be a methodical and be a high performing player. You can get them there. And we do it all the time. But I always write ads and when we write ads to attract people, we'll have a whole session on this. But you have to lead with the purpose, the vision, purpose and values of the business. You have to, they have to know what you stand for. Like Patagonia, I pass Eddie Bauer, I pass North Face, I go to Patagonia because they stand for open space.

Right.

And nature and keeping you know, lands, you know, pristine. You have to stand for something because if you stand for some, if you don't stand for something, you fall for everything. And this is one of the key factors in attracting the right type of person. When you go, look, we're stand for being the number one, having San Diego be the number one healthiest city in the U.S. here's what that does. The competitive goes, I want to play to win that game and cause that to happen. A methodical goes, how do, how are they doing that? A humanist goes, that is a noble cause and I want to play. And a spontaneous, that's about 5% of people, they just want to have fun. They go, that, that's too much work for me. I'm going to go look for a fun place to work. Right. They won't go there. You don't want a lot of spontaneous people, not bad people, but they don't have a good attention span and they don't follow through on a lot of things. So you get a lot of incomplete things happening around you. So, you know, again, not judgment. I have spontaneous on my team that are amazing but I don't put them in places where they have to attention to detail. So when you really understand the nuances of the players, you write the ad from. Here's our, here's our position in the workplace. Here's, here's the role that you have. And the role is not, the role is not 9 to 5 hygienist. It's. We believe that hygiene is the, is, is the gateway to whole body health. So you're going to get, you're not going to get the tooth polisher, you're not going to get the gum gardener, you're going to get the optimist, the person that does optimal dentistry and complete health dentistry. So you say what you believe. By the way, people, people go to work for people that have the same beliefs. But if you don't espouse the beliefs and it's 9 to 5 dental office across town, they go, that's vanilla. And I'm not playing in that. Right.

When you're talking about compensation though, because that's what, you know, we're talking about this bonus system where you're gamifying it and you're giving people more immediate bonuses based on, you know, the goals that you reverse engineers, which is phenomenal. Yeah, that's. So how do you talk to your team about it?

The new person or the existing?

I'm thinking specifically the new person because I think there's 50% of people looking around. I want to attract those, the right.

Ones to my office vision that the job that you're coming in is not like the one you're leaving. And then third is that we have a compensation plan that's more advanced than anyone else that includes a daily bonus that allows you to, to. For the area that you're responsible for to. That you make an impact for, to get paid for.

Oh, that's great.

Yeah, that's, that's the piece.

Yeah, I think that's where, that's what kind of where I was headed with the. You know, we're all, we're a players at this office because we, we reward people based on their performance. And those, those that, those that are the best will recognize that the opportunity there, I feel like.

Exactly. Yeah. So that's the game. So really like what we talked about today was, you know, getting your team to being addicted to the productivity, not busyness. Right. And then really getting the right people in the right places doing the right things and then moving from like once a year acknowledgement, which is like usually a review when you give somebody a dollar, you're giving them the dopamine hit on a daily basis. And by the way, you don't have to give raises because the raise comes. Excuse me, Brian. The raise comes from the performance that you're doing on each day. And so that really handles that. And then really you just gamify this thing and you're rewarding daily outcomes versus like something that may happen at the end of the month or end of the year and it really changes everything.

I think that's so huge. I think that so many dental practices are just like worried when the earth goes around the sun one more time and they're just like, oh, it's time to. Now I have to have the conversation. And you know, every, you know, the insurance company's been cutting things and this and that and the other, but if you've reverse engineered it and you gamify it, people aren't going to be asking for raises because, because they're just going to be making their own raises. And that's exactly. That's beautiful.

You bet.

I think that for dental practice and I, and I know that it's scary to implement a new bonus system like this, but I can say, I mean having done a bonus system where we bonus like this, it's, it is a complete game changer for your practice. So I think, I mean, it's just, you go from, you know, as you've said before, it's like, you go from, from trying to push people up a hill to getting pulled up the hill, which is like, then you just sit back and like you said at the beginning of our, of this first incredible module of the growth masterclass, you said how you basically get to have the time you wanted to enjoy your economic security and focus your time and energy on doing quality dentistry that everybody deserves. Because one thing that I've heard that I really like is the numbers tell a story. And so for the humanists there, who are listeners, it's all about trying to provide the best care we can. And those numbers are how we determine that we do that. Right?

Yeah, there's no doubt. And you know, one of the things that this does too, Brian, is it creates the demand for the things that you want your team to do. So instead of having to tell them over and over, we need to train, we need to role play this, they all hate doing all that because they have no need to do it because their life doesn't get any better when, when they do those things. That's for you. It's very, you know, when you really start breaking it apart and you go, that's selfish because for me, they're looking at what's in it for me. But when you put skin in the game, now all of a sudden the things that you had to like, shake them to do, they're actually coming to you and saying, how do I get better at doing this? How do I get better at doing that? And they're getting better at only one thing. See, if you give somebody 10 things, they're not going to remember to do all those things. But if your appointment coordinator's got to fill the schedule to this number, your treatment coordinator closes this number of cases, your, your hygienist does this production and this much treatment out of her room or his room, and the, the assistant is driving the same measure that the doctor is now you have everybody playing golf on a golf course. You know, before you do this, you got the doctor, let's say, playing golf and your team's playing football. And what they're doing is they're blocking your growth because they're sitting over here, as in the employee mentality, which is, let me just get through this day and not lose my job versus you, playing to win the game and be more productive so you can be more profitable. And now you got everybody playing golf and now we got game on.

Yeah. Well, I'd like to say it's like you and me playing chess and you can't play Because I got the board, my friend.

Hey, when you know better, you could do better. So now. Now, you know, since we're so competitive with one another, I can't give you my secrets because you'll just take them and crush me.

Well, yeah, And I think, you know, I love the perspective that you gave about getting everybody playing the same sport, because I really think the clarity that. That and giving everybody one number, because I think so many of us listening, myself included, have gone to a course. You're like, oh, I'm going to do this thing. And then you drift away from it, Right? But if there's a laser focus, one number, there's no drifting. That's it. Right? You're in charge. 5000 1500. 1500. And then. And then if that happens, guess what? Everybody wins. It's beautiful.

Yeah. And there's really Two numbers here. 5000 and 1500. That doesn't go out of existence. And when you have your morning huddle, now all of a sudden people are using dashboards like dental intel. And the new dashboards that are coming out, like, they can now look at that and go, oh, now I'm. Now I want to look at the scale because before it was like, I'm overweight. I don't want to look at the scale. Why should I even care what you weigh? Right? Right now you're going, hey, let's look at the morning huddles here.

How am I doing?

Do I have enough to get what I'm going to get out of the day? You talk about, like, everybody goes, gary, can you get a better morning huddle motivational morning huddle? I go, yeah, you got to change the context, put a game in place. And now everybody's like, you know, I remember. Remember when Sully landed the plane in the Hudson River? This is a great one. This is a great story. It was right behind my house. I lived on the Hudson right here in New York City. And. And I remember seeing that plane sitting out there. The next day. I was flying. Bry. I never. I used to read, you know, back in the day, I used to read the paper, and I used to like, paper papers. And the flight attendant would come up and she'd give me the instructions. I wouldn't pay attention. That all of a sudden I'm like, well, what do you want me to do? Like, just. Yeah, I do that. And buckle and trey, I gotcha. I'm here. I'm here. Thank you for sharing that. Meanwhile, I never used to pay attention to that. No, seriously, it's like, how do you create attention and intention and attention. You change the game and wake people up and put skin in the game and now magic starts happening and all the things that you had reoccurring, you're going to have a new set of problems, which is how do I produce all this dentistry? Because we're booked out six months. That's what happens.

Oh, that's beautiful. And I mean to bring it down to the, the Sully story. If you're at the morning huddle meeting and Your schedule is $4,800, right. And your assistant is bonus at 5,000, guess who's going to find a couple hundred dollars filling to do, Right? I mean that's the way, that's the way it works. And then you don't have to do anything except sit back and just do dentistry, which is. It's beautiful. Exactly. Thank you so much for doing this growth masterclass with me. Your wealth of knowledge and. And I look forward to seeing you.

In the next one. Yeah, we'll see you next month. Thanks, Brian. Appreciate you. I love the way we collaborate together here.

Absolutely. And how can people find more information if they want to find out more information about you? Next level practice, bonus systems, how to implement things.

Yeah, you can go to next level practice and we have an availability where I am offering your community 10 slots on my schedule and there'll be a link here as well. And you can just click here or go to my site and you'll get right on my calendar. And then I offer a half hour to people especially, you know, because people in the upgrade community are rock stars and innovators. So, you know, we'll have a no obligation half hour call about what's possible and you can ask about this, this topic or anything you'd like to talk about and just give, you know, give you wisdom and feedback and thoughts so you can go away and, and go.

Probably. I'm sure there's a load of questions and people are thinking of how they can customize this bonus system for their own practice. So definitely take Gary up on that. Click on the link and go to nextlevelpractice. Com. Thanks again, Gary.

Thanks. Good night everybody.