97: Dental Leadership: Hiring Smarter, Paying Better, and Embracing AI with Kiera Dent

Welcome everybody to another episode of the Dental Boardroom podcast. Wes Reed, your host, CPA and certified financial planner coming at you today. I have a guest on the program. She is a practice management consultant and I have got to know her a little bit. Really reviewed her website and her content and very impressed with what I'm seeing and so I've invited her on the show. Her name is Kira Dent in Reno, Nevada. Kira, welcome to the Dental Boardroom podcast.

Hey Wes, thanks for having me. Super excited to be here. Just love what you guys are doing. Our team met you in person and we are always looking for great CPAs, financial advisors that align that just really are here to help dentists win. Help them have like let's protect their practices, let's protect their asset, let's make sure that everything that they're doing is really taken care of. So I'm super jazzed to be here. I think it's going to be a great time. So thanks for having me.

Awesome. I think we're going to riff on some really valuable subjects for dentists based on our pre conversation to this episode and I'm going to let it just sort of navigate itself as the conversation goes. I have sort of some main themes I want to talk about. One of them is what are some of the main challenges you're seeing? You're in a lot of dental practices. What are some of the main challenges that you are seeing dentists confront today 2025? And how are you helping them confront some of those challenges? I do want to talk also a little bit about hygiene and hygiene hiring and staffing. That seems to be a chronic problem with virtually every one of my clients, it feels like. And then talking about what practice management consultants do. What do you do in terms of helping doctors get their collections up? What are the strategies these days in such a competitive marketplace with large group practices there? And of course PPOs being very reluctant to increase their, their reimbursement rates, all of that stuff, maybe challenges going to fee for service. So we'll talk about what you're seeing and what you're doing to help doctors thrive from a top line standpoint in collections. And then maybe we can even talk together about bottom line profit after overhead. How do you convert a good strong line into a good bottom line. I've heard the statement that top line is vanity, bottom line is sanity. I. E. What matters at the end of the day is your bottom line, how much you actually keep. I mean, I've seen some $3 million practices that are literally worth nothing because they're running a loss. And I've seen some $800,000 practices netting the doctor 450,000. So we'll talk about that a little bit. And then I think I want to try to stick the landing with AI and what you're seeing with AI and dentistry being in so many practices, and based on what we just talked about before the start of the program, you're involved in some AI initiatives as well. So excited to do that. All right, let's jump in. Kira, give me and the listeners a background of your journey from getting started in the dental space in general and now how you are running your. Your practice. Management consulting a company called the Dental A Team.

Yeah, well, I'm super jazzed. I think everything you hit on are going to be really fun things for us to dive into today. And my story is, like, just funny. It's kind of like what I was telling you about. We connected on tennis. I wore, like, I got on the varsity tennis team to wear the skirt. Like, I thought it was so cute. And I actually joined dentistry for the scrubs. I was in high school and I wanted to wear scrubs. And I was like, okay, I could either be a nurse or a dental assistant. Learn the whole body, learn the mouth. Like, I'm surely an efficiency queen here. We're definitely going dental assisting route. So that's actually what got me into dentistry. And then I found out I was actually really good at it. So I've done, like, every role in the dental practice. So I've been a dental assistant. I've been a front office office manager, treatment coordinator, scheduler, biller, regional manager. And then I actually started working at Midwestern University's dental college in Arizona. Fun fact, though, Wes. You and I have alumni. Go cougs. Let's bleed blue. I went there and I was actually going to be a marriage and family therapist. And when I was doing my. I was applying for grad schools and I was interviewing. I remember sitting there and I. They asked me a. And I'm like, I didn't answer because what I was thinking about were my patients on the schedule. And I'm like, I wonder how that crown seat went. I wonder how Dr. Call is doing here. And I realized, like, maybe this isn't quite the path I want to go. And I really love dentistry so much. So fast forward. My last name really is Dent. I got married fiance number three. I just make the joke. Like, it took me three fiances to get better SEO. So that's not a stage name. It really is My last name.

And my husband told me. He's like, listen, one failed engagement, that can happen to anyone. Two, he's like, three, if there's a third one, he's like, something's wrong with you. He's like, you've got to get married. You realize this? And so we met on a blind date. And it was. I appreciate someone who could, like, be that hilarious and had the last name Dent. So I tried to convince my husband to become a dentist. His name literally means tooth healer. But he wanted to be a pharmacist. So we went to Midwestern in Arizona and a little scrappy, and I found out I could get a tuition reimbursement on his tuition. So I applied for jobs there if I worked there. And I was actually blessed to get a job at the college and work in the dental department. So I was able to see what dental students go through for school, which was super fascinating to me. And then one of the students asked me when we graduated to actually go and help her open her practice in Colorado. And I was like, sweet. From dental assistant to practice owner, like, yes, I'm ready for this. So I went on that and embarked on our journey. And we went from 500,000 to 2.4 million in nine months on our first practice. Yeah. And then opened our second location.

Are you looking to buy or sell a dental practice? If you're a seller, how do you find a strong list of potential buyers? There's no MLS or Zillow for dental practice sales. In such a fragmented market, many dentists selling their practice feel discouraged. That's why I built practiceOrbit.com practice orbit is modernizing how dental practices are bought and sold. It's a platform technology. Y' all know them. Zillow, Airbnb, Uber, and OpenTable, just to name a few. These technologies do two things. First, they help match buyers and sellers by centralizing the marketplace. Second, once the match between buyer and seller is made, these technologies help them navigate the sale to a successful close. Here are a few of the features inside a Practice Orbit users can determine a reasonable sale price for practice in just minutes. All they need is the most recent business tax return. Practice owners can use the directory to find important service providers like practice brokers, attorneys, accountants, and bankers. Practice owners and their brokers can invite those service providers into the platform. So all parties are coordinating the sale together. Practice owners will have a beautiful digital listing of their practice, like a home on Redfin. And importantly, the listing will be anonymous and personal information like your address, name and pictures are only released after an NDA is signed and approved by you or your broker. Practice buyers can create saved searches to be auto notified when new listings come on the platform that fit their desired specialty and location. And hey, dental practice brokers, you can list all your practices on the site for free. By doing so, you'll get access to Practice Orbit's largest pool of buyers, all of whom have created profiles and saved searches to be auto notified when new listings come for sale. You can use the platform to introduce your listings to a targeted set of buyers. Additionally, and optionally, you can use the platform tools such as a built in NDA, a customizable LOI, and a workflow tool to navigate the sale from LOI to closing. In fact, you can manage all your listings on the system from listing the practice to NDA to LOI and finally to closing the deal. Create your free account today at www.practiceorbit.com.

Nine months later and that's actually what spurred me into consulting is I thought shoot, if I could do this for her. I know hundreds of dentists and I would love to help them out just like I was able to help her. So no consulting experience in my background, just a love of people, a love of dentistry, a little bit of marriage and family therapy in my background to know how human beings work and started to practice on clients and to practice on friends to see like hey, if I did this for her, was it just like good luck or do I actually know what I'm doing? So I went and did my friend's practice and consulted him, just made it up. And we were able to add he was doing about right around 150amonth and we were able to bring him up to 200,000 after a three day visit. And we started thinking like hey, how did that happen? And it's honestly through non sexy stuff, like really it's very basic, simple things. But I thought wow, if we could do this, there's hundreds of other dentists. So we've, we've been around the block a couple of times. We've worked with hundreds and thousands of dentists. Our body's been across the nation, across the globe. And really I'm just so passionate about helping dentists. I call it the yes model to be able to say yes to more things in their life. And that's you as a person making sure you're super fulfilled and happy and that like what your business is serving you, you're not serving your business. E stands for earning. So Wes, this is why I'm obsessed With you obsessed with what you guys do, we've got to have profit. And I've heard like production feeds the ego, collections feeds the family. So it's the sanity and vanity. It's like, yes, like, I don't care what you're producing top line. I care what you're taking home because at the end of the day, that's what matters for you. And then S stands for systems and team development. So really helping clients and dentists, like, let's help it be fun. And our core values are fun and ease and just making it to where you and your team are truly thriving, not just surviving. So kind of how we got here, we created the consulting company, created the podcast and really it's just been such a journey and such a, like a fun path to be able to help so many dentists like truly flourish and thrive and just give them their lives back, help them turn the impossible to possible and really just flourish with their teens, their patients and their communities.

Then we share something I think deeply in common in our mission, which is to help the doctors convert practice success into a fulfilling life. Now, in my, in my area, it really focuses on the financial side of life, how doctors interface with their money in and out of the practice. But ultimately the practice success to me is only important so so far as it drives personal financial enjoyment around the use of that success. In other words, that, that, that capital that comes out, that money that comes out to their personal balance sheet, how do they use that to drive a fulfilling life? And with your sort of pairing in the practice around collections and culture and really thriving top line, my job really kicks in when that dollar hits the bank account and we plinko the money as efficiently as we can through their P and L, ultimately to their personal accounts and investment accounts for financial independence. I just drive, so it just drives so much satisfaction and joy in my career seeing that whole plan work itself out. Well, let's talk about some of these challenges that doctors have to driving a strong top line and, and, and profit in their practice. You're out there all the time, you and your team and you have, you have a decent sized team. How many are on your team, Kira?

I do. Our team's about 11 people and we fly to people's practices. We have them come person for doctor and leadership masterminds. We do virtual consulting. But yeah, it's been a, it's been a fun growth and I'm very intentional that our consultants have to have been in the field. So they've had to been there, done that and done it successfully. So I don't just take any consultant on. It takes me a long time to hire because I want them to have been in your shoes and not just like theoretically understand, but truly like know what it feels like to be not profitable. To know what it feels like to have the stress of business ownership on you, to have the stress of all the team pieces, the, the billing, the ar, the schedul falling apart, like every one of those pieces. And so and then also making sure that our consultants have a really balanced client load to really go above and beyond like white glove service for our clients. So, yeah, it's a good time. And we, we just truly our, our team is, I will. I will say the top of the top. Like, I do not. Takes me a really long time to find great people, but when I find them, you better believe, like they're with us and they just change lives and it's amazing.

I want to hover on this topic for a minute. This wasn't in my question, Seb, but I do think this is a relevant one, which is you just said what I've. What I've done, Wes, to try to create a great company, a great brand, a great quality service is I spend a lot of time on finding the right people. And we've all heard of Jim Collins. Good to great getting the right people on the bus and then eventually getting them in the right seat on the bus. But that's something that I've learned as well. And I just want to echo this out to the doctors, that one of the most important roles you have as an owner of a business is finding, recruiting your team and keeping that team working in a solid flow inside, wrapped inside this great culture. And the other day I was thinking about the analogy of like a. I hate to use a sports analogy here, but I will.

I love it. Bring them on. The more the better.

A baseball general manager, My understanding is that the general manager is out finding who's going to be on first base, who's going to be in left field, who's going to be our catch. And a lot of the great teams, it's usually not one all star. It's the chemistry of a team working really well together. It reminds him of the movie Moneyball with Brad Pitt on this subject and hitting singles and doubles and managing stats. But getting the right people, if you get the right people. It is so amazing, Kira, what I've seen and how they. They think through issues themselves. They don't just take prescriptions, they actually generate solutions in their own brain. And then they may come to you and say, hey, we're running into this issue. Dr. Here's what I suggest. And when I have, I have team member members that are like that. And I will, I call them the, the innovators or the creators, the, the critical thinkers. And those people make my job so much easier because I can allow them to have tremendous independence as they think through issues, workout processes, and strengthen the platform known as your business. And for me, I'm always willing to pay a premium for those types of people because the ROI on that premium, that return on investment on that premium, I have found just to be very, very good. And the loss when you hire the wrong person, you spend months and months, sometimes years, trying to make this work with a given person. And you don't want to go through that hard conversation of letting them go. Maybe they're a friend of a friend, whatever. But I'm telling you, it is so costly. All the time lost and then having to find somebody to replace them. It's just the worst experience as a business owner hiring the wrong people. And you're never going to hire the right people a hundred percent every, you know, every time. But doing a real thorough vetting process and just being patient is so key. And there's a theme that we follow here at practice, cfo, which is we call it abi, always be interviewing. Even if I don't need a position to be filled, I'm like, I'm talking to somebody again on Monday. I have no position for them, but I'm just keeping that conversation alive. So at any one time I've got this web of contacts that I've been nurturing. And so when either we're growing and need a new person or we need to replace somebody, I've got something to lean into. And I find, and I don't always have somebody, but I find having that web of on the back burner potential candidates to be an important part of my job in being that general manager. To find the right people to, to play on the team and make my life so much easier that way.

Yeah, I think it's something that people don't realize and when you actually talked about it does lean into, like, what are some of the challenges doctors face is having right people, right seats. And like you said, there was this really awesome thing that broke it down for me that a coach of mine shared with me and it was looking for talent. And like, what is the category of non talent versus talent? And I thought this was such a beautiful diagram where they said, like on non talent team members, they have to be pushed to want answers. They don't fulfill your needs and ends up giving you back pieces of their job. They don't know what they want and they aren't searching. They require you to push them. They may not know where the existing bar is set or even the bar that you're talking about and they talk about anything. And when they try to emulate the talk of talent, it's just rhetoric. Then on the talent side, like these are the people you want. So like this is kind of like a good little nutshell is like they push for solutions, they share your goals and fulfill your needs as a natural byproduct of fulfilling their own. They know what they want or actively searching to know. They push you as like the owner. They push you constantly because they're innovating, they're growing, they want to be evolving, they're constantly raising the bar and wants to be associated with talent. And they usually focus their talk on language of, of challenge and achievement. So when I saw that, I was like, okay, this makes it even easier for me to go look for it and just name our company the Dental A Team for no good reason. I wanted practices to realize like you need a team players, you need to have these great players that are driving it with you that are, you're not just rowing the boat and they're sitting on it. Like all of us are rowing together, all of us are making the strokes. All of us want to be connected, committed, evolved, innovating and really, I don't know, I remember there was a point in time where my company culture and our team was not that. And I felt like Johnny Depp sitting in the middle of the ocean and my boat's on fire and I'm like, I hope that there's another boat coming. Like this thing, like, I don't know, it feels like it's burning to the ground. And what I learned was like, culture is paramount. And as CEOs, we've got to be a culture master. And we've also got to be, like you said, looking constantly for these A team players. Like you said. I agree.

We tell.

Do you ever feel lost in your practice finances? And how about your personal finances? Ever wonder where your hard earned money goes and why you're not seeing the financial problem progress you've worked so hard for? If so, listen up. As a dental CPA and financial planner, I've created our company practice CFO just for you. With almost two decades of experience, Practice CFO Integrates great CPA services like accounting and tax with customized financial planning, both business and personal. Think of it this way. Our dental focused CPA services give us the x ray phrase we need to clinically plan your global finances and be effective financial planners. It's a highly customized approach we call the CFO model. Historically, having a CFO or chief financial officer was an advantage of large corporations only. But today, practice CFO gives that same advantage to private dental practice owners. As a client of practice cfo, you'll be assigned one of our dedicated CFO advisors. You'll receive insightful financial reports each month, have regular financial review meetings, reduce taxes, grow your wealth, and feel more in charge of your numbers. Because we believe that in the competitive landscape of dental practice ownership today, you have to be an effective business owner, not just a capable clinician. Reach out to learn more at www.practicecfo.com.

All of our offices, like, what do I do? Like, how do I tell my front office that I've got an ad out there? And I'm like, you make it. The culture that we are always interviewing, we're always looking for great talent. We're always having people in our pipeline to bring them into our company. That way we're not just getting like the luck of the draw, but we're truly actively filling our bench with the best players constantly. And it's wild when you have right people, right seat. The synergy, the movement, the traction that your practice will experience is something that like, I can't even tell you until you've experienced it. But it's so easy. Like, numbers are easier, hitting your production goals, having profit, like, everything just flows because we don't have like a kink in the system. You got everybody there. But I will tell you, not all players are forever. And that's okay. Like, that's growth of a business. So sometimes your business will outgrow team players and sometimes team players outgrow you. Both are great. And so just making sure you realize, like, we're going to constantly be evolving and we want people to have that same mentality with us. But I think one of my best strategies for doctors is like, be super crystal clear on where you're going, the DNA of the team member you want, because you don't want. I, I do not want a bubbly biller. Like, I want a bubbly scheduler and like welcomer and greeter. But I want my builder, like, nose to the grindstone, loves the details, loves the pieces. Like, that's the DNA of the person I want I want them obsessed on collecting my $2 versus the person that's like a good treatment coordinator who's just like there to have a good time and close the deal. Very different DNA models. Both are right people. But being super crystal clear on your culture, your personalities, the core values really actually make your practice run so much easier for you. So I think that was actually one of my challenges that dental practices face because they don't realize culture, DNA and people. Right people, right seat. Having a leadership team, having people aligned actually is one of the greatest, simplest shifts that your business can take on to make your life easier.

Few thoughts on that one, Kiera. A lot of great content there. So at practice cfo, we have a management program we've instituted called eos.

You're speaking our language. I know Mike Peyton, I know the whole crew we coach. Overall, it's brilliant. It's freaking genius is what it is. So I'm so happy to hear you're an EOS lover as well.

Yeah. Are you, is, is the Dental A team an EOS adopter?

Dental A team is an EOS adopter and dental aid team does help offices on Dental A team's variation of eos and we have to be very specific on how we do that. However, it's very aligned, very similar and honestly, it's just freaking brilliant on how they do it. We help tons of offices get it streamlined, aligned. I think it's brilliant. I have met with Mike Payton. I've been coached by the top tiers. I have not quite met Gino, but I've been right next to his second person. We podcasted with them. They're an incredibly brilliant business model for and. But I think it's hard sometimes for dental offices to take EOS and make it dentist like. It's a very tricky zone and so we've been able to bridge the gap. To help you learn how to run very effective meetings, how to set up your quarterlies, how to set up your goals and your north stars for your practice, how to get your scorecards and your KPIs in place. Very much running very similar to the EOS model.

Yeah, I think EOS applied in a nuanced way to dentistry is kind of the best of both worlds. EOS is a phenomenal platform, but it's a general platform for every industry. But there are unique ways of running a dental practice that you, that you can tailor that to. But the concept of having this traction wheel where you have your, your mission statement, your, your values, you have a focus on your people. Your processes, your data and reporting and all of that is, is not unique to a given practice. It is a universal language of running a business from, from, from big to small. Now, EOS tends to focus on the smaller businesses and if anyone's interested out there, just go attend the EOS conference. They do it once a year. So 2025 already came and went. I, I took a good, I took my leadership team there and I always just feel motivated. I feel juiced up when I come back from that. Being around all of these other small business owners who are dealing with similar issues and we're all talking about it, and yet we're all applying these.

Models, these management models to grow their practice. It's a really exciting thing. Or you can read the book Traction by Gino Wickman, which is the main anchor book. There's a series of EOS books, but there's a main anchor book called Traction to learn more about it. But just dwelling on this a little bit more, you know, one of the things that EOS really promotes that I, I also want to promote to practice owners is you are going to be so much more effective when you do get that quote, unquote, a team in your practice. But you also have to do a couple things. Number one is you have to let go of the vine. This is in chapter one of the EOS Traction book. And letting go of the vine means you have to trust that with the right people, you can let go and let them develop and innovate and create and do the work. You don't have to author every thing in your practice, every process, every, you know, every, every operational aspect. You, you don't, you get the right people and they help. So letting go of the vine is, is one. The second one is this is very much an EOS concept. Delegate and elevate. Being a really effective delegator, I really underestimated what that means. And as a, an actual developed talent to delegate and elevate, it's not necessarily just giving the task and saying, good luck, it's really shaping the tasks, shaping the expectations, providing enthusiasm and encouragement and allowing people to fail or fail forward and they will grow and develop. But those two concepts, let go of the vine and delegate and elevate, had been extremely important. Now, when it comes to culture, I just want to talk about that for a moment because if you can wrap everything in your practice, these workflows, scripting, processes, marketing, everything, if you wrap it in this culture, like, you know, like water in a fish tank, that just sort of covers Everything. If you wrap this amazing culture, it's incredible how much it just greases everything to move so much more efficiently. And here's a few things that I recommend that I have implemented and attempting to become better at at practice. CFO is number one. You do have to have a mission and values statement. And I know it sounds corny and a lot of, a lot of business owners and dentists believe that this is like a check in the box thing that doesn't really produce value, but it does. Your team needs to know that you are looking off in the horizon. You're pointing and you're saying, hey everybody, that's where we need to go. Whatever that, those, those, those goals are in your practice. Maybe that's a collection target, maybe it's an introduction to a more fee for service model, adding maybe more cosmetic focuses, a multi specialty practice. Whatever that is, you're pointing to that and you're giving your team the vision so that when they come in every day, it's not just about processing payments and you know, fixing teeth, it's about getting to that destination and everyone starts to row together in that destination. One thing I do every month is I send out a loom video. Loom is a self recording video tool. It's very inexpensive and very convenient. And I do a loom and I, and I prep a really quick PowerPoint and it will talk about one of our value statements or just one of our overall goals as a company. And I send it out to the whole company. We've got 60 people. I send it out to everyone and I do it every single month. And it's usually about five to seven minutes. And then every three months we get together. This is a very EOS thing, as you're going to know, Kara, but we get together every three months and we have what's called a state of the company address. A state of the company address. It's only an hour. And we get together and we say, here's, here's where we are relative to our goals for the year. Here's where we're going. And I'll have my sort of department heads get up and share what they're working on and the progress of it. So we all come together as a company. It's like that huddle, you know, like that football huddle every three months. And it just gets everybody really excited. And lastly, every year we do an off site that's about three days. And yes, it cost me a bunch of money, but I can't tell you about the, the experiences and the memories that have been created by these that my company on our team talks, still talks about on a regular basis. For example, right before COVID we all went up to Yosemite, and there was a company called Auto Camp, and it's all these Airstreams. And I got everybody Airstreams. And we spent half the time doing trainings, talking about where we're going as a company, doing some. Just some fun activities. And the other half of the time was doing some hiking. And we had a storyteller come, and we all looked up at the stars, and she gave us stories about the people who lived, the Native Americans who lived in that area and their traditions and beliefs and watched the climbers on. What is it? Half Dome right there. And we still talk about that. We had sat around a campfire playing the guitar and riffing music. It was just so much fun. But anyways, I mean, yeah, that cost me a lot. That cost me about a hundred grand at the time. And I remember thinking, is this? Can I do this? But here we are, like, five or six years later, and people still love that experience. Now I can't do that level every year. We've toned it. In fact, the next year we went camping on the beach for, like, 5,000 all in. And everyone laughs about how difficult it was camping out in the. Honestly, it was raining, but. But anyways, those. Those experiences annually, I find just so, so valuable. Okay, those. Those are my comments on culture and getting the right people. Let's go in now to the challenges you're seeing. You are bo, unlike me, your boots on the ground in dental offices, front lines in the trenches. What are you seeing as a couple of the top challenges dentists are facing today? 20, 25.

Yeah. I love that Wes and I love that you guys do that. And I truly will tell offices, like, what Wes said is what we help offices do. And honestly, offices should take that on with the culture, because culture and people in hiring is always a struggle. And I think, like, hey, if there's a solution to get out of there, like, why not try it? At least you'll be shocked at how much fun that is. And same with you. We did a whitewater rafting. We've done Disneyland. Like, the fun memories that are made are just magical. And I think, like, when I look at the challenges the dentists are facing, things that I see are one, like, kudos to us. They don't know their numbers. So I think there's so much stress and anxiety by not knowing their numbers, not knowing if I'm profitable not knowing, like, how to impact those levers. So that would be one, two is obviously hiring hygienists. They're super struggling with that. And then three, I think right now, things that people are facing are exit plan. What is my exit plan? Is it dso? Is it a partner coming in? Should I grow? Should I not grow? So, and that's all phases of it. Like, we bought a practice. Should I be adding another associate? When do I add another associate? Do I want to sell? Like, what's the DSO landscape? Those are like. And I did them purposely in three different areas of a practice because I'm like, okay, perfect. If number one's, like, not knowing numbers, it's all practices of all sizes. Really struggle to know and to get their team bought into numbers. To be looking at these numbers, looking at KPIs, two is hygienists, like, across the board. But not all practices are struggling with that. And, like, how do I, like, get a hygienist in my practice? And I call it the, like, hygiene drought that we're in. Thanks to Covid, a lot of people left the industry. A lot of people. We didn't have a lot of people graduating. They put that on pause. So that's really created this, like, amazing spot for us to innovate, to create, to think differently. And then the last one is, like, what do I do? When do I grow? Dso? What's my plan? How do I bring on an associate? And it's like, in that zone. And all of those have an overarching piece of culture, of team of leadership that I think drives a lot of those pieces as well. So when I look at that, and I'm happy to dive into as many as you want, but really, like, what is that for my profitability, Knowing my numbers, Having a great cpa, getting your team to realize that our production number and our collections are really not like, Go, team. Dr. Smith wants to make so much money. It's like, how many patients can we serve? And tying back to what Wes was saying, when you have this beautiful vision and mission for your team, they start to realize that these numbers are just telling us, are we hitting that mission and vision, or are we not? Like, we have a client. And I love their mission statement. I can remember it. And their mission is that they. Their vision is that we change the way people feel about going to the dentist. And another one is like, we are the community's dentist. Like, preferred dentist. And I love that because both of these practices really, truly have highlighted this and brought this in so strong. Now when they look at the numbers, it's like, well, we're here to change how people feel about going to the dentist. We want that production number to be higher. We want to be serving more patients that help them have the decision to expand their practice out because they want to help and serve more patients in their community, to change how they feel about going to the dentist and truly do it in such a beautiful way. So when I look at that, it's like amazing. Knowing your numbers, knowing which ones to drive it, getting your team bought into, seeing, like, hey, this is my number I get to own. This is how I get to contribute to that mission. And then tracking it, validating it, and then looking at the numbers, not just tracking it, but using them and knowing how to manipulate them to get the results we're looking for in the practice and the patients that we want to serve as well.

Gosh, so many good topics there, Kira. Let me just reflect a couple thoughts on them. Knowing your numbers. Let's talk about that for a sec. Obviously, this is a subject near and dear to my heart is knowing your numbers. I believe, and I have learned firsthand as a practice owner myself, that when I review my own numbers every month, it does the following number. One is it motivates me to do better. Just tracking your numbers and benchmarking them against some targets you set motivates me to. To. To work, to work hard. The second thing it does is it helps me work more intelligently because when I know what my labor costs are relative to my collections, that helps me understand am I capable of hiring more right now based upon what a healthy labor allocation is of my collection income? It helps me think about all of my expenses. I'm much more keenly aware of the money going out of my bank account. I will look at my general ledger, which outlines all the transactions behind a given account on the P and L. And I'm just so much more engaged with my numbers in an intelligent standpoint. And I would say it helped me mature as a CEO. You know, we're all mini CEOs of these businesses and it helped me mature into that role because I wasn't trained in business. I didn't have a, an MBA background or business management background. I had an accounting background, which is in the umbrella of business, but it's not business management. And so just like dentists, I've had to learn the management side of business. So knowing your numbers. And I did a, a podcast on 10 Questions to Ask yourself when you review your financial statements every month. And we have gone to include incredible links here at Practice CFO to give reports every month that are intuitive. I have one called the CFO Analysis. Kiara, you would love this. It will benchmark their actual financial results against various targets. So collections against the targets, profit against the targets, labor and each of the categories within labor against targets. And also we'll compare them to industry standards so they can see how healthy they are relative to what would be considered healthy by. By their peers collectively. So knowing your numbers, the I won't mention on the hygienist because I actually want to dive into that a little bit more. But on the exit plan, I always tell doctors simulate as if you are going to sell tomorrow, not because you are, but when you do that, it makes you zoom in so much more closely on the true value of your practice. Its collections, its profitability, its scalability. And how ready is it for another buyer to come in and see that profitability and step into ownership? And to the extent that they can see that profitability, the more equity you're going to get when you do sell the practice. One thing I think we should team up on. Kiera, are you ready for this? One thing we can team up on is those listening to my podcast know one of my, my. My ads in the podcast is for a technology company that I developed called Practice Orbit. And with Practice Orbit, I am trying to solve a problem in the industry. And the. The problem is this. There is no centralized marketplace for dental practice sales. There is no mls. So in real estate, MLS is what Redfin and Zillow pull from in order to have a centralized single place to see all houses, or at least most houses that come for sale. Now, there are listing sites which will sort of aggregate a lot of practices from different broker sites, but those are listing sites. They may help make a match, but they are not a marketplace platform. A marketplace platform is where it makes the match between the buyer and the seller, but then it helps them go step by step through the sale from NDA to offer letters, through escrow and to closing inside of the platform. That's what makes the difference between a listing site and a platform. A marketplace platform is that the transaction occurs mostly or fully inside of that digital workflow space. So think of Airbnb.

When you get a place to stay, you don't just find the house and then you email the owner and you work outside of the system. No, you stay inside of the software and you navigate the sale to a close inside of it. That's what A marketplace platform is. So one of the things I'm building to get back on topic here is a seller readiness score. A seller readiness process. And this can be something a dentist can come in three to five years ahead of time and say, all right, I want to stage my practice for the most successful exit, whether that's to a DSO or to a private. You know, I'll stay agnostic on that. But I want to tee it up to get the most value. When I sell it, what do I do? And it's a step by step program that helps them organize their, their financial statements which tell the story that a buyer's going to need and to understand their numbers. Now, what I don't do is practice management consulting. So a part of that process, I believe is a doctor getting someone like you to say, okay, I want to sell in four years. Kira, help me drive this successfully for four years really hard and really great. And then I will sell. So you and I, let's talk about that.

Yeah. And I think, Wes, something that you said on there, which I think is brilliant, is doctors knowing where it's going. And I say like, amazing. We love working with people like Wesley. And then we're the miracle grow on practice. We know where we're trying to go, we know what our target is. Something I will asterisk is I'm not here for hard and I'm not here for things that like, are exhausting. And so at the end of those four years, you're just ready to like, peace out because it's been so grueling. What I'm here for is like, let's make it, but let's do it easy. And truly, there's easy ways to do this, to add that growth, to have that there, and also to just highlight that some doctors don't want to sell. Some doctors are just here for the long haul. Some doctors maybe don't want to sell to a dso. Maybe they want a legacy practice. And so something I'm super passionate about is really figuring out again, going back to that yes model, like, what are you and your focus and what do you want? I agree with you, Wes. I'm always like, hey, if we're not profitable, we just have a hobby and like, go be an associate. But if we're going to build an asset, this is one of the biggest pieces of your portfolio long term. Let's make sure that this is truly a great asset in your portfolio for. But it's serving the life you want to live. It's serving you as a Human. And then we're able to align your team. Doctors, we just need your North Star. We need to know where you want to go. And it doesn't have to be perfect. It can be very much in pencil and we can erase and readjust consistently. But that's where you say, what is your plan? If you're thinking of a dsl? Well, it's a very different strategy, cell and building of the practice than if we're going for a legacy practice and a partner in there, or if we want to have partners and we want to expand the building. All of these are going to have different levers and gas pedals to push and to navigate through. That I really think is helpful. And then again, if you do want to sell, amazing. I love the idea of, like, knowing what your readiness score is. So. But just making sure that doctors are. I'm really passionate because I think within dentistry, it's very easy to compare. And I hear this often with doctors like, well, how's this office doing? And am I on the track? And I just want to, like, really dispel that. That for me and what I try to preach and like being in the industry for as long as we've been the doctors, like, put your ladder on the house you want to build, put it on the space where you want to go. Be confident. Not for your parents, not for your spouse, not for any other reason, but to truly do it for what you're looking for, because that's going to make you happy. I've seen a lot of doctors who hit these high numbers. They grow these big buildings. They're growing because people have told them to, because they want to have this great cell. But in the process, they're utterly miserable. Like, they hate going to work. They don't enjoy dentistry anymore. And so being super intentional to know, like, what we want, what's the profit, what's our emotional ROI of what's going to help us sleep at night and then really driving and getting your team rallied around it. I say doctors, like, at the end of the day, you're the billion dollar asset. Your body, you as a human, like, you are the person that we're trying to insulate around. And then we rally a team that's bought into your vision and mission. And we're making sure that we're building this to be what you want it to be. Like I said, I'm not here with judgment and I'm not here with a set plan of what offices need to do. I'm here for, like, let's Give you the tools and then you paint the canvas of what you want it to be. You pick the colors of what you want. We'll just miracle grow and make sure that you're getting the results you want. But I think really making sure. I hear so many doctors that want to grow for the sake of growing. And I have an office who's in Florida, husband, wife, duo. They have a 3.6 million dollar practice and a 35% overhead, probably the lowest overhead I've ever heard in the industry. They're cranking it. They work four days a week, they work six to two and they are just crushing it. And people keep telling them, like, get another practice, open up more days, bring on an associate. But they're so committed to the life that they want to live, to the purpose and intentionality of where they want to go. That helps them also, like build for the sake of themselves. They want to be clinicians, they, they want to be happy at the end of the day. And so really just making sure that's where I said, like forecasting of where you're going, being true to yourself and making sure your team's aligned rather than growing and building. Like, I have another office there in Texas. They're miserable. They bought this huge, beautiful building. They're in so much debt right now, their profit point is awful. And they're so stressed out versus my six op practice doing 3.5 million at a 35% overhead. So again, there's no right way to do dentistry. There's no right way to do your practice. There's no right exit plan. But like you said, Wes, building with an exit plan in mind because we've got to have that. We have no idea what's going to happen to us. Rallying your team around you to make sure that you're truly taken care of, I think is something really just sending out a voice of caution because I think you can get in a lot of Facebook groups, a lot of podcasts, and maybe accidentally put your ladder on the wrong destination that ultimately is not going to lead to your dream life, your happiness and your practice.

Well, our dentists, dentists as a collective body are very driven people. And sometimes there becomes, and I don't know about you, but I struggle with this myself. There becomes a battle between the ego and fulfilling your life experience. Our mission statement, our EOS mission statement at practice, CFO is quote, make your journey remarkable. And we use that both internally for our team, but we also really are trying to drive a remarkable experience for our doctors. And one of the pictures we try to paint is what does life look like based on the different career paths that you choose? An associate, single practice, one location, multiple practices, going DSO $5 million practice versus a $600,000 practice. All of those are directions or evolutions of your career over time. And without a doubt, a lot of dentists I talk to, I find that the ego maybe is winning out a little bit and that they just want to be the biggest. They want to be the best, and that's okay. I actually love and admire and respect ambition a lot. I can't imagine life without having some big goals for yourself, for sure. And so I don't want to minimize that. But what I have tried to do with our clients is sort of underpin it with more of a purpose. Why. Why do you want to do that? Is it just so when you go to some conference, you can sort of flex how successful you are and quote how many. How many offices you have or what your top line is or how many employees you have? We have a tendency to do that. And so what we. What do we focus on so much is for doctors to author their own definition of success. One of my favorite. One of my favorite TED Talk conferences ever is one called a Kinder, more Gentle Definition of Success. It's something like that. And the guy who's the speaker is named Alan de Bouton, if I'm saying that right. But it was the very first TED Talk I ever listened to. I was on a Virgin Airline plane, and it was the screen. It came up, and I. I pressed it. I'd never even heard of TED at the time. And I listened to this full thing. It was maybe 30, 40 minutes. And I was so impressed with what he was saying. And it was the following, that we need to define our version of success in some ways by the elements of loss, meaning what items of loss in your life will overshadow any success that you find in your business or, you know, in your work? And you. You have to define those. People might say, well, my faith, you know, my. My family, my health, you know, my friendships, whatever those are, if those things are irreparably damaged because of In. In pursuit of your success, then how successful really were you? And so I've thought about that often as I think about success. And it's so difficult because every day you get up and you're like, I want to. I want to accomplish so much today. And you kind of go after it sometimes for the sake of just accomplishment. But it's always got to be embedded within a very specific purpose for life. And so we, we define what do you need to collect out of your practice. And we call it a goals based break even. And this merge the personal financial planning that we do with the business financial planning in a very, very cohesive way. All right, Such a good subject on that one. Let's talk about hygiene for a second. Hygiene finding hygienists not allowing their labor costs to essentially sink your bank account. How are you helping doctors address this chronic challenge in dental?

Yeah, I think one of the biggest things I've learned with hygiene is like, first of all, let's just go for root. And if we can have a great team culture and not lose hygienists, that's actually going to save you a ton of money. So first things first, like, let's not lose our hygienist if we can, because the cost to replace a team member is exponentially higher. And we've shown that consistently across the board. Now, with that said, a lot of hygienists are coming out of school and they are demanding these higher amounts. I have a practice in Mount Vernon, Washington. I literally saw it coming in for $95 an hour is what this hygienist was asking to be paid. That was ads going out and I was like, at that point, just hire a freaking associate. Like, there's no reason to pay that for a hygienist, truly. And so what I'm seeing though is a lot of times what you can do is going back to the numbers. We have an overhead calculator. We're looking at it. We're driving right alongside of our seat CPAs to make sure that we know what our percentage that we need it to be in and then making clear decisions. Now a lot of times and we have hygienists on our team as consultants, so I check in with them to make sure. But one hygienist, really, they don't want to have like assisted hygiene. That's not something they're oftentimes crazy about. And sometimes for these like higher dollar amounts they will be paying, they'll be like running a lot harder than at like a 60 minute practice. So when you're putting an ad out, highlight the things that your practice is doing that maybe other offices that maybe are paying a little bit higher are maybe not doing. So the 60 Minutes having a great team culture also we say, like, if you've got hygienists that love it, make sure that they're sharing with their other hygienists And I'm big on doctors. Like, you better know every person at the dental hygiene college. You should be taking cookies there. You need to be recruiting. We have some offices here putting on hygiene CE to just basically share like how to not have hygiene burnout. And then they're meeting a lot of these hygienists who maybe want to to switch practices anyway. But really it's like, so let's show off what we're doing really well. Let's have testimonials of our hygienists who've been there with us for a long time. Let's reach out to our communities. And then like really these doctors are hustling to have great hygienists come to their practice by having this incredible culture that a hygienist would want to work at. Now when the dollar amounts are higher. I'm really big on like, let's look to see if there's a way that we can have a computer comparable base plus commission strategy in there. And we can actually have like we've got spreadsheets to help with this hygiene bonus calculator where based on what they need to produce, industry standard for a PPO practice is hygienists should be producing about three times their pay. Now I know people are like, we can't do that. And I'm like, well yeah, if you're paying them $95 an hour, that's very hard to do. But there are a lot of hygienists who are actually producing at these higher levels. And we've got practices in Matt, we've got practices in Alabama, I've got practices in Long Island. Like we're talking all the demographics across the nation of different areas. And realistically, three times pay is something that usually is doable fee for service practices and pushing four times their pay due to the fact that we don't have insurance write offs. And so looking to see what things can we do to make sure our hygienists are producing high enough to where I can offer and I can show a coming in hygienist. Hey, this is where we base you. And then based on past records, like literally I show them on the schedule. This is what your compensation should be. But it is a production based model. Now you might be competing with other people who are just willing to go a flat rate, but guess what, those are oftentimes having a ton of turnover. So there are ways that you can be competitive in this area. There are ways that you can attract these hygienists into your practice. And then I do have an office that literally went like, no hygienist. So if you want to hear that podcast, I won't get into it due to time, but I have seen offices actually getting scrappy of what can we do to combat it?

It.

I don't believe that going no hygienist is the path. Like, I really don't. I think that there's a way that we can do it. There are ways that other offices are making it there financially successful. But really, that base plus commission has oftentimes been a good bridge to not have your overhead be so high to compensate your hygienist to be hitting the goals that we've set for them. But then also it's getting the front office team and the entire team to make sure that every patient's getting their top end and best care. Because we're looking for fluoride, we're looking for X rays, we're looking for comprehensive care on these patients. We're not missing things that oftentimes go unnoticed in hygiene. That doesn't actually help us hit that production goal. So really though, when I talk to our hygienists on our team, they're like, here. Our biggest thing is we don't want to be doing a profibial. We want to be able to have lunches, and we don't want to like, be exhausted, burnt out in your practice if you are struggling and you need to have assisted hygiene. And things that we've done is we don't run a full days of assisted hygiene. Some practices, what I have them do is actually look to see what would it cost me to have two hygienists? Then what is my cost of an assistant? So I take a hygienist plus the assistant I have usually 30 to 40 extra more dollars, depending upon how much I'm paying. Maybe it's only 20, but I take that extra $20 and maybe I'll pay it to this hygienist. So, for example, let's say it cost me $50 for each hygienist. That's $100. Well, if I have an assistant that I can bring on for $30, my 50 plus 30 is 80. I have a gap of $20. If I were to hire two. Well, why don't I pay my hygienist 60 bucks an hour on the day she does assisted hygiene, she's happier, she's got a great assistant, and maybe I don't run it for the whole day. And you're still more profitable as a business. So that's also a bridge that we've helped some offices do to be able to help hygienists have a great experience, help this assisted hygiene path. But again, don't burn your hygienists out because we want them for the long haul. And sometimes when we're trying to get scrappy, creative, we're throwing in assisted hygiene on them. If you are going to do assisted hygiene, you have to have a dedicated assistant who's actually really, really good at taking X rays, staying on time, great with the patients, great with communication, and then you like tease it out, test it out. But I found that like paying that hygienist a little bit extra on assisted hygiene days until you can hire another hygienist. But really you've got to get a pipeline where you're out there consistently and you make your culture such an amazing place. And you've got raving fan hygienists that more people want to come and work at your practice.

One of the key EOS concepts is people should be doing the work that correlates to their pay level. And so a doctor, a dentist who has eight years plus of, you know, schooling after, you know, after high school doing, doing hygiene, I, I get it. If you're starting a practice, I think that's probably a natural course when you're, when you're getting going. But it is in the long run. It is, it is, is not what's going to get you compensated for the journey that you took to become a dentist. That's, that's, that's for sure.

Okay. I wanted to also ask you about that bonus you mentioned a minute ago. I am a, I am just such a believer that if, if you can effectively attach an, a production element to the compensation of all producers. And if, you know, if you look at the different positions like a specialist who may come in, it's a hundred percent production. Generally there may be a day rate for some associates in the practice, but at the end of the day, you're really paying these people off of production and that's important. I always find that dental team members are wanting a raise because the earth goes around the sun and not understanding that there, there has to be substantive support for that raise, which means simply the practice is collecting more. Otherwise it's going to come directly out of the doctor's pocket and every year the doctor's going to make less money. And that's a recipe for disaster. So a question on this, and I'll Preface it with that. One of my colleagues, his name was Paul, he was on a recent podcast I did. He set up a bonus program where the hygienist would get the paid an incentive comp. But what he did is he he paired up or tethered the front office and the hygiene together into a common bonus program because the front office is so key in getting patients in the chair. And it was this bonus that some of the bonus was given to the front office and some of it was given to the hygienist so that they did work together to A, get people in the chair and then B, really the hygienist does a great job at doing production and those sort of additional services that a lot of patients need but tend to be elective or denied. What's your thought on that as a bonus structure?

Yeah, I think I'm here for whatever bonus structure is going to motivate your team. And I think everybody's motivated a little bit differently. So what I when we have hygiene bonuses so there's no right bonus for it. Different bonuses, I've heard are oftentimes it's basically 10% above whatever that hygienist produces. Making sure it allocates to the end of the month.

Right.

We could throw a bunch of SRPs. They're obviously going to go above their hygiene bonus production goal. We don't want to just pay that out if the rest of their days they're below that. I have had it where we have the scheduling for an office team where they are bonus off of having the hygiene schedule full. I have had them work in tandem. I've done an entire team bonus for it. We've done like myriads of things where you pay them for like every whitening that they add on. The ultimate goal is whatever is going to motivate your team. I will caution on hygienists though, what I found is if you turn them into producers like doctors, so similar thing if they're on production, they and we have it to where if there's an opening in their schedule to qualify for their bonus, they are required to make X number of outbound calls or whatever you want them to do during that downtime. But I will caution they do turn into producers. So they might not be as great of team players. But I'm like, well, what did we incentivize them on? We incentivize them to be solid producers. They're hitting their production goals that oftentimes it can create a little bit of like a team shift. Ish. But I'm like, look at your doctors. They're also not usually doing sterilization because their job is to sit there and produce. If you do that to your hygienist, you do the same thing. So that tide bonus can actually eliminate that. But still there can be this then rivalry of like hygienists if they're very money motivated. And some of them are money motivated, some are time off motivated, some are motivated by status, some are motivated by other things. So that's where I'm not here to put like blanket bonuses out there because a lot of times offices do that and it actually doesn't get the results they're looking for. So figuring out and checking in with your team, what really is going to motivate them, what's the most fair and what actually makes sense for the business. So again, know your numbers. But you definitely can put a bonus structure in that way where you are motivating both parties to do it or you can do a full team bonus. If we hit X, Y, Z. Oftentimes the full team bonus in addition to paying the hygienist tends to be the like smoothing the cake all the way around. Because now I've got collectively my whole team's focused on it. They all know how they're going to bonus out. Everybody's motivated for it, everybody's helping each other and we see each other as a team rather than divided parties because you can very quickly divide out team members when we create too strong of bonus structures. But I'm really pro roll out a bonus structure for, for 90 days. So do a quarter, see how it works. And you just let them know these bonus structures are going to change and we're going to consistently make it to where it's fair, it's motivating and it benefits the business. But I'm also really big on know your numbers, look to see how much you could bonus out and then make sure your bonus structure fits within that dollar amount. Otherwise you can accidentally get your bonuses so high and then trying to like scale it back down can actually put you into a really financial sticky spot. And then a team anger spot because we accidentally bonus too high because we didn't check to see how much are we willing to pay out Max and I look at the total overhead percentages, figure out how much I'm willing to do in bonus dollars and then make that to where we we figure out the bonus structure for our team based on percentage or based on set dollar amounts based on historical records of your practice too. So I'm big on, like, roll a bonus structure. Just make sure you do a couple number crunches before you roll it out. That way you don't accidentally miss expectations on your side or the team side that you have to then quickly roll back to.

Yeah. In our world, we call it financial modeling. And I, I have also an incentive compensation program here. And I being the guy that loves spreadsheets, you know, I'll. I'll model this out. It doesn't have to be terribly complicated, I think, for a bonus program in a dental office, but. But definitely model that out, whether it's with a practice management consultant like you or maybe taking it to your cpa. In that case, with my colleague Paul, it was more a client saying, I have this idea for a bonus program. Can you help me model it out? And Paul helped him do that. And it worked quite, quite well. But it was very unique to that practice. And I agree with you on that. There are going to be nuances to your practice. The other thing I'll say about this is if you have a great culture in and of itself, that's a little bit of a bonus program because they love coming into the office and feeling the experience of being there in the office. And the more that you can create it as an experience, the less it comes in, down to the exact dollars and cents being what motivates the behavior. At the end of the day, dollars are going to motivate behavior. I don't. It's human nature, and we all have to live in our personal lives and need money, and so it will. But bundle it inside of a great culture makes that whole incentive comp thing just such an easier discussion. The other thing I'll say is it's really important to understand your indirect costs as a dentist. Now, I'm going to sound really, really like an accountant here, a bean counter. But you gotta know your indirect costs because you have a lot of indirect costs in a dental office using the space your, your dental supplies, the front office support team that is getting patients in the chair. You've got marketing costs, you've got taxes. You've just got a lot of indirect costs that a lot of times doctors think, oh, if I produce an extra dollar, if my hygienist produces an extra dollar, I can pay her 50% and I can, you know, keep the other 50%. Well, not if your indirect costs are going to cost you 60 cents on that dollar. Now you're losing money from that bonus, and that's why the modeling is such an important step in the process of developing a compensation plan. And since most dentists don't go deep in formulas in Excel, I do think it's a good idea to engage somebody to help help with that. All right, let's go ahead and end off on this.

Sorry, one like quick.

Yeah.

Another thing I have found that's really helped in today's economy is to actually create a total compensation plan that your team actually gets. So when you show them. Because right now they're just looking at dollars across the board. But not all practices are offering 401k or medical benefits or the bonus structure. And so some of our offices have found really awesome success to retain team members in addition to that culture where they actually show them literally everything that they're making and what their actual dollar per hour is. It has been a game changer for some of my practices in that competitive area. And then also when you were talking about like the culture and the incentives, not all the time, is it money and bonuses. Some teams, if you do like some anonymous surveys, some of them want more time offs like the week between Christmas and New Year's, so that could be a bonus for them. Also other people want to go on trips, so just calculate that out and then put your goals around it. But sometimes even those pieces within your culture might be even more motivating, less costly to you than a full blown bonus structure on there. So just really get creative, work with your cpa, work with your team. I think those are some other really good ways for all team members and for you to watch your overhead and get creative. But while incentivizing all your team, I.

Love that, I love the idea of knowing your, your team members, what gets them excited in their sort of personal life and giving some Scooby Snacks from time to time based on that. For example, maybe your hygienist loves handbags. Maybe therefore, like get her a. Is it Katy Spade?

I can't Lululemon all the things. Yes, exactly.

You know, get them a handbag or for, for having accomplished a certain goal or, you know, a three day Airbnb, I don't know, gift card or something. But I, I think that's great. Like what I, what I've done with my tax director here is a lot of times, not every year, but some years, I will get them a stay at a resort and say I want you to go and completely disconnect because you just went through 80 hour work weeks for three months. Go disconnect. You know, I'll drop five grand on it or so and just Say thank you. Thank you for everything you did. And, and I, sometimes I think those very specific gifts are even more meaningful because you can tell that they took thought that went into that gift and that can mean a lot. Okay, great comment there. All right, let's, let's now talk about AI and we'll finish on this subject. You mentioned that you're involved in some AI initiatives as it relates to dental. I just came back from a couple conferences, a financial planning conference in San Francisco and then a conference on accounting. And both of these conferences essentially could have been AI conferences. They weren't titled that way. But the content was so much around AI and AI is something that I think we are all saying, wow, this is unbelievably impressive. What do I do with it? And we all know how to, at least most people at this point have, have a ChatGPT account or a cloud account or a GROK account and they use it for like a, like a super Google search. And I, I just don't use Google anymore. It, it, it's just so powerful in getting me my answer so fast and so precise and what feels like so accurate, even though it can make mistakes that I use it almost exclusively, except for like images and things like that. So retrieving information is amazing. Reformatting information is helpful. But then there's also how do I use it to automate processes in my business? That's the one that I think a lot of people are struggling to understand. And there's going to be off the shelf AI based tools that you just buy and plug in and train your team to use. Or I think some businesses are going to start to create their own agent bots and what's called an agentic process, where you have agents that are handling certain steps in a given process more. For example, maybe an automated agent off your website that answers questions or takes phone calls or delivers, you know, some clinical plan. I don't, I don't know how this is where it's at in dental right now, but where do you see it at? And how are dentists applying AI evolution into their own practice?

Yeah, I think it's fun. And I tell offices, I know dentistry, we sometimes sit back in like the 1800s, like that's a joke. We really aren't that dated, but we truly are a little dated on a lot of the processes. And so I say, I think AI, let's not be afraid of it, but let's see it. Otherwise I think we'll accidentally get like really dated on it. So things I'm already seeing that I think are really important are like Pearl or Overjet. They're AI companies that overlay and they're actually helping with treatment planning, diagnosis, things like that. So that's something that I'm really big on. And it does help, especially if you've got multi doctors, multi practice owners to streamline your treatment plan acceptance. It does help also increase your case acceptance. So just across the board, that's something that's already on the market. It's been here for quite a while. That I think is something that's going to be here to stay. And also, if we're looking at it realistically, holistically, insurance companies, I promise you, are using this to accept and deny your claims. I guarantee you, like in the future I can see it coming, that they're going to be probably requiring AI on your X rays of what it was and what the diagnosis was. Again, I could be totally off on this, but I'm like, if I put the dots together, that's probably where it's going to head. But in addition to that, I think AI is going to come in really strong in billing. That's an area that I'm working with some AI people. I think billing can be seen super automated. AI companies are working with insurance companies. Like they are already connecting in on that to really help get claims processes faster, to help you automate your insurance verification. A lot of things that really don't take a human to do that. And like we're already outsourcing billing to VAs, to other companies. AI is definitely going to come in strong there. I do have a client who already has an AI bot AI and they're answering calls for patients after hours. So it's definitely coming in. And I see this as something very.

Futuristic and awesome to do. And I think, like, there's even offices right now that are having a computer AI who's checking patients in. So there's this awesome. It's like, hi. I'm like, think about Siri. We were so scared of Siri when we first started. We all use Siri day in, day out. And so your practices will start to have like Jane. And Jane is someone's like, hi, Wes, welcome to the practice. Fill in this paperwork. Like that is something that easily can happen. And it's a computer screen of an AI person sitting there. So when people come in and check in, there's still this like human interaction with air quotes. But I think that that's going to really take over. I think as far as clinical side's concerned. I think we'll use a lot of AI to oversee our. Just like X rays, right? Like digital X rays came in so much stronger AI is going to help there. I think that you will start to have different pieces that will come into play for us. I think the clinical side is not going to be as strong as the front office side, but I think scheduling, office management, answering phone calls, billing, all of that, I see very much hitting in there's. I mean, I just was at an AI conference and I think that there were 15 AI companies that are already on the market doing different things for different pieces in dentistry already. And they're, I mean, some are great, some are not doing so well. There's going to be kinks along the way. But I'm like, if there's already this many, this soon in amazing. And then offices are using ChatGPT all day long, like making job descriptions, making checklists, helping out with some of the management pieces in your practice. We have all of dental a team out there. Like, we have thousands of podcast episodes out there. It mines all of our material and brings it to you, which I think is super, super handy and amazing to just make life more efficient as well for people.

The way I look at AI, so I'm a, I'm a service business, as you know. You're a service business. Dentists are a service business. They're not selling inventory. Yeah, there's a crown in there, but that's not what people are going, I want to buy two crowns. They're going in there to have pain go away, to have a nice smile, to have white teeth, to have good oral health, all of that. It's a service. So we're all experiencing, our listeners, you, me, we're all experiencing this, this thing where we want to deliver a very quality service to our clients. And what the clients care about is the result of that service. And they want to know that the service is, is tailored to them, that there's a person there who cares. And AI will never care. It may present an image like it cares, but it doesn't feel emotions like you and I and a dentist are going to feel. And so those are the things that I want to drive at, is the things that they really care about and everything else and how the sausage is made, everything else they don't really care. But I don't think my clients care exactly how transactions are coded in QuickBooks. So if a, if QuickBooks builds out some AI features in there that help me lower the number of staff, I need to do the day to day accounting. I don't think my clients are going to care too much about that. What they want it is that that financial statement is accurate, it tells a story, and that they can sit down with me and critically think through the process of making good, healthy financial decisions. What I think AI is doing, especially in young people, you know, I see this in my kids, is it's making them phenomenal information retrieving machines. They're getting very good at the prompt aspect of using AI and your prompts determine the, the answer, determine the content that you get. They're very good at that. But what it's doing is that it's stripping them of their critical thinking skills a bit because they just get an answer like that and they just go with it and they don't critically think through that. And so there's so much in the service of what you do, I do, and what a dentist does that does require real critical, nuanced thought applied to that person's physical condition and their emotional and psychological condition. And I don't think AI is ever, ever, ever going to replace that for any of us. But it can make our processes behind the curtain so much more efficient. And that does allow us to have more balance and time to actually do those things that matter for patients and ideally make more profit along the way as business owners. So I'm excited to see where it's going to go. Those are my final thoughts on AI. Do you have any final thoughts, Akira?

Yeah, I agree with you and I think the, I think what is awesome to do is like you said, it's going to take away a lot of these mundane tasks that aren't really allowing to add to the patient experience. And if you want a good read, Unreasonable Hospitality is a book I think of often where they actually have created such amazing experiences. And I had a dentist send me this book and I just have thought how can you actually make the experience where people are craving human connection and great experiences rather than the nuances? Like you can actually take those dollars that you used to spend on X, Y or Z, put them into team members that really help create this like human touch, amazing connection, amazing experience. That's where I actually see the future going, which I think is so powerful and so incredible is that we actually then have like so many team members, like, I don't have time, the phones are ringing, we've got all the billing, we're following up with insurance all the time. Well, let's cut all that. And now you have the time to Sit and talk to Wes about his kids and about his tennis experience and make him feel like we know him, we see him, we love him, rather than being like, hey Wes, check in now, we're gonna go take off. I think those will be the pieces that will start to set practices apart pretty quickly that people will start to demand and expect in the future. So I think it's incredible. I'm like here for it, I'm here for the game of it. I'm here for the exciting pieces. And I think let's not be, let's not be scarcity minded. I think it could be easy to do that. Let's see the abundance, let's see the great things that we're able to do and then let's be on top of that wave to truly change and transform dentistry and the way people feel about coming to the dentist. I think it's an amazing model to take on with AI.

Two quick comments. I think that doctors need to try to be ahead of this, which isn't going to happen on its own. I think it would be a great idea to take one hour every week on admin day. This is how important I think understanding AI is and devoted to the research of AI. What's happening in the industry, in your space, in dental, in AI. Who are the vendors out there understanding what AI does more generally as a, a producer of information, but also as an automator through these bots. What is an AI knowledge base? And could that become relevant for you and your practice? What are these AI bots? And that way figure out how to apply it. My second comment is if you can do that successfully, and let's say you can create an extra every year, hundred thousand dollars of profit. For some practices that may be 30, for some practices it may be a million. But you create new surplus cash flow in the practice, then what you do is you reinvent. You see, you have two options. You can take that money out of your practice and that's an option. You can take it out, fund your personal balance sheet for retirement planning, maybe take a big vacation every year, maybe help fund your kids college education, whatever. Or if you do that, you have to pay taxes on it. Or what you do is you reinvest it in your growth, maybe marketing, building out more ops, hiring the right people. And this is something that Jeff Bezos with Amazon did so effectively in the early days. He would take his profit. He became profitable pretty early and he said, I don't want to pay taxes on this. Now he was a C corporation, but it's still the same concept. If he didn't reinvest that money, a good, you know, 30% of it, 40% of it was going to go to the tax agencies, and that's a huge erosion to profit and growth and your capital. So what he would always do is he would find the next thing to invest it in more developers, more features, a new sort of line, service line or product line in Amazon. And he always did that to defer taxes. But eventually all of that deferral into new features became just so massively profitable, he couldn't constantly reinvest. And he did have to, of course, start paying a lot of taxes on it. But to the extent doctors, you can take your surplus capital and effectively allocate that capital to getting a really positive outcome and not give that money to the irs, that is a key strategy to developing a really strong practice and ultimately capitalizing on tremendous amounts of wealth creation by doing that. Kira, thank you for being on the show. I think you and I could talk about many, many other subjects. Any parting words to help our dentists thrive in dental practice today?

Yeah, Wes, thank you so much. It was such a good time and a great. I love to have a good geek out on dentistry and numbers and all the pieces. And what I just like to always end with is like, Dennis, remember we are so lucky to be working in dentistry. Like, I think, like, we are in such an exciting time. There's so many opportunities. And just like we've talked about the whole time, like, your business is for you, your business should work for you. And making sure that you're living your truly most extraordinary version of your life, it's easy. Like, like being successful and profitable does not have to be hard. So finding that easier path, I think working with people like us and Wes and really just truly aligning, if that aligns with you, let's take the easy path to success. That way you're able to have more fun, more memories, more magic moments. But truly, we're so blessed to work in dentistry. So, like, make your life the happiest it can be because we're truly insanely blessed to be here. So, Wes, thank you for that. It's been awesome. And if we can do anything to help people, let us know. We've got our podcast, we've got the dentalaidteam.com you can we do free complimentary practice assessment calls. So really looking to see gaps and just like truly giving value for clients if that's ever helpful in any way. Because I really do believe, like, let's give Dennis the opportunity to win and have their best lives and put more money in their practices. So that way with you, they're way more financially successful but truly just living their best, most wealthy, rich life. That's their version and their definition of that success.

Many words of wisdom, Kira. Thank you for being on the show. So Kira with the Dental A team, how can they get in contact with you to learn more about your services?

Yeah, come on over to our podcast. We love it. It's for doctors and teams or reach our reach out. Hello the dental a team.com Like I said, there's a complimentary assessment where we'll just look at your whole practice, give you a lot of free value and just blind spots that might help out or email me directly. Kira K I E R a the dental aid team.com But Wes, truly such an honor. I'm so happy that we got connected and hopefully just added a lot of value and perspective for everyone listening today.

Likewise. Thank you for being on the show.