There’s a Fortune in Your Storage Closet

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

Million Dollar Dentistry. The podcast is a discussion with Gary Katie about his proven methodology and how he transforms not just the dental practices he works with, but the lives of the dentist and members of their teams. When teams are aligned with vision, purpose and values in the complete Health dentistry model, happy teams with sustainable results are created. Gary discusses not only the proven methodology from his popular book, but current trends, events and issues that arise in running a successful practice. Along with the ride, Amber Keighley keeps Gary on track to share his years of knowledge and wisdom.

Gary, yes, you do. You kicked my butt, Amber, and I love it. My grandmother told me, she said, gary, find a great woman, do what she says, and your life will be great. And I, you know how blessed I am. I got one at home and I got, you know, you know, double digits at work. And I've just gotten to the point where I just get to, you know, take the direction of really smart ladies. And I love it.

There you go. That's perfect. So today we're going to talk about that fortune in the storage closet. And in this episode, we're going to get down to the nitty gritty with case acceptance and how it starts with case presentation and drill down on who, what and when. The role of the team members in the process of presenting and procuring case acceptance works. So, Gary, I'm excited to hear all about this closet and who has been hiding in it. And what has been hiding in it.

Well, I'm going to come out of the closet here today. How funny is that? That's great. No, I love this. I call it the storage closet because when I first began 25 years ago, it was back in the day when they were taking the big TVs. You know, the big TVs like, or the big monitors of computers. And people, I think, were afraid to throw them away. And what they did was they would like, they would throw like, you know, everything went flat screen. And they would like, they would save them for some reason, my hoarder doctors out there, and they would put them in this, what I call the highest, highest, most expensive space in a dental office, which is the treatment consult room. There was like all these offices that had them built out, but they were used as storage closets. And I'm like, oh, no, that is the most valuable space you have. Because here's the thing. When I first got into this business, Amber, you know, I'm a fundamentalist as it relates to business and people. Like, I create the fundamentals and natural truths and the natural laws of business and people and how people buy, study how people buy and notice how I'm saying how people buy. I'm not saying I'm giving you snappy sales techniques that are going to close people. That is not what we do. Our philosophy here is we share intelligent things with intelligent people so that they can make intelligent decisions. And I also got to see that dental practices abhor selling team members just do not want to be involved with pushing any type of dentistry on people. And you know, what I learned is in a business, if there's no dentist exchange for, you know, information and the product presented, and then there's an actual exchange for money and agreements for how much time, money and value is exchanged, it doesn't work. So I saw that the dental practice, Amber, had no space to actually have a discussion about committing to, you know, treatment and money and time and having a very comfortable space to have dialogues about that. It was done in open bays in the back room. And, you know, and people can't get to the truth when there's no space. And if you don't have the space, they feel like you're looking over their shoulder and then they're not going to tell you the truth. And then they say yes and they mean no. And they walk out and they do the six month boogie, you know.

Yeah.

They're going, whoo. I got out of there without committing to any treatment. I just got my teeth cleaned. That's all I came for anyway. And I am out of here for six more months.

Perfect. Yep. And they. And that's the same place of that they are when they're walking down the hall of amnesia, which we've talked about a little bit before too. So now you talk about kind of a Middle way that, you know, it's distasteful to the humanist doctor because they see themselves in the healing profession and not in the sales profession. So what you're saying is that if you set up your office systems correctly, that the sales can happen easily and naturally.

Well, yeah. Well, first, that, you know, having a relationship to it, like, it's not a bad thing to actually have somebody commit to your treatment, you know, that's why I wrote in my second book, which I'm sure we're going to unpack, which is raise your healthy deserve level. What's underneath this is if you don't think you deserve to present the treatment, have it be accepted and then actually receive the money to get paid for. This is the blind spot for a lot of dentists, and especially, you know, you know, I have one dentist who had $250,000 in accounts receivable, was giving away free dentistry, you know, couldn't present, you know, the presentation was of like six surface fillings and not really presenting crowns. Those are all deserved level things. So go. What goes hand in hand with the storage closet is what goes between the ears in life and in practice. You don't get what you deserve. You get what you think think you deserve nothing more, nothing less. So we'll get into that subject a little later. That is in my second book called Raise youe Healthy Deserve Level. But what we're here to talk about today is how do you create a space and a place that allows your dental practice to automatically and consistently and have your team be fully engaged to educate the patient, have them understand what they need, why they need it, how to get it, and how to pay for it. And when you have a systematic process that does those things each and every time with the entire team on board, this is a turning point for a dentist or a practice owner, because what I find is they want more time off, they want to make more money, but they're not getting to the source of why they're not having more time off and why they're not running a profitable business. And it doesn't mean that you're taking from your patients. It means you're actually giving to them. You know, here's the source point of all this. When was the last time you bought something that you didn't think you needed, was going to cost you thousands of dollars, may hurt you and take time out of yo day? Amber keitley I try not to ever.

Do that, to be perfectly honest. Those are not the things you want to. It's how we usually evaluate dentistry. And it's an unfortunate thing. So how do we change that? Because I know that the foundation for what we do at next level has to have a flow with a patient experience and their trust. So how do you do that?

Yeah, and it's a. And so once you have the storage closet cleaned out and you've gotten rid of those big tank and monitors and TVs, then you create a beautiful warm space that allows for collaboration and honest and open communication. That's the title of this chapter. Once you have that, then you reverse engineer, because that's where everything ends up. But you need to be able to start the process from the first call all the way down to by the time they land in that treatment room, all of a sudden it's like, it's. It's like not, you know, if yes or no, it's like, when and how much and how do I fix. How do I pay for this? And it's like they're like high five, high fiving you. They're giving you a tip, their teeth bumping so you can get more dentistry. I mean, people are like, pumped up to give you their money. Why? Because you answered the question why they need it and the value that that is. Right. You know, we talk about how they understand the true value of what's being done. Most people. When I ask the question, why do you think people don't accept treatment? They say, well, their insurance doesn't cover or they don't have enough money. And that's not true. It's. You have not shown them the value of what you actually provide. And when you do that really effectively and you do it consistently, your case acceptance is it ends up being one third of people. This is my. This is my benchmarks. One third of the people, when they come into your practice are a no. And they're going to be a no. No matter what you say to them. One third of the people come in, and no matter what you suggest to them, they're going to say yes. And then the one third, this is the turning point for a successful practice. And an uber successful practice is the third in the middle that's on the fence that you move forward because you gave them the information that made a difference, that either created them understanding why they need it, or you removed a barrier because you cleaned your storage closet out. And you have a treatment coordinator sitting in that room, Amber, waiting for the patients to come out of hygiene recare or the new patient exam.

And.

And they're waiting for the information that comes from the back of the house.

I love that. So it's about timing. It's important and about timing. And it's also about having the right people in the right places doing the right things. And in this instance, it has to do with the hygienist and the doctor, not talking about money and insurance and a dedicated treatment coordinator that's trained and comfortable in the role, or that's one thing that we teach every day in our coaching.

All day, a thousand times a day. Because this seems like it's like the point of where everything goes sideways. But we now have this all automated, and once you have it all automated, it works so beautifully. So, yeah, you just, you know, you just, you're hired. You should just, you should be delivering this podcast, the interviewee and the interviewer, because that was articulated beautifully. Yeah, right people, right places, right things. So let's just talk about that first. You got to have an appointment coordinator and a treatment coordinator. Even if you're a small practice, you have to have one. This is if everybody's accountable for everything, Amber. No one's accountable for. Not that. So you have to reverse engineer and run your numbers. So let's just say you want to do a million dollars, you want to collect a million dollars, you're working, and this is where you want to take six weeks off. And you, you want to work four days a week. You reverse engineer million how many days you work? That's 192. And then you figured out with one hygienist, the doctor needs to do 5000 a day. The hygienist needs to do 1200 a day. The appointment coordinator fills the schedule to that amount, and we use our dashboard to actually ensure that that happens by the end of the day, not where you start the day, but by the end of the day when it ends that day. Now they get a Scooby Snack. Now they get the validation Scooby Snacks later in the podcast. But I want to give you a beginning to when you break the Scooby Snack down by position and the numbers down by position. Now there's an accountability, and people move from being busy to being outcome based. So now that appointment coordinator creates an experience, and they create an outcome. Everybody creates an experience and an outcome, Amber. So that's the first one. The appointment coordinator, the treatment coordinator needs to present 7,500 a day at 67% conversion to get $5,000 a day in the doctor schedule. So what happens is, if you present it in, let's say we're in June and you get present 7500, get 5000 accepted. I know that eventually in July, it's going to be one to one, meaning you'll have 5,000 a day that you're going to work in July. And now all of a sudden, you don't have to worry about if your schedule is filled. And by the way, for doctors that want to go away on vacation, this is how you know if you can go on vacation or not, because you know how much treatment is being presented in an upstream data point, which we're tracking. The upstream data point, Amber, is the key element. That's where this gives doctors peace of mind. Also what gives doctors peace of mind is knowing that the team member owns the measure that needs to be done. Now, the hygienist, they need to do $1,200 a day in production. They also need to present 7,500. Now, if we're not saying that the treatment's not there, you don't present it. You talked about a healthy mouth baseline. We talk about this tool that you're going to be hearing about, a healthy mouth baseline. That's what's healthy in a practice and what's not. So when you present from that perspective, that is the key to all case acceptance is knowing what the benchmark is and having an 8 and a half by 11 sheet of paper, which is an agreement of what everybody agrees on is healthy in the practice and educating anything that's not healthy and having the patient understand that tool and really know that that's the governing recommendations for presentation of treatment. Now all of a sudden it's not your opinion whether they should do it because like, up till now it's been like, you just tell people to do what you're doing when you have a healthy mouth baseline. And by the way, what we're doing is we're putting this on the screens in front of the chairs. So when the patient sits down, it's this big sheet. If it's a 42 inch TV, you got your healthy mouth baseline up there and you're sitting there as the practitioner and you're pointing to, oh, here's, let me show you. I'm going to show you the camera shot next to where it says cracked tooth. See cracked tooth up there. That's not healthy. See cracked tooth in your mouth, not healthy. It's not your opinion, it's all evidence based, visual, etc. So you starting to see the picture here, Amber?

I am. And this is also starting to build on showing them the value of what you're you're asking them to invest in, and you're asking them to invest in their own health and not just in dentistry. You're not asking them to invest in a crown, you're asking them to invest in their health. Is that correct?

Yeah. Well, nobody's buying porcelain, you know, like you can buy toilets that are made out of porcelain. I don't want to pour something porcelain in my mouth. But if you give me the why I need it. And by the way, that's why we believe that the mouth is the gateway to overall health. If you have, you know, you know, we have all the science behind, you know, the health of the mouth affecting the health of the body. And when you start educating from that place, now all of a sudden the value proposition is not just the oral cavity, but it's the overall cavity. And like, where this is the paradigm shift is happening, Amber, is it goes all the way back to dental school. This is where the problem lies. And we've been able to isolate this as the problem. And the reason why case acceptance is so low is because the doctor walks in or the hygienist walks in and asks this question. This is what kills off case acceptance. Anything hurting, anything bothering you, what brings you in today? Game over.

Absolutely.

The game's over because what you just did was you just acknowledged that all you're looking for is you are looking for symptoms. And 90% of dentistry is asymptomatic. So if you're dealing with symptoms only and your attention and intentions on symptoms, the game's over. Before you start a different way to look at that is let's look at your medical history form. Oh, you have these chronic diseases. Did you know that these chronic diseases are connected in the mouth? And then we have these oral systemic health cards that if somebody has heart attack, stroke, diabetes, all the top 25 chronic diseases, that card explains what that chronic disease is. Because a lot of people don't even know what that means. You know, what does sleep apnea mean? And you know, how can that affect my overall body? And how does the mouth, how does it relate to the mouth? And when you educate them and then you give them the science backed websites that confirm all of the education, now they're all of a sudden listening to you differently. It doesn't mean you're going to replace medicine, but you're being an educator not from just the health of the mouth, but the health of the human being. And that really changes, that changes the value proposition dramatically. And your case acceptance presented on the front side and Accepted on the backside.

So talk about personal motivators in this, because if we're listening to someone and speaking to them through their personal motivator, this is not about a sales technique, but this is about teaching from a value standpoint. So if we actually speak from the place of the things that they value, then this is a whole lot easier, is it not?

Well, Amber, I mean, first of all, you're an amazing interviewer. I got to give you props. Like, you just. You're. You're one of my favorite favorites to do podcasts with, because you just, you know, how to bring to life and be in the listener's world. And the reason why I bring that up is because, like, I'm delivering a message, but you're in the listener's world to make sure that the message is clear and understood. That's this concept of personal motivator. It's getting out of your world as a dentist, hygienist, and assistant, because most of us are, in our worlds telling somebody what they need to do. This is the complete paradigm shift. I want you to be in the world of the person you're speaking to. So, like, being in the world of. In the shoes of the person that's sitting in there, a mom, and you can get the empathy and the feel like a mom, and what is she feeling and how is she feeling? And maybe. Maybe here's a great example. You got a mom sitting in the chair. Just got on the other side of divorce. Most traumatic thing, you know, except for public speaking, you know, right there. Her kids are now grown. She's delivered her life to these kids. Her brother got braces, and she. Her parents couldn't afford braces for her. She was really embarrassed of her smile. And now all of a sudden, she's looking out in the world, and you have a conversation with her that says, hey, you know, because you're so in her world and you've been around, and you watch her serve her kids and their beautiful kids, and they're, you know, and she's now single and maybe ready to mingle. Who knows? Right?

Of course.

But look, she wants to be related. And if that's the case, so, you know, you know, we really take our responsibility of, like, we don't just deliver, you know, fillings and crowns and cleanings. Like, we deliver something bigger Here at Kately Dental, what we do is we actually. Our mission is to have all of our patients feel good, look good, and be healthier. And how we do that is through dentistry. And, you know, you've you know, have you ever thought about really like just taking care of yourself? Like really letting you know somebody know who hasn't taken care of themselves. And now you're saying like, you're beautiful, you're lovely, you've served your kids. You know, what about now? If you now is your time, how do you feel about that? Like you're having this kind of conversation because you're in the world of this woman who's been down this road and you're just asking a question. And now all of a sudden you were the catalyst that woke this lady up to actually, oh, you know what? I haven't taken care of myself for 20 years. I'm going to start going on a keto diet. I'm going to start getting my smile done. I'm going to get a cute haircut. I'm going to do this, I am going to do that. And like she got that because she is sitting in your chair and you took care of her.

That's really important too because I don't think people realize that as women we don't take care of ourselves when there's family involved. A lot of times I can remember my daughter wore $300 jeans while I didn't buy myself new jeans because I wanted her to have those $300 jeans, which is ridiculous. I'm well aware of that. But there were things that we will put off getting and doing for ourselves so that we can provide for our children. So to speak to me at a point in my life that where I'm at now, where I know I can take care of myself, I'm willing to do those things that I wasn't willing to do when jasmine was, you know, 15.

Yeah. And sometimes you need to be prompted. And I know your boss, he really wants to take care of you because you take care of all your team members. And this guy thinks the world of you. That would be me, right? Gonna happen to you because you are awesome at what you do and you care about the team and you care about this mission and you treat it like it's your own and you're going to be acknowledged for that because that's what you put out in the world. So thank you for doing that, Amber.

You know, thank you.

But now I am a stand for you to have your life. But if you take this on with your patients, like do it with me, like you can ask a question, right? Like personal motivator. My personal motivator is I have a 15 year old son, I have a wife that I am in love with. She is in love with me. We love to travel around the world. And I want to be around. I want to grow old, and I want to watch my son, like, have, you know, be a sports broadcaster and have a family and do all the things that he wants to do, and I want to experience that. And I also want to take my wife all around the world and do really cool things together, ride bikes and, you know, and be healthy and well. And what I don't want to be here is the other thing. Also listen for the motivation of what you don't want, because if you look at my medical history form, you'll see my mom just passed away from COVID and comorbidities of also having dementia and mental illness. My dad has eight stents and a quintuple bypass. And I'm also motivated by what I don't want, which is ending up like my parents. It's not just what you do want, but it's what you don't want. And here's the thing, Amber. You can train your team to find these distinctions. And once you start listening to what. What's behind the person, you can then guide them to invest in what's valuable to them. Right. Instead of what's valuable to me as a practitioner, do you see the paradigm there?

It's the paradigm.

So a personal motivator is getting in the world of the other person being a stand for them to get what they want and walking down the path with your arm around them, down the path that they want to go, not the path that you want to take them. How do you get somebody to want what they need? That's what I'm talking about. You start with, how do you get somebody to want what they need? Like, most of the time, dentists are talking about what they need. How do you get the patient to want that? How you do that is really get in the world and tie it together. And when you can do that, it takes some practice. This is probably the hardest part of our methodology, because it's not check a box. It's like you need to be able to read what's in front of you. And once you get this way, our doctors and team members never go backwards. It's pretty powerful.

It really is. Because I think that's one thing that I've heard from my clients, is that this is the part that they struggle with a little bit, because they said, I don't know how to read people. And once you start to teach them a little bit about body language, to teach them about what to listen for. Then they start to get it. And once they get it, it's. Once you've got it, you see yourself using it all throughout your life. Most definitely.

Let's demonstrate it. This is how easy it is. Amber, ask me who my favorite actor or actress is.

Who's your favorite actor?

My favorite actor is Tom Hanks. Here's why. Tom Hanks is so versatile and talented. He has the ability to do like my Forrest Gump, my favorite. He could make me cry, can make me laugh in one movie, and then he could do Saving Private Ryan and he could do big. And not only do I love him for what he does on screen, I love who he is off screen. He's married for hundreds of years to the same woman. He treats his kids like impeccably. So you know his values of being a great father and a great husband and a person who contributes. He's a contributor to society from his platform is somebody who I really admire. So if you were to ask me, Gary, tell me about yourself and what values do you have inside your soul, I would not give you the same ones that I just spoke about with Tom Hanks. But if you're asking like, and you're in the world of this, I just told you all about myself and what I value.

Exactly. You value family. You value living from a purpose, that there's some versatility in your life that you can have fun, but you can also be serious. You can talk about world issues. You know, it's there. It's all there. All those pieces are there.

Right. So you know, by saying how you're doing, instead of asking about Johnny's soccer game, say, how you doing? Have you read any books lately? Have you seen any good movies? And listen to what's behind the answer, not to what's coming out of somebody's mouth. And then it tells you who they are. And then you speak to those values. And all of a sudden people are. You're now speaking to what the motivation is internally for me. And you're not selling dentistry. You're taking care of me. Very different.

Exactly. Setting up that value. And sometimes it's even uncovering the value for the patient that they don't even know is there themselves because they don't even recognize, you know, they could get so caught up in their own world that sometimes you have to unpack it for them and get to that, to that place so that they can see the value themselves in themselves.

Yeah, for sure. And the nice thing about being post Covid, there's a thing called blank slating. And we have a tool called a filter. A filter is a subconscious and automatic screening process, Amber, that only validates your particular point of view. So my point to you is this. If I think that a person can't afford dentistry, or all people hate dentistry, and they can't afford it, I map that out over the patient, and I speak to the patient as if they have this. And I'm not sure if they do or not, just because 8 out of 10 patients have done that. And the reason why 8 out of 10 patients have done that, Amber, is because I have a system to create value for them. So I started believing what I created in them because they told me that because I didn't create value in them. Do you see how this is a bureaucratic spiral of all, beginning from dental school, asking the question, what brings you here? What's bothering you? Looking for symptoms, looking for the chief complaint. And it manifests itself. And that's why we're an industry that we're interrupting and disrupting, an industry that's been really grounded in insurance only. It's because the reason why people only want to do what insurance covers is because you didn't show them the value. If you want to get off insurance plans, you have to have a value created system, and then you can step out of insurance plans.

I love that. So tell me, you know, this. This treatment coordinator, we need to have, you know, this dedicated and confident treatment coordinator. So the reason I say confident is because tell me about this whole idea of, you know, presenting if your own hands sweat at $500 or $1,000. So, I mean, how do you teach. How do you teach a treatment coordinator to be able to present cases that are going to be. That would make her own hands or his own hands sweat?

Yeah. Well, first of all, when you're mapping your own relationship to money on top of other people. See, that's. That's the filter. But, yeah, your filter for people is they have no money. And a lot of times people's filters get created. Like, I know, like, you know, I'm sober 12 years now. I used to filter that everybody on the planet drank alcohol and they drank. Like, I did a lot of it because I was mapping out how I drank over people. Do you know, Amber, the minute I stopped drinking, I realized that a really lot of people don't drink alcohol. I was, like, shocked. But in my world, when I was drinking, everybody's drinking. I'll give you another example. When my wife is pregnant, it felt like Every woman I saw was pregnant. I could only see pregnant women, right? It was after 9, 11. So there was a big growth spurt in Hoboken, New Jersey. But, you know, but my point is, is that we have to interrupt the filter that people have. And the first way we do that is in the recruiting and hiring process. Because you asked the question, when do your palms get sweaty? If you're hiring for a treatment coordinator and they say, $500, the game's over. If they. If they say, you know, I always say, what is your relationship to money? I always say, you know, how much is the most money you could ask for without feeling uncomfortable? All those questions for a treatment coordinator really tell you, like, what you're dealing with is the starting confidence level. So not everybody has. Everybody has some form of relationship to money. That's not all healthy. So we don't look for perfection, but we look for somebody who has at least, you know, beyond a worth of like a dollar, you know, so once you have that, then you have to get first renaming the team member. We call them financial freedom fighters. So getting their attention off of their selves and their issues around money. And the name of their position is, I'm fighting for the financial freedom of my patients and tying a purpose to that. Like, why you do what you do. So you could look at your. If you're a treatment coordinator and go, I do what I do because I get money for the practice. If that's your purpose, you're not going to be an effective team treatment coordinator because it's about you and what you're going to do for the practice. It's a balanced approach of value creation and then not being afraid, not blocking, what I call blocking, the blessing, meaning if you provided all this value and you did these five steps, which is the healthy mouth baseline, the personal motivator, the problem consequence, Shush. The patient comes to you. The trust transfer. Bring it from the back to the front. Now you're sitting in that storage closet that cleaned out called the treatment consult room now, right? It's all. And you're sitting side by side, and you're looking at a screen, and you see the bloody, the lower interiors gunked up, and you see the bloody, you know, you know, bloody prophy going on. You see cracked teeth, you see a, you know, hole in the tooth. Now all of a sudden you're seeing all the problems. And now you go, do you understand the treatment? And do you understand you need the treatment now? If you come from the place of I'm a Financial freedom fighter. My job is to fit this into your lifestyle. My job is to figure out a way for you to make this accessible. I don't say affordable. I say accessible to you.

Right, Right.

And feel that when somebody's presenting, when it's about them or it's about the contribution that you are, because if you're a treatment coordinator or financial freedom fighter, you know that what you're doing, especially to this woman who did not, you know, is lonely. You know what you're doing? You're removing the low deserve level that she has. She has the money. She just got a payout from her divorce, but she doesn't think she deserves it. See, it's one thing to have the money. It's another thing to have a beautiful smile that you now have to be responsible for because you're not going to get complaints like, boys aren't looking at you, boys aren't interested at you, and hopefully they're men.

But, you know, exactly.

It's like all of a sudden it's like, oh, my gosh, you have, you know, look how beautiful you are. You know, and when my wife did her smile, it was $9,500. That was the best $9,500 I ever spent. Her confidence, her way she felt about herself, she always would smile, but it would be like a crooked smile. And now. And now she's like, she lost weight. She's like. It's sort of like when you, you know, dentistry is like, you know, like, I had my house fully gutted and renovated. But you know what happened, Amber? It started out like my wife said, you know, we should change the drapes in the. In the desk. You change the drapes and then you go, wow, that carpet's filthy. That we got to get rid of that. And then it's carpet. We need porcelain wood floors. Not just in the guest room, but let's do the whole house. And then, oh, by the way, the roof's leaking. Let's fix that. And then before you know it, you're doing a whole house. That's what happens in dentistry. So. Yes. So how you help them overcome it is all the way down to that. And then here's the last part. Sympathy and empathy. The difference between sympathy and empathy, if the patient's in a hole and they go, I'm in a financial hole. And then you are living in your financial hole, and you go, yeah, I'm in a financial hole, too. Let's snuggle in the little hole that we're in down here.

Oh, yeah.

What we treat is that we teach the treatment coordinator, Amber, to stand at the edge of the hole and say, this is empathy. I feel that you, you know, I get your. I get it. Like, you have some challenges around finance. Would you like to have a conversation with me because I'm a financial freedom fighter to help you figure this out and fit your treatment into your lifestyle? Let me reach that. Yeah. Oh, yes. Let me reach down and pull you out of the hole, and then let me put my arm around you. Let me give you a blankie. And let's look at how we can fit this treatment into your lifestyle. Maybe we could break it down into monthly payments. We can do different things. Let me help you. As long as you're open and willing, let me help you get there.

See, and I love that. And the thing about it is that what I want to talk about now, before we finish up here, is I want to talk about that treatment. You know, that storage closet we were talking about. And the way that it looks and the way that it feels is. And though the reason that you can have that conversation, because you're not standing now, I can tell you from my own personal experience, it's uncomfortable to stand at a counter while everyone around you can hear what you're discussing about finances, you know, and they're having to offer you all of these options. And, you know, you know, I'm going to run out of there if I'm not in a private area. So tell me about this. What makes that. Is that what makes it powerful is because it is private and you can be there. Changes the power differential. Also, you're not sitting behind the desk.

Well, there's so many layers that I would need, like, probably a whole year worth, but there's so much psychology around it. Number one is if you're presenting treatment in a chair, it's like being pulled over by a cop on a freeway. You know, the lights go on. It's very vulnerable to sit in a dental chair and have somebody present money to you after they understand their treatment and you've done it there and you trust, transferred it to the console room. You're sitting next to one another and looking at a screen, reviewing it one more time because they have to hear it five times. So it's delivered originally by the assistant or hygienist, then to the patient, then the assistant or hygienist to the doctor. The doctor, then to the patient, the assistant or the hygienist, the treatment coordinator, and then the treatment coordinator goes over it one more time. In the consult room, because here's what happens. The patient, you think they hear you, but I can't. I can tell you I've done a study on this. I go, did you understand anything? I intercept them before they get in the council room. And I go, do you understand what you need and why you need it? They go, no, I don't remember any of it. And all they did was walk from the back to the front. It's because some people don't want to hear it. And so when you reinforce it and people are talking about why they're. This is Gary. He's motivated by having longevity. He unfortunately and sadly lost his mom through Covid. She had a comorbidity. She also had mental health issues. His dad's hanging on by a thread. He really wants to avoid having his age outlast his health. He wants his health and his age to match. He wants to really live a long life because he has a 15 year old child who wants to see him grow and they want to travel with his wife. And Gary, we went through, he had 17 bleeding points. He has a 6 millimeter pocket around his implant. He has a cracked tooth, he has sensitivity on his upper left side. So Dr. Went through and we put a treatment plan together for Gary to get him healthy now so that he can go be and live a long life. And Helga, our treatment coordinator, take good care of you, Gary. She will fit the treatment into your lifestyle. Boom. Now all of a sudden I got it there and I'm ready to receive. And now that space that's in there, when you're sitting down, you're ready for a business transaction. That's why a console room is so important. You have the hat of a business transaction. You don't have to say it, it's unspoken. But when you're in the back and a doctor's talking about money or an assistant or and you don't even know how much it's going to be and you can't work out payments and you, because it's in an open conversation and I quite frankly don't want my doctor talking to me about finance. I just don't. It doesn't go together, it's like, doesn't fit. I want this guy or gal to treat me. He goes, and that's how you deal with it. If they ask you how much is it? You say, my job is to let you know what you need, why you need it and the best way to treat it at the most accessible way to get it treated. And I Have Helga. She's our treatment coordinator. She's a professional at understanding how to fit your treatment into your lifestyle. So she's going to sit down with you in our consult room and she's just going to walk you through and show you how to make sure this works so that it's accessible to you. And your husband's on board. And, you know, well, in this case, your husband, your ex husband doesn't need because you just said to him, and now you're on your own. And now you're going to get the prince of your dreams because you're going to have a gorgeous smile and you're going to get rid of those summer teeth. Summer over here and some are over there. They're all gone. You're going to have beautiful white winter white smile teeth.

Perfect. That is really, really great, Gary. Thank you for that. This has been another really great episode and I appreciate your taking the time and chatting with us and sharing, you know, you're real. It's not just, you know, information that we, you know, are selling something. It is where we can really make a difference in people's life. And that's what I love about this, is that it's not about selling them dentistry, but that it is about teaching them about health and the value of what this can do for them.

You bet. I'm going to make it. I'm going to put an ask out to our 300 listeners. Man, we are rocking 300 people. Listen to this. Time for you to share it with your study club, with your friends. Please share the podcast. I want to keep it going, but I can't do it to 300 people. I'm. Look, I. Hopefully you're getting good content from me, but I am a horrible marketer of my podcast. I'm just going to acknowledge that I have my strengths, I have my weaknesses. My weaknesses. I need this to go viral. Help a brother out out there. Please share it with your. Your dental colleagues. And we want to get a thousand by the end of the summer. So please, let's triple it. The only way I could do it is if you keep giving me love and listening. Thank you for that. And then sharing it with your friends and colleagues.

Thank you, Gary. In our next episode, we are going to talk about how to turn your payroll into a profit center. And now that is going to be exciting for both the doctor and the team.

Amen. Everybody wins. Triple win. Amber Keatley. I adore you, Amber. Katie.

Dr. Gary. Katie. Katie. I love it.

Have a good one. Bye now.

Bye.

Thank you for listening to Million Dollar Dentistry with Gary Katie. This podcast is brought to you by Next Level Practice. Next Level Practice is the leader in dental practice management. In fact, they're the best in the world at creating happy teams that implement sustainable results. If you would like a copy of Million Dollar Dentistry, please contact Amber Keith at Next Level Practice. You may call us at 212-388-1712, extension 119, or go to nextlevelpractice.com podcast and request a copy in our Ask a Question box. We look forward to brightening your smile.