Dr. Richard Madow - Dumb Things Smart Dentists Do

[0:00] You are listening to the Dental Practice Owner's podcast brought to you by Prosperident. From our unique perspective as dentistry's embezzlement experts, Prosperident's team can bring you the information that is important to practice owners. The Dental Practice Owner's podcast brings you strategies, tools, and tips that you can use and dentistry's thought leaders as guests. So sit back, relax, and listen to Prosperident's Amber Weber, Wendy Askins, and David Harris

[0:31] talk about the issues that matter to you. I'd like to welcome everybody to webinar number 23 for Prosperident. This is going to be great tonight and you will be really glad that you tuned in. A couple of little announcements just before we start. First of all, I want to mention a couple of anniversaries. And I'll start with Amber Weber Gonzalez who just celebrated four years with Prosperident.

[1:04] There are a few things you probably don't know about Amber. One is that she went into a speaking event on the weekend and she just perished it. So we're going to see more of Amber on podiums very soon. So congratulations to Amber and maybe even more important, Wendy Askins and I think February celebrated 10 years with us. So that's a really impressive milestone for Wendy and she's had several here.

[1:31] So congratulations to both of our anniversary people. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to hand over to our guest, Dr. Rich Maddow in just a minute. He's going to talk until 9.15 more or less. And then after that we'll allow a little bit of time for Q&A.

[1:48] So again, get those questions in. But what I'd really like to do is introduce Rich and I've known him for many years. I've got to say I think he's one of the funniest men in dentistry. He's got lots of other skills and talents too, but every conversation I have with him is just side-splittingly funny. So that I think everybody will enjoy.

[2:12] He and his brother David started the Maddow Center for Dental Practice Success and I hadn't realized this Rich, but we started our businesses the same year, 1989. So he's been consulting and helping dentists for a very long time. The other thing I'll mention, he's a talented musician. He's written a book. He makes his home in Baltimore, Maryland.

[2:36] And with that Rich, if the technology is favorable to us, why don't you take it away? Thank you so much. If the technology is favorable, if you can hear me, panel, give me a thumbs up just to make sure because sometimes I feel like I'm talking for 20 minutes and nobody can hear me. That's just, I guess, a normal day in my life.

[2:54] I'm going to attempt to do this really cool screen share thing. So let's see if I can. While I'm doing that, I just want to point out that your pre-show is the best pre-show of any webinar I've ever seen where you get to see all the people who embezzle. That is just massively great. It's so funny how they all look so happy in those pictures.

[3:15] They're all on vacation, using the dentist money that they stole. It just cracked me up. Everything about that was hilarious. So congrats for not only doing great things for dental practices, but having the best pre-show of any webinar. Well, thank you for trying to catch these folks in their natural elements.

[3:34] Sounds like it's a zoo. So I'm going to let's try to get, take that off there. OK. Now I just vanished. Hold on. I always make this more complicated than it should be.

[3:47] OK, that's better. All right. That's all else. Ha, here we are. It's so funny when you see like the embezzlement figures come up and you see somebody embezzled $30,000.

[3:59] You think, wow, $30,000. That's a lot of money. Then the next one's like 400,000. It's like, ah, 30,000. You were an amateur. I could have done that in my sleep, man.

[4:07] Let's see you do 400. Now that's the big leagues. I also thought it was hilarious that somebody was sentenced to six months in jail if they paid back. But if they didn't pay back, they had to stay in jail for five years. There's a lot of comedy in the dental embezzlement industry, isn't there?

[4:23] Anyway, thanks so much for inviting me. It's really an honor. Press Parade, it's an incredible company. You help so many dental practices in such a big way. You put criminals in jail. What could be more fun than that?

[4:35] So it's really a pleasure to be here. I just don't want to point out that I know a lot of people speak on so-called practice management topics. I'm not a big fan of that term, but everybody seems to use that term. But I'm actually a real dentist. I went to dental school, believe it or not, graduated in 1984,

[4:52] did a great general practice residency, finished in 1985, moved back to my hometown of Baltimore. And after a few horrendous associates, I mean, they were just horrendous. One, I actually walked out in the middle of a busy day because the boss was such a jerk. And in retrospect, that maybe was a nice thing to do.

[5:08] And the other one, my last one, my second and last association, I got into a little tiff with the owner dentist and he was too much of a wuss to fire me. So he just changed the locks in the middle of the night. And I was the first person to report the next day and my key wouldn't work. And I'm like jiggling around.

[5:23] It was a real blue collar practice. So people were like lined up with emergencies, like those wraps on their heads and my keys. I just said, Hey, everybody, I'm not sure what's going on. I'm going to go find a locksmith. And I just drove off and never returned.

[5:34] So those aren't necessarily great stories, but that's I think many dentists go through that. My point is I'm a real dentist. I've been blad on. I've been bitten, argue with insurance companies. I know what it's like to be prepping the distal of tooth number two

[5:47] and a patient who's switching and screaming and salivating and bleeding and all those things. So I'm right there with you. If you've done it, I've probably done it too. And another thing that I've done in my many years of practice, I've done a lot of dumb things.

[6:00] You know, I always say that dentists would got to be fairly smart, right? We need to go to college into a difficult major. Mine was microbiology, which I don't think I remember one thing about. I know a lot of dentists are science majors and we have to get good enough grades to get into dental school, then four years of torture in dental school. Then they kind of kick us out on our butts and say, now you're on your own.

[6:19] So we've got to be pretty smart to get there. But then so many things we learn the hard way, which means we just do dumb things and keep doing dumb things. And maybe it takes us years to realize, hey, this thing I'm doing, it's not working, or some dentists never realize that the things are doing are working.

[6:34] So I put this together. Actually, I put this course together during the pandemic. I was being asked to do a lot of webinars and I was just sitting in my desk one day. And for some reason, I just started making a list of all the dumb things I'd done in my career. List was about 5,000 things, but I'm just going to share 10 of them with you tonight.

[6:50] And as someone who's now a dental coach and a consultant, I have really the pleasure, honor, privilege, fun, however you want to put it, of traveling across North America, speaking to large dental groups, but also consulting with the practices on a one-on-one basis. And so many times I've been in practice as kind of a fly on the wall. I sit in the reception area, the front desk, the treatment rooms and just observe.

[7:10] And I guess maybe in a sick way, it makes me happy to see that I'm not the only one doing all these dumb things or this is done all these dumb things. So let's get going. And maybe you'll see what I'm talking about and we'll try to figure out if we're doing some of these things and how we can avoid them in the future. So let's see if now my fancy schmancy slide presentation works.

[7:29] There it is. Excellent score. OK, dumb thing. Number one, dentistry is not field of dreams. I know they say that build it and they will come. But so many dentists have this thing. If you buy it, they will come.

[7:46] And this is what I mean. And believe me, I am not a technophobe. I'm not a Luddite. I love technology. I love playing with technology. It's great, you know, getting really cool, fun equipment to do fantastic diagnosis and treatment in your dental office is a great thing. But so many times I've seen dentists invest and I use the quotes invest in equipment that is very expensive,

[8:11] that they're taking out long term notes on because some salesman at a big dental convention said, if you get this fancy, fancy machine, patients are going to flock to your doors. You're going to have a line around the corner if you get this $80,000 gadget. And again, I know Cognitive Technology is incredible

[8:29] being able to mill your own crowns in your office. If that's where you're into, I personally don't want to be a lab tech. But if that's where you're into, that's great. But so often dentists are sold this bill of goods that if you just buy this and these are dentists who maybe they're practices and doing that well. And they're really great people and they're great dentists

[8:46] and they just want to invest some money into something that's going to help their practice and they go to the big dental show and they get talked into buying this piece of equipment. We have one dentist come to us. He was thinking about doing consulting with us, actually. And he said, well, he's going to he's going to either do consulting

[9:00] with you or he's going to buy this piece of equipment called a pain machine. I'm thinking, look, I never heard of that. What the heck is a pain machine? So I went to this convention and this guy told me, is this machine and just hold it up to a patient's face if they have TMJ issues or anything else? It just cures it instantly.

[9:14] I'm thinking, like, is this guy really that dumb? Is he really that, you know, that gullible? But sure enough, he bought the pain machine. And I know you're not going to believe this, but it didn't help his practice. I talked to him a couple of years later, his practice is doing the same and now he's about $75,000 more in debt.

[9:32] So again, I'm not against technology. It can be great, but don't think that buying a piece of equipment, no matter how stiffy and impressive, no matter how great, it will help you clinically, no matter how much comfort and fun it will bring to your office and your patients. Don't think that's going to increase your bottom line,

[9:50] because many times it doesn't. And I'll always say before you invest in equipment, I mean, obviously you've got to be practicing, you know, clinically acceptable dentistry. So if your equipment's that bad that you can't do that, that's a different story.

[10:02] But before you invest in equipment that you think is going to grow your practice, you've got to make sure so many other things are in order, just simple things like your telephone technique and your reactivation system, your treatment planning acceptance, your perioprogram. All of those things need to be top, top, top notch before you even think about spending money on equipment.

[10:22] So something number one, if you buy it, they will come. Or as I always say, I'll only get that crown if you can do it in one appointment, said no patient ever, ever. I had this kind of discussion with somebody. I don't know if I should mention brand name, so I'm not going to say the brand name of this crowd mill machine.

[10:40] It rhymes with Merrick, let's just say that. I had a discussion with salesman and I said, look, these things are great. But I've never heard a patient being told to leave your crown. And they said, I'm not coming to your office because it's going to take two appointments. I'm going somewhere else. It just doesn't happen.

[10:56] So remember, don't think if you buy it, they will come. Yes, tech is great, but it's not going to be the answer to your issues of practice growth. OK, that was something. Well, we have a time. I've looked at the shop box.

[11:08] We have a ton of ton of chit chats already. Oh, people are saying where they're from. That's so nice. So nice. Graham Rapids, Michigan, Cleveland, Ohio, Nova Scotia. OK, I better close that.

[11:17] It'll be too distracting. I'm just reading the shop box all night. OK, that was dumping. Number one, if you buy it, they will come. Let's move on. Dumping number two, the biggest telephone mistake.

[11:29] Now we're talking about telephones. Let's talk about a potential new patient, because let's face it, these are the people that are going to grow your practice. Potential new patients. So again, I've sat in so many dental practices. I've done so many secret shopper calls.

[11:44] I do them on my podcast every week. I do them live at seminars. I love secret shopper calls. And I can tell you the biggest telephone mistake made when a potential new patient calls a dental practice. A lot of people will say, I think

[12:00] it's when you answer the phone and you say, dental office, hold please. Well, that's pretty bad. That could be a really big mistake. Sometimes people will answer the phone and they won't get the patient's name,

[12:10] but they won't say their name. That's a pretty big mistake. A really big mistake. And I see this all the time when my mystery shopper calls in an actual dental practices is when you have a long conversation with a patient

[12:21] and they have potentially a great patient. They're asking the right questions and they know they need treatment. And sometimes they want to bring in their whole family and they have this whole conversation that's three or four minutes long.

[12:32] And then the person at the front desk does not ask them to make an appointment. And they just hang up and they say thank you and they never get their contact information. That's a big telephone mistake, but believe it or not,

[12:43] that is not the biggest telephone mistake. Any ideas what the biggest telephone mistake is? I'll tell you what it is. It's simple. It's simply not answering the phone when it rings. As I said before, I do mystery shopper calls

[12:59] and do them live at seminars. I do them on my podcast. And I'm not trying to trick anyone here. I do them during regular business hours and I got to tell you 40 to 50% of the time during regular business hours,

[13:12] I mean nine to four Monday through Friday, whatever you want to call it, during regular business hours, I call and get voicemail. If you're hearing this message during regular office hours, it means that we're busy treating other patients.

[13:26] Guess what? Click, they don't care. You know what they think? This office is too busy for me. I don't care that my friend Jim said to go here. They're too busy for me.

[13:36] I'm gonna call some more else. Or we are currently at lunch. Well, too bad. You know what? Your patient who actually has a job that has provided them with great dental insurance

[13:49] works hard too. And they've got one time during their busy day to find their new dentist. And that time is called lunch. And you're telling me they're gonna call your office during lunch and hear a voicemail that says,

[13:58] we're currently at lunch, absolutely unacceptable. At my dental practice, we didn't do staggered lunches. We took lunch together because it was a real good time. Many times we would have lunch with the whole team. I'd take them out for pizza sometimes.

[14:11] We were bond, we would laugh. It was a great time. It was a fun time. Always make sure the phone is answered during lunch. If that means one person has to hang back to have phone duty that day.

[14:21] If it means forwarding your office line to the cell phone of a team member who might get a little bonus for appointing a new patient, whatever it means, that phone needs to be answered. If you're closed on Wednesdays, we're closed on Fridays.

[14:32] If you're closed on Wednesdays, Thursdays, if you're never open, it doesn't matter. The phone needs to be answered. That means maybe you've got, and I know in my office, we had someone who used to work for me.

[14:41] She was retired. She was a great friend, best person. She came in on Fridays and just sat there and answered the phone. Was it worth it to pay someone to sit in the office? Absolutely.

[14:52] A new patient is worth between like two and $10,000 on average. You better believe it's worth it to have somebody and they're answering the phones, even if they're not doing anything else. And there's always something else

[15:01] that does somebody walks in to make a deployment rubber. My point is not answering the phone when it rings. Every single time it rings is a huge mistake. And it's a, fortunately, an easy one to rectify. So don't do dumb thing number two. Please make sure that your phone

[15:18] is answered every single time it rings. Get rid of that voicemail. I think it's kind of insulting. Okay, let's keep it rocking here. Dumb thing number three. When a dentist or a practice contacts us for some help

[15:35] or they have questions or whatever it is, so many times, I would say 80 to 85% of the time, they say, we need more new patients. We need more new patients. If we only had more new patients, it's like a fix. It's like we're addicted to this.

[15:49] We always think that we need more new patients. And look, there was nothing wrong with more new patients. We love more new patients. More new patients, new patients get more treatment than existing patients. New patients are more apt to refer.

[16:02] There's a lot of great things about more new patients. But we kind of get addicted to this new patient fix and then we just leave that back door wide open. And this is what I see in so many dental practices. They say, picture this. Just picture that.

[16:15] This huge bus pulls up to your dental practice. And that bus is full of new patients. It's like the most amazing bus of all time. And the bus driver goes left dang, the door opens and all the patients kind of file out one by one and they all walk through the front door of your office

[16:31] and some of them stop at the hygiene room, some of them stop in the doctor's room, some of them stop in both rooms. But so many of those patients, way more than half, just keep walking. Maybe they'll stop in a room or two,

[16:43] but they just keep walking and they walk right out the back door of your office. That is what happens all the time. We are always worried about new patients. We spend money on marketing for new patients. We spend money on referral systems.

[16:55] We treat our patients well. There's nothing wrong with any of these things. We're dealing with the intent of getting more new patients, but it's so much easier to retain a patient once they walk through your door,

[17:05] they go through all the difficulties of getting new ones. And if we would just worry about shutting that back door as much as we worry about new patients, we wouldn't be so addicted to this new patient fix. Here's a little data analysis chart that we do for our practices that we work with.

[17:22] So you can see there's like a solid line through the middle and then there's blue on top and there's red on the bottom. This is the month by month chart and this is very typical. This is not like a extraordinary one that I pulled somehow.

[17:33] This is just a very typical one. It's new patients month after month, year after year. So every month there's that bar and the blue bar on the top, new patients. The red bar on the bottom, going down, patients that have been lost by this practice,

[17:47] patients that have been inactivated. I think in the case of this chart, it was a patient who hadn't been in in over 18 months. So boom, look, they're doing a nice job getting new patients, but most months they have a negative new patient flow.

[18:00] They were losing more patients that they're gaining. They don't have a good reactivation system. It's so, so important to have a good reactivation system. And again, I know this is just an hour plus webinar. So obviously we're not gonna have time tonight to talk about a whole reactivation system.

[18:13] Here's one little mistake that I see dental practices make all the time. They'll say, okay, Maj, when you have a few minutes, just go through the charts and call patients who haven't been in. Okay, that's mistake number one.

[18:24] It doesn't work. You have dedicated time for your reactivation campaigns. It's not something that can just be done when you have a few minutes, because then it never gets done. Somebody has to have blocks in their day,

[18:34] an hour, two hours, three hours, when all they're doing is reactivation. And then they call and they say, hi, this is Janine calling from Dr. Manor's office. And I just wanted to let you know that you're overdue for your cleaning

[18:47] and you need a crown on truth number three. You better call us. They never call back. You kind of like gave away the whole story there. Make it a little more mysterious maybe. Call and say, this is Janine calling

[18:59] from Dr. Manor's office. It's very important that you call us as soon as possible. Because they're looking for a reason to avoid you. Let's face. So again, we don't have time to do the whole reactivation campaign on this webinar,

[19:11] but those are my two tips. It's gotta be dedicated time for a great team member and make it a little mysterious. Say it's really important that you call us back as soon as possible. The main thing is we're all worried about new patients,

[19:23] but just looking at the typical charts from a typical office, practically every office has a huge reactivation problem or patients who are slipping through the cracks, falling into the black hole, leaving through the back door,

[19:35] whatever cliche or metaphor you wanna call it, make sure this is not happening in your practice. Okay, let's move on to dumb thing number four. Okay, February 7th, 1964, wow. Does anybody know, I think this is a date that should be taught

[19:54] in history class, certainly in North America. Does anybody know, I'm gonna open up my chat box now. Does anybody know what happened February 7th, 1964 that I feel is one of the most important events in history? I know nobody knows this,

[20:08] but once I tell you, you're never gonna forget it. I'll give you a second to think about it. I'll give you a hint, February 7th, 1964. This big Pan Am jumbo jet took off from England across the Atlantic, landed at JFK, and these four young lads got off the plane.

[20:32] This was the, I think somebody just put it up there, just close the chat box. This was the day that the Beatles landed in America for the very first time, for the very first time, one of the greatest events in history.

[20:43] But I think what people don't realize is the Beatles were really nervous when they landed in the US for the first time. They were already big in England and much of Europe, certainly Germany, and any other countries in Europe,

[20:54] they were already the Beatles. But here, they really weren't that well-known yet. They hadn't played on the Ed Sullivan show yet. That was to come two days later. And here they were. I mean, these were just four guys

[21:03] from working class Liverpool, and the music that they love, the music that they imitated before they became the best band of all time, the best songwriters of all time, were all Americans, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry,

[21:16] Smokey Robinson, Little Richard. These were their heroes. And here they were. And other people had made it huge in England, people like Cliff Richard, and they never really resonated in the US.

[21:26] So the Beatles were extremely nervous. What was going to happen when they landed at JFK Airport? And they landed at JFK, and what did they see? They saw tens of thousands of screaming teenagers and young adults, mostly young women,

[21:40] going crazy, breaking down barriers, fighting off police, just to get close to the Beatles. It was the greatest greeting of all time. That's what happened to them when they landed in the US. And that is how I feel the new patient experience should be at your office.

[21:56] We should make our patients feel like the Beatles felt when they landed in the US for the very first time. Our patient's first contact with our office has to be amazing. There's no excuse for not making it amazing. And it's so easy and it's free.

[22:12] So what are some tips for providing an incredible new patient experience? I always think whatever we do, we wanna make our new patients feel like the Beatles felt when they landed at JFK. I mean, if you can do that, boom, everything is great.

[22:24] So just a couple quick and simple tips for the very first visit when our patients visit our office for the very first time. Okay, first of all, their first appointment must be within 48 hours of initial contact.

[22:40] I mean, when a patient calls your office and you actually answer the phone, when you do answer the phone, they need to be offered an appointment that day, the next day or two days at a maximum for so many reasons. But one reason is just the simple reason

[22:56] of the most frequent no show and cancellation is a patient coming in for the first time. So if a patient calls your practice and you say, we can see you in six weeks, there's a much better chance they're gonna no show. It used to be like a thing to brag about.

[23:10] You go to the local study club and, oh, my practice is so busy, we can't see a new patient for eight weeks. And then somebody, oh, my practice is so busy, we can't see a new, that used to be something to brag about,

[23:20] but it is nothing to brag about because your practice just can't grow as much as it should. People like brag about their physicians, like, oh, I'm seeing this specialist in cosmetic dermatology and they're so great. I can't get an appointment for eight months.

[23:32] And then someone else says, my doctor's so great, I can't get an appointment for a year. Well, my doctor's so great, they've actually never even seen a patient. That's how great they are. I mean, it might be fun to brag about this stuff,

[23:42] but it doesn't work in dentistry. We've got to get our patients in right away. And I mean, right away, 40 hours of initial contact. The only way you can possibly do this is if you have dedicated new patient time on your schedule. I used to have it on my schedule twice a day,

[23:56] right before lunch, right before the end of the day. This time was reserved for new patients so that when a new patient calls, we can say, we'd love to see you as a new patient in our practice. As a matter of fact, we can see this afternoon at 3.30,

[24:08] if that's not good for you, we can see it tomorrow at 11.30 a.m., which works best for you. Give two good choices, make them right away. The patients will be so impressed. Again, people used to brag that they were so booked

[24:20] they couldn't get new patients in. No more. These days, I mean, everything is different these days with the internet and all of, you know, we're just, we're accustomed to getting things right away.

[24:28] When we want something, what do we do? We go on Amazon, we order it, it's in our house, this is the way things work these days. And it's the same thing with a dental appointment. People are conned, they want to be in right away. It's great service.

[24:41] And if you don't do it, and they, you know, a lot of times they're going to say, no, thanks, I'm going to find someone else. But if they do make an appointment six weeks from now, well, that little sharp edge on their tooth is going to be smoothed out just, you know, by nature.

[24:53] Or the thing that was bothering them is not going to be bothering them anymore or they're nervous, they're tensed looking for any excuse not to come in and a few weeks pass and, you know what? I'm just going to put this off a little bit more.

[25:04] So many reasons this is crucial. And if you can't fill the time, well, you can move somebody from hygiene that needs a restorative procedure. You know, you can put in an emergency, a patient of record emergency, or, oh my God,

[25:18] I hesitate to say it. You can actually maybe even leave earlier on time one day. So this is absolutely, absolutely crucial. Okay, another thing to do on the first visit. Oh man, I cannot tell you. I've been in so many reception areas

[25:33] of a dental practice and a new patient comes in and there's like some board looking receptionist behind that horrible, ugly frosty glass. And they like begrudgingly slide the glass open. Oh, who are you? Oh yeah, fill out these forms.

[25:48] Okay, have a seat, we'll get to you later. I mean, that's what it feels like. You know, when there's a new patient on the schedule and you're the person behind the front desk, you know who this person is when they walk in the office

[25:58] or the cell, he gets a mystery. So stand up, act excited to see them. You can even, oh, I know this is crazy, but you can even get up and go into the reception area and shake their hands and greet them like you were actually excited to see them,

[26:11] make them feel special, make them feel important. It's just, it's such a great way for them to start their visit at your office as their new dentist. Okay, easy. And then say the magic words.

[26:24] What do you think the magic words are? You're greeting a new patient for the very first time. Everybody has their own version of the magic words. If you can think of what magic words are, feel free to type it in the chat box. I'm gonna give you my magic words in a second.

[26:37] So whatever you put, I'm sure you'll be right because there are so many different versions. Welcome, oh, thank you so much. That it's great. It's amazing how many people won't say welcome. Glad to see you.

[26:47] We're so glad to meet you. You guys are putting up great answers. These are all so, so correct. I mean, just think about it. I know, you know, we always rag on physicians because they have the worst customer service.

[26:56] I can't remember ever going to a physician where they act like they're excited to see me. And they say welcome to the practice and they say we're excited to see you. So those people that put that in the chat box, thank you. Those are excellent magic words.

[27:06] I'm gonna add my magic words to this. And it's another thing. It's gonna show you another thing that you need to do when a patient's first visit and on every single patient visit. And that is don't even sit down.

[27:19] We're ready for you. Come right back. You know, it seems like everybody has made a cottage industry out of making fun of how you always have to wait for 30 or 40 or 45 minutes in the dental practice.

[27:31] It's completely unacceptable. We cannot let our patients wait. I ran my dental practice. We have one policy in my office and that was we do not run late. And we had to make a decision, a scheduling this time,

[27:43] a procedure went awry. Somebody called and said I'm gonna be 15 minutes late for my 30 minute appointment. Whatever it is, we made our decisions based on our policy. And that is we do not run late.

[27:57] Again, this is something, a topic that I love. I could talk 30 minutes on just not running late. But obviously we're not gonna do it tonight. But you guys are all smart. I always said we're all smart, right? You can figure out, you know, it means doc,

[28:09] you can't squeeze two crowns into 15 minutes. You can't do it. It means you can't squeeze an emergency into a super busy day without ruining somebody's schedule. We know how to do it.

[28:18] It is unacceptable. We do not run late. That's gotta be your policy. And then when a patient comes in, say the magic words. We are ready for you. Come right on back.

[28:28] Of course, with the welcome and all the other good stuff that our attendees put up there. So, okay, that is one more thing. Here's, this drives me crazy. We bring a new patient back

[28:39] in the doctor's treatment room for the very first time. And the doctor like, I don't know, we're like programmed to do this. We go into that position, I call it the treatment position

[28:47] where we're like right next to the patient, side up to them. It's like, I don't know if you can see through here. Like they're, we're there. They're there. We're looking at them.

[28:54] It's like, we're ready to treat them on them. It's the most awkward way to have a conversation. And we start trying to conversable them in this weird position. It's very intrusive and uncomfortable. So when you're talking to a patient

[29:03] for the first time, slide your chair around to the foot of their patient chair. So you're actually looking at them like I'm looking at you, having the normal conversation

[29:14] like real people talk. It's crazy, but we can do it. I know we can. So we're facing the patient. And then what do we talk about? Please don't start talking about Dennis.

[29:23] Really, let's have just a couple minutes of non-denial chitchat. Now, I know whatever you want to call a cocktail party conversation, lightweight conversation, chitchat doesn't come naturally to everybody.

[29:34] And I'm one of those people. I'm not great at lightweight conversation. It doesn't always come naturally to me either. But there are really simple ways to do it. I call the, what does it call when you just the first letter of each thing?

[29:46] Boy, I'm losing my memory here at 63 years old. Anyway, I call it F-O-R. A few minutes of non-denial talk, we're gonna do F-O-R. F is family.

[29:58] But we don't always want to start by sandwich. So tell me about your family. Acronyms, thank you. I can't believe I could, I'm the king of acronyms. I couldn't think about words.

[30:06] That's really scary. F-O-R, family. Now you don't want to always necessarily start asking a person directly about their family because let's face it, some people are in family situations that are great.

[30:17] Maybe they rather not talk about their family, but I always like to, if I can in a positive way, get the family because most people are proud of their family and love talking about their family. So the way I can get there, kind of non-intrusively, I always start with like their geographic thing.

[30:30] Like, let's just say you're in, well, I'm in Baltimore, so I'll use Baltimore. So I see you live in Baltimore. Are you a native or are you a transplant? And then they'll say, I've lived here all my life

[30:40] and I'll say, oh, where'd you grow up and blah, blah, then that eventually gets to the family. Or let's say, oh, I moved here from Cleveland. I'll start talking about that. And that eventually, if they want to, we'll get the family also to tell me about their history

[30:49] about who still lives there, who still lives here. It's a very easy way to get the family if the patient wants to. You're kind of asking their permission. But once they do, then ask them a million questions about their family

[30:59] because people love being asked about their family. So that's F. O is occupation, again, a very easy one. But please don't just say, so tell me what you do. That is just boring. Anyway, you looked at their intake form.

[31:11] You know what they do. So I was trying to make kind of a compliment or funny statement about it. Like for example, you have a patient as a teacher. Oh, I see you're a teacher. What grade do you teach?

[31:20] Oh, I teach fifth grade. Oh, man, you should be knighted. I mean, that is just, I can't even imagine what kind of craziness you must see every day, tell me some funny stories about some things that have happened.

[31:29] And you deserve the biggest honor educating our children. So, you know, have a little funny chit chat, compliment them. I mean, if it's a plumber, you can tell them about how your sink was stopped up

[31:39] last week and you wish you knew them last week. Because whatever it is, there's always interesting fun and congratulatory things you can say to your patients. Then R is my favorite. R stands for recreation.

[31:52] What do they like to do for fun? I always have kind of a standard line. I say, so I know probably the number one thing you wanna do in your life is be at your dental appointment. But if you weren't here right now and you weren't at work,

[32:02] what would you love to be doing? And people will tell you incredible stories. You will really get to know your patients on a level that you never thought you would. And it's so funny, I can't stand it. And I've made this mistake too.

[32:15] When we think of our patients as the crown in treatment room number four, where that disgusting perio case with breath that smells like horse manure. I mean, this is not who these people are. They're actually real people

[32:25] who have a mouth attached to them. So let's get to know them a little bit. When I asked people this question, the recreation question, I'm just trying to think of a few things. I had a patient who climbed,

[32:35] I think it's called the seven summits, the highest mountain in every continent. He was, it was fascinating. I had a patient who she was like kind of a grandma type, but we started talking about other things that we love. I'm a big music fan as you probably can tell.

[32:47] And we started talking about music and she told me then in the seventies, she was the lead singer in a New York punk rock band. It's like, this is unbelievable. I'd like never would have known. I had a patient that's really elderly woman

[32:57] who was kind of frail and I really couldn't tell much about her. In her prime in the sixties, she was a translator at the United Nations and was there the famous day that Nikita Khrushchev, the Russian premier,

[33:09] banged a shoe on the table. I mean, what an unbelievable story. You will not believe how many great stories you can get out of your patients so you can look at them as more than just a person with teeth and gums.

[33:19] So this is essential, a few minutes of non dental talk, family, occupation, recreation. And then we got to start dental. I was like, what can we help you with today? It's just a good open-ended question.

[33:31] Open-ended questions are much better in general than yes or no questions. You certainly don't want to say open wide as your first thing. So what can we help you with today? And then listen, truly listen.

[33:41] Let the patient talk, don't cut them off, listen, ask questions, have a nice open-ended conversation before you look at their teeth and gums for the first time. So, okay, what can we help you with today? And now, I had a friend who,

[33:55] one of my best friends from Baltimore, one of my best friends of all time, actually moved south a couple of years ago. He moved to Jacksonville and he asked me to recommend a dentist for him in Jacksonville.

[34:04] And I knew of a fantastic, top-notch dental practice in Jacksonville. So I recommended this office and I knew they were top-notch office. And then he called me the next day. I said, how was your visit?

[34:14] It was really good. He said, but something really weird happened. I went in to see the hygienist and she was like yanking on my tongue and she's like poking on my neck. Like, what the heck was going on?

[34:24] And I thought two things. First of all, fantastic. Your hygienist was doing an oral cancer screening. Second, lost opportunity. Never do anything without explaining to the patient what you're doing.

[34:36] So in other words, if you're a hygienist or a dentist and you're doing oral cancer screening, don't just say stick your tongue out and yank on it with a gauze. Say, okay, we're about to do an oral cancer screening.

[34:46] I'm going to be checking your tongue in areas of your mouth to see if we notice any unusual places or abnormalities. Let's start with your tongue. If you could just stick it out, okay?

[34:53] I'm looking at the side. I'm looking at the top. Good news, everything looks great. Now I'm going to feel your glands. Okay, we're just looking for some lumps and bumps here. Oh, more great news.

[35:03] Everything feels excellent. If you're going to do it, which you should be doing anyway, use it to your advantage to impress the patient. Let them know what you're doing every single step of the way.

[35:12] So just a bunch of easy things you could do on your first visit. They don't cost a dime. And remember, our goal here is to make our patients think this is the best dental practice I've ever been to.

[35:22] I've never seen a dental practice this friendly, this thorough, this professional, all of these great things. And they really, really care. They really, really care about me. So there's just some simple things

[35:31] you can do on the first visit. Okay, I think that was dumb thing number four. So many dumb things, can't keep track of them. Oh, by the way, I know that it was mentioned that we're going to be hanging on for some Q&A at the end of this.

[35:44] So please ask some questions. You can put them in the question and answer box. It's fun to chitchat about those at the end of the presentation. If you want to get ahold of me for any reason after this is all done,

[35:55] here's my contact info. My website is just maddo.com. That's our company website. Couple email addresses. Infomaddo.com goes to my incredible team and they'll forward an email to me,

[36:05] but maybe something they can't be with. Or if you want to email me personally, my email address is rich, R-I-C-H, maddo.com. Yes, we still have a telephone line. Hard to believe. I know not everyone does, but we do.

[36:17] And there's the number 410-526-4780. We are located in Baltimore, Maryland. I live in beautiful downtown Baltimore, Maryland. But we work with the practices all across the country. We have coaches all across the country and we would love to hear from you.

[36:32] So that's how we get in touch with us. And please, throw in some questions. Maybe I'll be able to answer them. Who the heck knows? At least I can give you an opinion. Okay, dumb thing number five,

[36:42] something I see in practices all the time. It's kind of funny, but it's kind of not. That is having a practice that isn't calibrated. This means a patient has a question and they ask the doctor and maybe they don't like the answer.

[36:56] So they ask the hygienist and they get a different answer. Maybe they ask the assistant or they forgot what the answer was and they get a different answer. Then they ask the front desk team

[37:03] and they get a different answer. The practice is not calibrated. I've seen this so many times where a patient asks a question to different team members and gets different answers.

[37:13] No, no, no, not good. Your practice has got to be calibrated. So how do we calibrate our practices? Here's a simple way to calibrate your practice. We're gonna call a team meeting. It's gonna be calibration meeting number one.

[37:25] And set aside lots of time. Somebody has to be in charge of the meeting. It doesn't have to be the doctor. I think it's probably better if it's not the doctor, but however you wanna do it.

[37:33] And then that person has to ask each department. And when I say each department, I mean, maybe you're in a large practice where there are a lot of people in the positions. And you could be just those small practices where there's one dentist, one hygienist,

[37:45] one assistant, one front desk. And that's great too. But those are the four departments. Doctors, hygienists, assistants, business team. So each department, whether there's one member of each department

[37:54] or 10 members of each department, submits to the person in charge of the meeting. They're frequently asked questions. And this is why I do it by department because the hygienists are gonna get questions like, can I just get a cleaning?

[38:06] I need, you told me I need this fancy schmancy gum treatment. Can I just get a cleaning? The front desk is gonna get questions like, I can't save that copay. You know what I'm saying? So we're gonna get our frequently asked questions

[38:15] from each department. Then at the very first meeting, the person who's in charge of the meeting is gonna pick, let's just say four questions. One from each department. You're gonna read the question,

[38:25] then you're gonna take some time and brainstorm the absolute best answer. The absolute best answer answers the question. First of all, you're not dodging the question. It answers the question in a positive way. You don't wanna say anything negative

[38:38] to the patient or derogatory. So it answers the question in a factual, helpful, positive way. And hopefully it leads them to what we want them to do. Say yes to their treatment, pay for their, you know, pay their bill, whatever it is.

[38:51] It's gonna make them lean towards doing what we want them to do. So we're gonna just be very casual and take our time and brainstorm what we think are the best answers to these questions. Then once we get a bunch of ideas,

[39:02] we'll start putting them together into a sentence or several sentences. And then we will make that sentence more compact, more compact, we're gonna make it shorter, narrow it down. And so we've got all the important information

[39:15] in a really easy to remember answer. And then everybody's gonna agree this is the answer to our question. This is the answer to the question, why can't I just get a cleaning instead of that fancy schmancy gum treat

[39:26] we're talking about? Now, everybody knows the answer to this question. And now we're gonna memorize them and we're gonna practice, practice, practice. Just like, you know, the old saying, how do I get to Carnegie Hall?

[39:38] Practice, man, practice. Same thing here. We're gonna practice until we have down pat the answers to these questions. Now that doesn't mean that when you're asked this question, you're gonna recite it robotically.

[39:49] Well, the reason that you don't need just a gum cleaning, that sounds stupid. So everybody's answer's gonna be a little bit different. You're not gonna use the exact same words. They're gonna be in your style and your cadence, of course.

[40:01] But everybody's gonna give essentially the same answer to these questions. Then we're gonna do a next question, next question, next question. Maybe the first meeting will have four questions that we have the answers to.

[40:11] We're gonna put it on a document, maybe like a shared Google doc. Everyone's gonna have access to it. Then we're gonna have another meeting. A month later, we're gonna do four more questions. Maybe four more questions in the next month.

[40:21] We can review the old questions. Finally, we're gonna get through all of our frequently asked questions and your practice, congratulations, is now calibrated. Yes, it's so great when you do this. And I highly recommend the one thing

[40:34] that makes every team meeting better and that is, of course, pizza. You gotta bring a pizza to team meetings, right? I'm kind of a team meeting without that. There's another kind of calibration too. I'll spend 30 seconds on it.

[40:45] Clinical calibration, every single member of the dental practice team, even people that are not on the clinical team, should know the answer to questions like, when do we recommend scaling a root planning instead of just a cleaning?

[40:57] When do we do endo and house versus when do we refer to an endo and bounce? When do we do a restoration? And when do we do a crown? This is crucially important. Just as important as being calibrated,

[41:08] being clinically calibrated. So find some time to do that in a team meeting as well. And I think you will find this will really help with your treatment plan acceptance too, because when dental assistants, dental hygienists, whatever, clinical team members

[41:19] really understand the calibration of the practice why we're doing this treatment and why we're doing it. It's always in the patient's best interest, but it also helps with the treatment plan acceptance. Cause let's face it,

[41:29] the best treatment is often the most expensive treatment and we've got to really understand why we're doing this. We're not doing it to increase our practice income. We're doing it for the best health of the patient and the best health of the patient often will increase our practice income.

[41:40] So that's a win-win. So let's calibrate our practices in both ways. Okay, dumb thing number six. Not using what I call specialized professionals. I love taking pictures of goofy signs. This one, I just cannot believe this.

[41:59] Drove by a Chinese restaurant in the Pagoda Inn. Chinese restaurant, we also do tree removal and web design. And then my favorite part, try the Lomain. This could be like one of the greatest signs of all time. Now, I don't know about you.

[42:12] I probably would have tried their Lomain if it weren't for this. I'm certainly not having the Pagoda Inn to do my tree removal and or web design. And honestly, after seeing this, I'm not so sure I want to try their Lomain either.

[42:24] You just can't do everything great, can you? So in dentistry, I call this specialized professionals. There are people, professional people who we need from time to time in our dental careers. And well, let's do some examples of specialized professionals.

[42:42] Boom, an accountant. Okay, there are great accountants out there, but you know what? There are also accountants who specialize in working with dental practices. Now, your accountant might be an expert of the tax code.

[42:55] He or she might be a math genius, but unless they are really an accountant that works all or mostly with dental professionals, they don't know those little intricate things, those little nuances that somebody who specializes in dentistry knows.

[43:10] I mean, wouldn't it be great if your accountant knew the average overhead of a dental practice could analyze your expenditures, know what staff salaries are, know what procedures, could analyze your PPO participation, all these things. An accountant who's a great accountant

[43:24] that they work with, then they've got a few clients who are restaurants, they've got a plumber, they've got a chiropractor, they've got a small business, they've got a dry cleaner. Well, again, they might be a great accountant, but there's no way in the world

[43:36] that they know as much about dental accounting as an accountant who works with all or mostly dentists. So this is an example, a specialized professional. When we need a professional in our lives, in our careers, let's work with somebody who really, really knows dentistry inside out, an attorney, an attorney.

[43:55] We don't need attorneys that many times in our professional careers, thankfully. I mean, when are you gonna need an attorney? When you're setting up your practice, when you hire an associate, doing an associate agreement, maybe you have a partnership agreement,

[44:06] a buyout agreement, all those things. These are the times in our careers when we need an attorney. And you better believe that when you do this, you better contact an attorney who really knows dentistry, who really knows what a partnership agreement should have in it,

[44:18] what a buy-in should have in it, a buyout, all these things. Make sure that you use professionals who work with dentists. A few more examples, an investment advisor. This one, does it really make sense? I mean, money is money.

[44:30] I've got a great investment advisor. They're doing pretty well with my portfolio. Well, I would say that if you can even work with an investment advisor who knows dentistry. Because again, they know the nuances, your overhead, your expenditures, your savings plan,

[44:42] maybe what you're likely to get for your practice when you do sell it. All these things are really important. Web designer. I've seen so many crummy websites. Look, I don't care how great your nephew is with computers.

[44:54] You gotta use a web design company that knows dentistry. Same thing with your SEO, your pay per click marketing, anything you do like that. Lease negotiation. Oh my, this is something dentists are so bad at. Landlords love dentists.

[45:10] Landlords just love dentists. Two reasons. Well, maybe they're more than two reasons. Two reasons I can think of that landlords love dentists. One is because, and this is a great reason, we are very stable tenants.

[45:22] Dentists very rarely go out of the business. We were the type of tenants who actually look for more space rather than go out of business. So landlords love dentists. We pay our bills on time.

[45:33] You know, we're not the kind of tenants that say, I can't get there for you next month. Can be another month. No, we're steady. We pay. We're great tenants for landlords.

[45:41] But the other reason landlords love dentists is because we don't realize there's a such thing as lease negotiation. We just see the lease. We say, okay, I guess this is a market rate. And we sign it.

[45:53] No, no, no, no, no, no. They're a professional lease negotiator. And also we think, well, I'm in this shopping center. I got this Chipotle next to me. You know, I got a convenience store a few doors down. These are huge chains.

[46:04] They've got professionals. They're getting the best rate. I'm just getting the rack rate. Not true. Lease negotiators can do the magic for you too. I know a dental lease negotiator.

[46:13] This guy, he told me that he could save an average dentist $100,000 or not. He says, there's no way he can save that much. He showed me the math. Hello for a 10 year period. He saved just a typical dentist.

[46:24] It was like a six out practice, $100,000. He got a free build out. He got several months free on the front end of the lease. He saved him money every single month that over a 10 year period. He actually saved the dentist $100,000.

[46:35] Now, do you know how much this dentist had to pay for this lease negotiation service that saved them $100,000? What do you think it cost them? I'll tell you how much it cost them. Zero, zero, zero, zero.

[46:48] The landlords have this built into their fees and their prices. The landlord's the one that winds up paying the lease negotiator. It's just magic, but that's the way it works. So we get this incredible service for free.

[47:01] Okay. One more thing. Of course, you're an embezzlement expert. I mean, if you suspect there's some kind of embezzlement in your office and you want to have the office check up,

[47:09] even if you don't suspect anything and you just go to some generic, well, I think you know where I'm going here. I'm not just doing this to thank ProsperaDef for inviting me to be on their webinar, but I know these guys are incredible.

[47:19] They've helped so many dental practices across North America. And they're definitely the people you want to go to for your office checkup, so to speak. So this is a bunch of examples of one thing, the dumb thing that smart dentist doing that

[47:33] is not using specialized professionals. All right, let's keep it rocking. Oh, one of my favorites, trying to sell dentistry. I've taken, you know, early on in my career, I took these treatment plan acceptance courses. Oh my God, it was unbelievable.

[47:49] I felt like I was learning to sell you used cars. These high pressure techniques. Now you got to throw this big sheet of paper in front of the page. You got to get them trapped in your private office and have their whole family in there

[48:00] to hear the whole thing. You got to show them the x-rays and you got to do this. And then you say, this is going to be $20,000. Yes or no. These high pressure techniques.

[48:08] And they told you these things like, okay, and then if the patient says this, you say that. Then the patient says this, you say that. I'm thinking, am I a dentist here or a high pressure salesperson? I want my patients to be comfortable with the treatment

[48:20] they're saying yes to. I don't want to have to pressure them in. So I remember one course I took. The guy's teaching us how to sell big cases. And I thought, you know, this is so high pressure. A patient comes in, why does a new patient come in?

[48:34] Typically they chip the tooth. They're having a little pain. They're overdue for their cleaning. They got new insurance. Now look, many times they do need a ton of treatment. But I feel that going for the whole big yes

[48:46] on the first day or the second day, it's like asking somebody to marry you on the first date. Maybe some crazy person is going to say yes, but it usually doesn't work. So I kind of raised my hand. I knew this guy was going to have an answer to it.

[48:57] I said, well, what happens if the patient says no? What do you do if the patient says no? And I said, well, he said, don't worry because most studies have shown that you got asked somebody 12 times before they say yes, I'm thinking like 12 times.

[49:10] How does that work? Like, would you like this treatment? No, that's okay, I got 11 more times. Would you like this treatment? No, no problem. I got 10 more times.

[49:18] Is this the treatment you want? No. And then you're like Yoda, you know, you flip it around like this treatment, do you want it? It just doesn't work. We cannot pressure patients into getting treatment.

[49:27] And if we do, and if we succeed, there's a good chance that they're going to regret it. So we've got to establish the relationship of confidence and trust, this is a huge topic, this is an hour-long topic, but I'm just going to give you my two tips.

[49:40] One comes from the great Earl Eastep, the author of one of the greatest dental books ever written, The Obvious Secret. Now this book is like from the early 70s, it's dated. A lot of it doesn't even make sense anymore, but there's so much wisdom in this book.

[49:53] And my favorite piece of wisdom from this book is when people are stressed, they stop learning. And this big shebang treatment plan presentation just flat out stresses people. So here's my obvious secret, and that is it's not about the patient saying yes

[50:11] to the treatment, it's about the patient saying yes to the practice. I like that so much, I put it in big letters here. But what does that mean exactly? It's not about the patient saying yes to the treatment, it's about the patient saying yes to the practice.

[50:23] So all we worry about is this patient needs a lot of treatment and I'm going to get them to say yes. The many times we feel like we're under the gun and we're pressuring ourselves and we're pressuring them

[50:33] and they're going to say no and run away screaming. But if our goal is to get the patient to say yes to the practice, that means we're going to be doing all of these great things to make them feel like this is the greatest dental practice

[50:50] that they've ever been to. We're going to take them back one time, we're going to make sure they're comfortable, we're going to call them at night to see how they're doing, send them a handwritten note to thank them for a referral, all these great things,

[51:00] hundreds of these great little things to make the patient know, I wouldn't go to another dental practice if you paid me. So then, well, if they need a lot of treatment, maybe they'll get it all done at once, maybe they won't. We've got to do it at the pace that's comfortable

[51:14] to the patient, but I can tell you one thing. If we worry too much about the patient saying yes to all their treatment needs at once and use these high pressure techniques, sometimes it might work, usually it won't. If we're truly worried about having the patient

[51:26] say yes to the practice where we really care about them and their comfort and getting them an excellent dental health, well, they will get the treatment and they might do it all at once, they might space it out, it doesn't matter.

[51:38] They're going to get it at the pace that's comfortable to them and they will get it done in your office, not somewhere else, because we didn't scare them away. Okay, that was number seven, wow. Something number eight, not dancing with Hoobranja. Oh man, I see this so many times.

[51:54] Dancing with Hoobranja, kind of an old Southern expression, you got to dance with Hoobranja. And it's so true, I see dentists, they're not happy with their practice, with their production, their collections, they just don't enjoy their time there,

[52:05] whatever it is, and then they get distracted in these other things, they think, oh, I'm going to invest in my cousin's brew pub and that's going to be my secondary income. Yeah, I'm going to be there until 2 a.m. every day, every night, greeting people and drinking beer

[52:17] that I'm going to get out of. It just doesn't work when we get distracted, we get involved in these crazy investment schemes or we think I'm going to join this multi-level marketing thing, and so $80 hand lotion for my dental practice.

[52:28] If I could just get five patients to do this and then they get five and then those five all get five and those five all get five, I'm going to be a multi-gazillionaire and then we get distracted or else we take these courses that teach us esoteric procedures

[52:40] that nobody really wants or my favorite or maybe it should be called least favorite destruction. Before I tell you this one, I'm going to say, I know that many dentists have been extremely successful with this. So if you have been good for you or good on you,

[52:56] as they say in Australia, but most dentists regret doing this and that is opening up a satellite office, which I don't even like that term, it was a satellite office like rotates around in the sky, maybe you can get a patient in if they can,

[53:06] I don't know, it just doesn't make sense. It instantly doubles your overhead, doubles your stress. And again, I've seen it work well for some dentists and if it works well for you, congrats. But for most dentists, it just winds up being a drain of income, stress, time

[53:22] and they wind up regretting it and selling it for pennies on the dollar. So to me, the best formula, and again, I keep clarifying this because it's not true for every dentist. But from what I've seen,

[53:32] the best formula for most dentists is one practice and it could be a multi-doctor practice, it could be a huge practice, but one practice location where you do the things that people need. People need periotreatment, they need crowns,

[53:47] they need implants, they need crowns over implants. You know, the things that people need, they need endo, my favorite appointment, endocorn crown, these are the things we're doing. We don't get distracted by these esoteric treatments that nobody really needs or wants

[54:01] just because it sounded like a fun course. So let's not get distracted, dance with who brought us and for most dentists, that's who it is. One low overhead, super successful practice doing the procedures that patients actually need. Okay, wow, this is fun.

[54:18] Let's keep it rocking. Dumb thing number nine, over-complicating patient payments and finances. Oh man, I've seen this so many times where we make a big deal out of paying. You know, somebody asked me recently,

[54:32] they said, hey, Dr. Rich, I want you to look at my office financial policy. And I said, sure, send it over. Just send over this document that looks just like the document you're seeing in this picture. I mean, it was electronic, of course.

[54:43] It was like a 30 page document and then at the very end it has a space for the patient's signature. I'm thinking, are you out of your mind? First of all, why is this so complicated that it takes 30 pages? Secondly, nobody's gonna read this.

[54:56] I'm not reading it. You probably didn't read it. A patient's certainly not gonna read this. They might sign it, but they're not gonna read it. So what good is that? What are you just getting like back up

[55:04] for in case you have to take them to court? Or you signed our financial policy. That's ridiculous. The whole thing was ridiculous. I'll tell you my financial policy, pay. You gotta pay.

[55:14] That's my financial policy. We don't give treatment away here. If you want the great treatment that this practice offers, you gotta pay for it. Just like you gotta pay for your groceries. Just like you can't walk into a store

[55:26] and pull out a big screen TV. You can't go on the best find. So I'm gonna take this TV now. Oh yeah, you can just bill me for it. No, you gotta pay for your treatment. That's my financial policy.

[55:37] And you gotta pay for it before it starts or the day that it starts. So it's just simple. Why are we complicating things? If you're offering all these crazy things that make a 30 page financial policy necessary,

[55:48] I just don't get it. So let's have great payment arrangements for our patients. Obviously, we'll let them pay cash or check which nobody uses cash or check anymore. But for some reason, we need to make that available in our practice.

[56:00] Credit cards, yes. If they charge them on their Visa card, MasterCard, America Express. I even give a discount from a rack rate if somebody wants to do that. Because look, the money goes into our account.

[56:09] If they want to take five years to pay Visa and pay those exorbitant interest rates, it's not a great financial policy for that patient. But it's not our problem. It's not our issue. We've been paid.

[56:20] If they want to slow it down with Visa or MasterCard, that's why those companies exist. Of course, we need to offer outside financing. It's a must. My favorite company is Care Credit. But I've seen so many people use Care Credit

[56:33] improperly in their practice. And that is something like they talk to the patient about paying for the treatment. And then they start saying, oh, well, we've got another option. It's called Care Credit.

[56:41] It's an outside financing company. All you need to do is fill this application. Of course, they're gonna ask all these crazy questions about your job and your income and your bankruptcies and the time you were in prison and this and that. And then if they do approve you,

[56:52] well, if they don't approve you, a loser will be making fun. And then you're scaring the patient away. Let's tell you my presentation for Care Credit. It takes like 10 seconds. Let's just say that you need $2,400 for the treatment.

[57:02] And you say, well, I don't want to do cash, check your credit card, just look the patient from right in the eye. And you say, Jane, we've got a great option for you. It's 12 months, interest-free, which will make your payment $200 per month.

[57:15] Is that something you'd like to take advantage of? Boom, 10 seconds. And they always say yes. And then ask your Care Credit rep for this. I don't even know what it's called. I just call it the green sheet.

[57:24] Your Care Credit rep has the sheet. This sheet is incredible. It lays out all the different options, even though Care Credit does this for you, it's not only offering Care Credit, it offers, it talks about cash, check, credit card.

[57:35] And then, as you can see at the bottom, whoops, the different options if you pay it out over time, six months, 12 months, 18 months, 24 months. Once they say yes, I'd like to find out about the option of paying it off over time. Hand in the sheet, it explains everything.

[57:47] You can go through it with them line by line. It never gets complicated. Boom, they can scan that QR code. And I think, boom, that just sets off their application. They can do it right in your office. Then the money's in your bank account

[57:58] before the birth, even it's the two, that that patient gets in their car and drives over the Mexican border so they don't have to pay Care Credit back. It's not your problem. Leave it up to the professionals.

[58:08] And please, whatever you do, don't say, well, I do that, but if somebody's not accepted by Care Credit, then I'll let them pay me off. And if that don't pay, I'll just consider charity. No, don't do that. That's not charity.

[58:21] Somebody's ripping you off if you do that. I love charity. In my office, I always did charity dentistry. I would always select two patients at a time and we would do completely free dentistry on them. And that was my choice.

[58:33] And they were the recipients of charity. And my team loved it and we bonded over it, celebrated it and it was great. A patient not paying you and then you calling it charity, that's being a schmuck. That's getting ripped off.

[58:45] So please don't do that. That's dumb thing, number nine. Wow, we're just about ready for dumping number 10. I feel like we just started. So again, we're gonna be doing some Q and A. There's my contact info.

[58:55] I'd love to hear from you. My personal email address is rich at matto.com. I answer all my emails. That's our website, matto.com. Phone number if you wanna call. Talk to one of our great team members

[59:05] and we'll talk to you about anything. Of course, we'd love to talk to you about how we can help improve your practice. We'll talk to you about anything. So, okay, dumping number 10. Probably the most important one

[59:16] is having a negative happiness equation. This is the dumbest thing in dentistry. This means that we don't really like being in our dental offices, but we kind of figure well, I gotta work because I gotta work to get that money so I can go have fun on the weekends

[59:32] and take nice vacations. So for most of my life, four to five days per week, most of my waking life, I'm gonna be miserable in my dental practice just like an attempt to have fun on the weekends or on vacations.

[59:44] And then you know what happens. Sunday night rolls around, you get the Sunday night blues. Oh, you start feeling sick in your stomach. Oh, I gotta go to the dental office tomorrow. My team hates me and my patients hate me and I hate dentistry.

[59:53] It's a horrible way to live. We cannot have a negative happiness equation. We spend so much time in our offices, so much time with our team. I'm not saying every day is gonna be the best day of your life,

[1:00:03] but you absolutely should enjoy your time in the dental office or else it's just not worth it. I don't care how much money you're making. I don't care how successful you look on the outside. If you've got to go in

[1:00:12] and dread going into your practice most days or every day, it's not a good way to live. And so much of this is about the doctor and team relationship. Our teams are like our business families.

[1:00:24] We spend so much time with our teams. We all really, really need to enjoy to each other's company. So I'm just gonna give a few tips. Is this the solution? Absolutely not.

[1:00:33] Some people need years of therapy to get over this. I certainly can't provide that for you, but I can give you a few tips on how to get along better with your team and just make the office a more pleasant place for your team and your patients,

[1:00:44] especially the last part of the tips I'm gonna give for the negative happiness equation. So simple things to do with your team to overcome the negative happiness equation. One, the simplest thing ever. I did this every single day in my dental practice.

[1:00:58] Doctor, when you walk into the morning, greet every single team member with a big sincere smile and hello and a little chitchat. Hey, how was your night? Did you see the Orioles game?

[1:01:08] You know, whatever it is, just, I mean, it bubbles my mind that most dentists don't do this, but I know most don't. And then at the end of the day, say a definitive good night or goodbye to everybody and actually thank them for being there.

[1:01:23] We need to make our team members feel so appreciated. This goes such a lot. When I first had my first associate job, I noticed all these systems kind of like working with me. I couldn't figure out why. I was certainly not a good dentist yet.

[1:01:35] I didn't know what I was doing yet. I was just out of residency. And they said, I'm so nice to them. I said goodbye and I said hello every single morning. That's all it took to get them to a bottom of me. Pretty simple stuff and they deserve it.

[1:01:46] Okay. It drives me crazy when I'm in a dental office and the dentist or team member, but the dentist comes in at the same time or a minute before or a minute after the first patient is scheduled.

[1:02:00] This is a guaranteed way to start your day in chaos and never catch up. Everybody needs to be there. I think 45 minutes for the first patient. Well-organized huddle, 30 minutes before. Now the huddle doesn't have to be a horrible business meeting.

[1:02:13] It can be very light. You can just point out a few things about your patients, tell a couple of stories, get the team together. Everybody's on the same page before we start. We know where we're gonna put emergencies. We know who has that standing treatment,

[1:02:24] which kind of regroup for our day. If you don't do this, your day is chaos. Coming in at the same time as the first patient, unacceptable. Please don't do that. An atmosphere of respect and appreciation.

[1:02:37] We all need to appreciate each other. No gossips, no queen bees, no backstabbing. It's just not a way to live. Take it a step further. I call this the politeness strategy. And this means, and it's gonna sound a little goofy,

[1:02:50] I'll admit. The politeness strategy means that we never say anything about anyone, whether it's a patient, a fellow team member, a doctor, a vendor, whatever it is. We never say anything about anyone

[1:03:01] that we wouldn't say if they were standing right there in front of us. Example, Mrs. Smith, no shows for the third time. We all wanna run into the break room, we're standing in the front room and say, that idiot, she's such a moron.

[1:03:14] We confirmed her three times and now we've got an hour and nothing to do. What a jerk. Please don't, it just brings up negativity. So you know what, Mrs. Smith, what would you say if she were right there?

[1:03:27] Mrs. Smith, no shows for the third time. Maybe she doesn't truly understand the importance of these appointments. We didn't do a good enough job explaining it to her. I'll tell you what, from now on, we're gonna put her on the VIP list.

[1:03:37] So when we have an opening, same day, we'll call her that way. It'll be comfortable for her. It won't wreck our schedule. Everybody will be happy. So easy to do.

[1:03:46] It's just, I know it's fun to say negative things about people and get sarcastic, but it just brings the mood down and the down office. So never say anything about anyone that you wouldn't say if they were standing right there in front of you.

[1:03:59] And now, oh, blame a system, not a person, of course. If you have the right systems and protocols in place, when something goes bad, you're not pointing fingers, you're saying, let's review our system. Let's refine our system. Let's get rid of the system and make a new one.

[1:04:13] Whatever it is, we're blaming the systems. Not being, of course, if you've got a team member that just cannot follow a system time after time after time and after training and talks with them, well, maybe that person's not the right person for your office.

[1:04:24] But in general, if you've got great systems and protocols, it will make your office run more smoothly and your team will perform better. And now my favorite thing to overcome the negative happiness equation is, and we're gonna end on this, and then I guess I'll hand it back over

[1:04:37] to the prosperity team. I call this the seating chart rule. Let me explain what that is. Many years ago, we were having our annual holiday dinner and David, David Matto is my brother and my partner in the Matto Center.

[1:04:51] We were having our annual holiday dinner. We had about 16 team members that time. So we're having a big fancy steakhouse downtown and David and I get there really early. One reason is, it's always good to be early, as we say, if you're not early or late,

[1:05:02] so I really believe that, but I have to admit, one of the reasons we got there early was to put down place cards for everyone. So we've got this big oval table that holds 16 people and we're putting down place cards. Why are we putting down place cards?

[1:05:15] Is it because we're doing a special menu for each person? We've got prizes. No, I hate to admit it. We're putting down the place cards because we're saying to ourselves, well, let's see. We can't put Ashley next to Lorraine

[1:05:29] because they hate each other. So that would be horrible. We can't put Jay next to Donna because they're just gonna be gossiping and whispering the whole time and backstabbing it. Hell, if I'm sitting next to Linda and we're ranked

[1:05:37] and then we put out all these place cards and we looked at ourselves and thought, this is ridiculous. Why do we have a team of 16 people at us where we're not all getting along but we're afraid to put two people next to each other because they don't like each other

[1:05:51] or because they'll gossip too much or there's a member of our team we don't even want to sit next to them. You know what? They probably don't want to sit next to us. We're sure the feeling goes to mutual.

[1:05:58] That's ridiculous. This is where we go every day for work. This is no way to live. I said, our goal is when we have our next holiday dinner, one year from now, we will not need a seating chart. And did that mean that some people

[1:06:12] had to have a really frank talk about how to get their act together or they weren't gonna be employed at our office anymore? Yes, unfortunately, it didn't mean that. Did it mean that a few people didn't make it through the year and were handed their walking papers?

[1:06:23] I'm sorry to say, yes, it didn't mean that. But what it really meant most of all is that when we hired new team members, if they didn't pass the seating chart rule, which meant if we didn't feel like we could sit next to them at the holiday dinner

[1:06:36] and enjoy ourselves and every other member of the team could too warrant the right fit for our office. I don't care how talented, how smart, how clinically capable they were, whatever it is. If they didn't pass the seating chart rule, they would not be a member of our team.

[1:06:50] And I gotta tell you, this changed everything. So if you need to abide by the seating chart, then it's a formula for the negative happiness equation. Make sure that every person in your practice, on your team, and new hires included, meets the criteria of the seating chart rule.

[1:07:08] Wow, that is 10 dumb things that smart dentists do. And I think I'm gonna, do I need to stop my screen share, team prosperity or not? No, I'll just take it over in a second. I'll just give people another minute, Rich, to see your contact information

[1:07:26] in case they didn't get it earlier. Great, well, I hope everybody sticks around for the Q&A, but I just wanna say, even before then, it is really an honor to do this. I'm so glad you invited me. And I know that it's a, what night is it?

[1:07:40] It's a Thursday night. There are probably other fun things you can beat. Yep, I don't even know what night it is. That's how excited I am. I know there are probably some other good things that you could be doing and fun things.

[1:07:49] I really, truly do appreciate that you chose to spend this time with us. And it does mean a lot to me. I hope you learned something. I hope you enjoyed yourself and I hope you stick around for the next few minutes too.

[1:07:58] But I just really wanted to thank the gang of Prospera and the two from inviting me. It's an honor and I hope I lived up to your expectations. Rich, that was absolutely fabulous. I was just taking pages of notes as you talked and I don't know about my co-panelists,

[1:08:14] but I just love his delivery. I mean, the slides, the way you're standing in front of the slides, to me, it all just works so well. So thank you very much for coming. I want to tell the audience something

[1:08:28] that we didn't mention before. We got a note yesterday from Rich saying, I tested positive for COVID. At this point, everybody's just backing up a little bit from their screens in case it's transmissible electronically. Rich tested positive and Shiloh Driscoll

[1:08:48] who's kind of the producer of these webinars, Shiloh went back to Rich and said, we can postpone if you want. And he said, no, I really want to do it. And Rich, I cannot believe the energy that you brought to that presentation

[1:09:03] given how I'm sure you're feeling. So we all... I wasn't going to bring it up because I'm not feeling great but it's still, I love doing this and I did not want to postpone, so. No, and anyway, we really appreciate you

[1:09:19] clearly going that extra mile for us and the audience. We'll get into Q and A in one second. The only thing we want to mention to our audience and most of them know this already anyway is what does Prosperident do for people? And I'm going to go back to something Rich said

[1:09:36] about when you hire an expert, hire a real expert and don't confuse somebody who knows a little bit more than you do with an absolute expert. Prosperident really does a couple of important things for people. The first thing we do is we help practices

[1:09:52] put systems in place to protect them. And Amber Weber Gonzalez, who I mentioned is celebrating her fourth anniversary with us this week. She was recently appointed to head what's called our Proactive Services Department. And this is the group who do this with people.

[1:10:11] And if you have any questions, if you think your practice systems aren't what they should be, we'd love to talk to you. And the second thing is if you've confirmed embezzlement or you think it might be happening or you're just not sure, we investigate

[1:10:27] and we do it in a stealthy way. And what I mean by stealthy is that your staff have absolutely no idea that an investigation is taking place. And we're not going to get into a whole lot of details there tonight.

[1:10:40] But if you have questions again, we'd be happy to field them for you. If you want to reach us, there's how you do it. And you'll see some of our team on that screen. Before we start on the questions, Wendy, Amber, Sheila, anything you ladies want to add?

[1:10:59] So I want to add a comment. I love this section of the Beatles, okay? And I love their sign because when you were talking about new patient versus older patients leaving and trying to keep your patients with you, that sign said, I pray you'll stay here forever.

[1:11:14] And I thought, well, how do you get your team members to treat your patients like that? You need to have that Beatles sign as like your image in your office saying, I pray you'll stay here forever for team members and patients.

[1:11:25] So I love that portion of your presentation. And I thought it really was a good takeaway for dental people to look at and pay attention to. Well, thanks. Yeah. All right.

[1:11:40] And somebody just made a wonderful comment, Rich. They said, one of the best webinars they've seen since the world went to Zoom. Well, I feel like I'm not on the video. Can you guys see me? Cause I can't see me on my screen.

[1:11:54] I can see you. Yep, perfectly. Okay. I hope I look okay. I saw a very nice comment from Linda Miles which was so flattering.

[1:12:03] I feel like that's kind of like if Paul McCartney saw my band and gave me a compliment. So that really commenced a lot to hear something nice from Linda Miles. Linda, thanks so much. I miss you.

[1:12:13] Yeah. She was our guest last webinar and it was a wonderful event. And I think we've had a couple of great ones. So why don't we get to questions? And I'll mention one early on

[1:12:29] and we have somebody who asked several questions and one of them was, what is SEO? And I gave her a quick answer, Rich, but I don't know if you want to expand on that a little bit for her. Because it's kind of an-

[1:12:40] What is SEO? SEO, yeah. You had mentioned it in terms of hiring experts and she just came back and said, okay, what is that? Yeah, great question. Now I'll start this by saying I'm not an SEO expert,

[1:12:51] but I can explain what it is. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization which simply means that these days when somebody wants to find a dentist, most people will go and Google or the search engine of their choice

[1:13:03] and type in dentists near me or cosmetic dentist Nova Scotia or whatever it is. And of course Google has their fancy algorithms that nobody knows, they're all sworn to secrecy, but there's a methodology Google uses to say what dentist office is gonna come up

[1:13:18] with the first listing in the geography pack on the first page. And then some dentists, it could be the best dentist in town, but they come up 12 pages later. So this field is called Search Engine Optimization

[1:13:29] and there are companies that know the tricks of the trade, what you need to do so the Google likes you better. And Google doesn't know you personally, they don't know if you're a good dentist or not, but they do have their algorithm

[1:13:41] and people can help you say, okay, and again, I'm not an expert on this, but this is what you need to do. This is your strategy. Do this and over the next couple of months when somebody searches for cosmetic dentist,

[1:13:53] your talent, whatever, your name will come up high up on the Google search. That's kind of my simple lay person definition of search engine optimization, which is different than PPC, which is pay per click. And that is being on an ad during Google.

[1:14:09] Search engine optimization brings you up in what we might call an organic way where it doesn't come up as an ad just as a typical Google listing. Yeah, exactly. And it gets very technical.

[1:14:21] One of the things, for example, is if you have a picture on your website, whether it's your picture or a picture of your team or somebody who is a model, but you're pretending as your patient, whatever it is,

[1:14:35] one of the things that Google looks for is what's called an alt text. In other words, they want a text line as well as the picture. And if you have pictures and you don't have that alt text,

[1:14:46] then Google penalizes you. So it gets incredibly technical. And I think Rich and I are really saying the same thing. This is not a job for your nephew who's quote good with computers. This is a very specialized skill.

[1:15:03] I hear that line all the time. It just cracks me up. Oh, my nephew is going with computers. He's taking care of this one. And also another thing Google loves is a lot of reviews, not just, you know, five store reviews are good,

[1:15:14] but if you have five of them, Google doesn't necessarily love that, but if you have hundreds, they will love that. And we can actually help you with that. So anybody that wants more information on that, just shoot me an email.

[1:15:22] But as David said, there's a huge formula. Nobody knows it exactly. I think not even Google knows it exactly, but an SCL expert can help you with it. And thanks for that question. That's a great question.

[1:15:36] And there's one more thing I'll mention too. On the subject of those reviews, if you've enjoyed tonight, we would really appreciate a five-star review from you. There's an email going out to you fairly soon that we'll have a box you can click to leave a review.

[1:15:49] So if you enjoyed hearing Rich the way I think we did, we'd appreciate a review from you. There, see? How's that for a segue, Rich? Unbelievable. All right.

[1:16:02] Wendy Ember, any other questions that we wanna put to our esteemed guests? Yes. Can I go first, Ember? Yes, go, go. Okay.

[1:16:14] These are two questions concerning financial policies that you were speaking of. Number one, Victor wants to know, have you ever had a patient complain about getting caught up in care credits, high interest rates?

[1:16:30] That's question number one. And then question number two is what is your opinion on charging patients or passing on the merchant fees when they use like a care credit or a credit card? Right, those are both great questions.

[1:16:48] So question A, have I ever had a patient, has there ever been anything that a patient hasn't complained about? You know, sure. Patients have complained about care credit. And my personal opinion is care credit's a great deal.

[1:17:02] They've been doing 12 months. And I think they have some programs, don't quote me on this, ask your care credit rep, that are 18 months interest-free. And look, this is the way of the world.

[1:17:10] If you agree to use care credit and you don't make your payments, yes, they're gonna charge you a high interest rate afterwards. I mean, that's what you signed up for, dude. So that's, you know,

[1:17:21] have a few people complain about it in the course of my career? Sure, they've complained about everything in the course of my career. But I wouldn't let that stop you from using it because I think care credit's an incredible tool.

[1:17:31] And patients say yes to treatment so much more when they're given the choices of these great financial tools like care credit. So I hope that was a satisfying answer. I think there's a general, you know, an answer to everything in life almost.

[1:17:45] No matter what you do, someone's gonna complain about it. Look, I've had people complain that they've attended my seminars and they thought that I was too rowdy or goofy or whatever.

[1:17:55] I'm not gonna change my style for that 1% of the people that don't like me. They can go to another seminar. So yes, interest rates are high. Apparently they're about to get higher. But you know what?

[1:18:05] That's the way of the world. And I wouldn't worry about complaints from a few patients. I think I've gotten so much treatment out of using care credit that I wouldn't have gotten. And 99% of the time, that means a happy patient with a great smile

[1:18:17] who was able to find the answer that wouldn't have been able to. So that's my answer to that. And I really appreciate that good question. Part B of that, I am not a fan of passing along credit card fees

[1:18:33] or care credit fees to the patient. I gotta tell you, it ticks me off if I'm at a gas station, they have a cash price and a credit card price. I can't stand it when any kind of merchant charges more for credit cards.

[1:18:44] I see them as just being cheapskates who don't understand the cost of the business. It pisses me off. I don't like it. Never do it in my practice. But here's the other thing I'll say about that.

[1:18:55] What do you pay in a credit card company? A few percent, two percent, three percent. I can help you with that as well too, if you wanna send me an email, how to pay your credit card company less. See, I've got an answer to everything.

[1:19:05] But 3%, 10% maybe the interest-free finance from care credit, I will pay that all day long and all night long to have the money in my bank account. No repercussions. If the patient doesn't pay visa,

[1:19:19] master card care credit, not my problem. I will pay that little bit of juice all day and all night long to have a patient be able to get their treatment in a way that's affordable to them. And I'll just, Wendy, if I could, I'll pick up one thing that somebody mentioned in the chat

[1:19:36] that I was gonna mention anyway. And thank you, Angela. With most merchant service companies, the agreement you sign with them actually prevents you from passing their fees through. In other words, when you sign on

[1:19:49] with most merchant service companies, and these are the companies that process credit card payments for you, they require you to agree that you will not charge people paying credit cards more. So if you do have that surcharge,

[1:20:01] probably you're breaking the rules of your merchant agreement. Great point, great point. I wouldn't do it anyway. Yeah, agree. To me, it goes back to that Google SEO thing, right?

[1:20:16] I mean, you start doing that, patients will start talking and then you're gonna see those bad reviews. Oh, they charge me a fee, which that goes to the question that I have that one of our attendees asked

[1:20:27] is we were talking about the online reviews. How do you get rid of negative online reviews? Do you have a tip for that? Yes, there's one way to get rid of negative online reviews, get more positive reviews. I've seen people go crazy over negative review.

[1:20:44] And I think you get a negative review, I've seen people get into, I don't know if I'm allowed to use slightly foul language on here, but we call them pissing contests with a patient saying, oh, this is not what happened. And then the patient says, oh, it is what happened,

[1:20:58] you're a jerk and they're going back and forth. It makes everybody look bad. You get a negative review, ignore it, and make it your goal to get more and more and more positive reviews so that negative review drops to the bottom.

[1:21:09] And I'll tell you something else. If you see a practice or business or product on Amazon, whatever it is, and all they have is five-star reviews, to me, it looks fake. So you want everything to look really real.

[1:21:19] So I would say if you get a negative review, take a deep breath, don't sweat it. If you want to contact, if you're so compelled to leave a comment, just say something generic, like I'm so sorry that you felt you had a negative experience,

[1:21:33] someone from my team will be reaching out to you to discuss. Just something like don't get into an argument. And again, the key is to get more and more positive reviews so that negative review looks bad. I've seen dentists contact lawyers,

[1:21:43] to sue people, you can't do it. There's freedom of speech. I mean, it's just not worth it. It's not worth your time, your energy, your stress level. Get more good reviews and move on. Now, if you're getting a lot of negative reviews,

[1:21:54] then I think you have to look deep inside and say, what am I doing in my practice to generate these negative reviews? If you're getting a lot, don't just brush it off. But then we're talking about a different issue which is improving your practice.

[1:22:05] Generally, that's not the case though. Wow, Rich, this has been so great. And I can't believe that the time has flown and we're at the end. Again, oh no, I wanna thank our on-camera folks, Wendy, Amber and Sheila, who as I mentioned,

[1:22:25] is our producer. And I really wanna thank Dr. Rich Maddow for delivering a great high energy presentation with full of valuable information at a time when he wasn't feeling well. And I think once we end this in about 30 seconds,

[1:22:41] he's probably gonna go collapse on the couch somewhere. But Rich, thank you so much. I just cannot believe the mental discipline you had to do this feeling as you are. I'd also like to thank our audience very much for being with us.

[1:22:56] You guys are always great. We are gonna be taking a break for the summer months. We will be back and we don't have the date yet, but we have a couple of guests who are really gonna rock your socks in the fall. We'll let you know when that is.

[1:23:11] And we really appreciate having all of you and our audience. If you know somebody who wanted to see this live and couldn't, we'll have it up on our website probably by about 2 p.m. Eastern tomorrow. So thank you all again and have a great night.

[1:23:28] Bye everyone. Bye. Thanks for listening to the Dental Practice Owners Podcast brought to you by Prosperident. You can contact Prosperident through its website, www.prosperident.com

[1:23:44] or by calling 888-398-2327. If you have questions about this podcast, if you would like to discuss your practice or there is a topic you would like to see in a future podcast, we would love to hear from you. Amber, Wendy and David will be back soon

[1:24:00] with another episode.