The 4 Pillars of Practice Growth – Part 2

Transcript performed by A.I. Please excuse the typos.
00:00
This is Dental All-Stars, where we bring you the best in dentistry on marketing, management and training.

00:12
leadership, if you don’t have self belief that you can be a leader, you won’t be. And so the first thing we always start with is where is your mindset? Do you have a champion mindset? Are you being distracted by your inner critic too much? Are you approval addicted, fear of rejection? All of it’s been called a lot of things. So the first thing we have to do is master that first. So mindset always comes first. Then we work on emotional intelligence training, and then we then put it into a systematic process and go, okay, five levels of leadership from John Maxwell.

00:39
How does this apply to each of my team members? know Shelley loves that part of it. it’s like, I’m actually evaluating with every one of my team members. What level am I on with them? Have I reached through, for me, it’s level four, personal development. Have I gotten there? So without going into extreme detail, those are the three things I’d say that jump out at me right away. Welcome to Dental All-Stars. I’m Alex Nottingham, founder and CEO of All-Stars Dental Academy. And with me is Eric Vickery, Shelley Van Epps, the president of coaching. That is Eric Vickery, the COO. oh

01:09
is Shelley Van Epps and we’re back. We’re talking about the four pillars of practice growth part do part two in the last set. Welcome guys. Thank you. Yes. So in the last one, good to be here. Last one we talked about culture and leadership. That was a fun one. And now we’re trying to remember that right now. I’m trying to remember. Oh, that’s right. Yeah. And yeah. Culture and leadership.

01:37
And now we’re talking about systems and communication. And just upfront, these four pillars are something that we focus on every year in our May event, the All-Star Growth Summit. And you can learn more about that at allstargeneralacademy.com and then click the button events right at the top. And you can learn about the Growth Summit, which is our main big hurrah event. We also have leadership every January, leadership retreat. We have mastermind meeting in October, November.

02:07
We have intensive speaker training. Uh, we have case acceptance and leadership and so on. So all that’s there for you to browse, but we’re talking about the core of the core. These are the four pillars. We have the online training program. have our self-funding coaching, but then there are things that we want to touch on that we just don’t have time to do in the, coaching. We don’t have time in the online, the online is phone skills, scheduling, uh, case acceptance.

02:35
And we’re, we’re, and we do it that way every time, but there’s new information that comes out. There’s also different ways of saying it that inspire us. And so we want to be able to do that. That’s what we do at the growth summit. Hence the word growth. That’s important because we’re all about personal and business or professional and Shelley’s words growth. If you’re not growing, you’re declining. Right. I was just thinking that I just type that. uh

03:04
I’m gonna cite it and you’re only as effective as you can communicate I just took your thunder as we’re talking about communication, but that is Eric’s line He says it every time when he’s speaking He is our MC at this event and all of the also dental Academy team is speaking and we have great guests in dentistry that support this but the idea is look as I mentioned the first podcast You want a predictable experience? You want to be able to go every time to a place? Let’s say all-star gross summit, which is a safe place

03:33
There’s not selling or not pitching. It’s none of that nonsense. It is an event that is, you’re gonna learn a lot, great content, makes our COO very happy. Great experience, inspiration, and to make our president of coaching very happy. So that’s what it’s all about. And it’s fraternity, it’s comradery, and this is something.

03:56
that we are maniacal. are focused on reproducing every year with a similar great experience. And that is what it’s about. Now, in the time this is recording, we do it and we’ve been, set a culture of doing this every year. It’s in Fort Lauderdale on the beach. We’ve got a private resort on the beach. Who doesn’t want to go there, right? And to enjoy and learn. So that’s that’s the gross summary. So I wanted you to hear that.

04:26
what our purpose is, what our goal is, what we are and what we’re not. If you’re looking for flashy, if you’re looking for excessive rah rah, not for you. We’ll have some rah rah. If you’re looking for content, that’s great, but if you’re looking for boring content and all day long learning, let’s go to the clinical thing. This is a balance. The better as a human being you become, the better your practice will be. now, we did culture, we did leadership. We’re gonna systems. Systems.

04:56
Systems and communication. Systems and communication, yes. Mike Casting has clicked in already. Okay. I love it. Yeah. Systems and communication. Yeah. Systems and communication. think sometimes we forget that communication can be systematized. So again, these two are forever intertwined together. And Dale Carnegie said, where does our success come from? 15 % technical skills, your ability to be a dentist, a hygienist, okay. But 85 % of your success comes from your people skills.

05:25
We need to systematize that because Deming said 94 % of success is in your system. So we know that those two things are intertwined forever. So how can we do this in a way to make people understand? We’re so focused on, if you think about that 85 % of success is systems, and I’m gonna go become a master clinician. I’m gonna be a level 10 clinician. And then we find out that you’re a level five communicator. Well, where does your patient perceive your clinical expertise? Way down here beneath your ability to communicate that.

05:54
So we’ve not only have to be a level 10 clinician, foundational success, 15%, but we’ve got to be a level 10 communicator. So that means we have to make communications your systems. And we know that James Clear, we love his quote, he says that you don’t rise the level of your goals, you fall to level of your systems. So when we are teaching a verbal skill system, let’s say case presentation formula, and we hear it and we love that. And when our team room, it’s a magic room and

06:24
We’re in coaching session, but we don’t write it down. We don’t put a leader to it. We don’t put action to it. Guess what happens 30 days later when you have a coaching session, they go, well, oh yeah, I remember some of those words. You have to systematize it. And Alex says all the time, repetition, something about mastering your skill. Mother of skill. I just wanted to mess it up for you. Since you spoiled mine Earl. I know you nail them. All right. So we have to recognize this.

06:54
Systems, yes, could be ideal day scheduling, financial arrangements, huddles, team meeting, all of that is important, but also think that your communication skills have to be systematized, like your clinical skills are. You go through a course, you get your setups, and you know what steps you go through, and it has to be done a certain way, and then you get your 10,000 hours in it, and you become an expert. Same thing with your verbal skills, because how are you gonna earn the right to do the dentistry you wanna do if you can’t communicate it effectively with your patients?

07:23
Notice you when you refer to things I need to clarify because not everybody knows what you’re talking about when you say 10,000 hours You’re referring to Malcolm Gladwell. Is it uh in his book outliers? Where he’s talking about being great at something is you’re putting the time into and that those that are successful Luck is preparation meets opportunities. So those who are successful put in the time and then an opportunity arose and they took advantage of it

07:53
Essentially. Yeah. Correct. Thank you for clarifying Alex. I know you know this. I just want to make sure that those are looking at like, what do mean 10,000 hours? I’m not putting no $10,000, $10,000, $10,000 hours. Like what is it? $10,000 in 10,000 hours. That’s a lot of hours. And here’s what, here’s what I’d say. If, if we say something on here and you don’t know what it is, please reach out to us because we want to help you. And, and if there’s something that we say that we don’t communicate well, just ask us to say, Hey, you said this on there. What does that mean? And.

08:22
We have a great team that’s willing to jump on a, on a phone call, zoom, text message, email with you and figure things out. yeah, thank you for something pretty cool behind the curtain is that you guys, mean, you know, I’m talking about you too, Heather, uh, Robin, you know, our entire leadership team, like you guys are so generous. You so want people to be happy and to be successful sometimes more than they want it. Uh, and, uh,

08:51
Again, I have to protect you from your generosity. Like, reach out. You should. You should. I’m just saying that my job is to be the Scrooge in the room. Like, no, no, no. Don’t do that. No. Stop it. Stop sharing. No. You know, and you guys are so generous. So it’s a good balance. I’ll be the bad guy, and you guys are the good guys, right? And so it’s just nice that we have it. I thought we were doing bad cop, bad cop. I didn’t realize we were doing bad No, we didn’t realize that. Okay.

09:21
I’ll be the bad guy. That’s okay. I’m the bald guy. So I’ll be the bad guy. We’re always the bad guy. We’re always the villains. yeah. Now something I noticed is this, this is, this occurred to me, uh aspiration and then next step is action. So I noticed something in our little pillars here. So leadership is kind of aspirational in a sense, right? But to make it into action, we, there’s culture. So leadership, we talked about this in part one.

09:50
Leadership and culture that relationship. So it’s kind of cool. I’m looking how we put them together. Shelly ordered them nicely. then communication is aspirational in a sense, right? There’s these ways that we’re discussing these tactics, but then we systematize communication where they become action. So some of these topics, this is a little thing that has occurred. You may like it. You may say this is nonsense and we don’t do with it, or you say, but at least I have it on recording that I thought of it. Now, but. uh

10:17
My point is, is that, is that we have this like left brain, right brain kind of mentality, this whole being process that you want to learn some skills and then put it, you want to have some creativity and then put it into action. And so we have this play. So systems and communication. So, and also it’s kind of cool as I look at both of you, you’re like the fire and water, right? So Eric and know Shelley loves leadership, but when you talk about Eric is, does a lot of the leadership training, Shelley helps make it into action culture. Uh, Eric,

10:47
She teaches a lot about communication. know Shelly’s amazing at that, but she then wants to systematize it. I had a fight with Shelly for about a year that you’re a great manager. She I’m not a manager, I’m a leader. But now she’s like, I am the manager. am the COO. CEO? No, COO, whatever. She’s on my job. So Shelly, tell me about, we heard from Eric’s perspective about systems and communication. What’s your perspective on that topic?

11:14
He nailed it and I would add that it also helps with the clarity of expectations, creates excellent execution. So if I hire somebody and I say answer the phone and that’s my directive and I’m looking at it like your job is to answer the phone and that’s as far as I go. I don’t go any deeper into the great call process or how we have the phone answered or anything like that. If they pick up the phone and they say hello, they did their job. They are successful.

11:44
because we did not give them clarity of expectation. So those systems really need to be there for your team to be successful and for you to help them to be accountable to those systems. If you’re not clear, how are you supposed to hold them accountable? And then your culture starts to crumble because you’re just letting team members get away with whatever they want to do. Sally’s doing this and Betty’s doing that. Well, neither of them had clarity of expectation.

12:12
And so it’s very difficult to hold them accountable. And so they do all intertwine so nicely together purposefully, but also we need it all. We need all four things. You can’t hyper focus on one of these four pillars. So that’s why having all of it in two days is like, poof, here you go. Go home and make it happen. So that’s my, I’m kind of thinking out loud, but I think Mr. MC, it would be a good idea to have, um,

12:42
oh You know because as we get ideas as we do these things right like to do we have to review our our pillars, which is cool We’re doing it here, right and I’m sure we’ll do it at the event as well in the big pic I’m a big picture guy. I love seeing the big picture I know many of you’re like I want the details but big picture is important That’s what we’re doing this podcast and then we kind of go into details as they flow so communication and system so can you guys give me a couple examples of What is a communication tactic or what is a system?

13:12
Or actually, you know what? I’m going to ask you this way even for those that make sure they watch part one. Um, because we have, but we’re, running through this nicely. I like our timing. I’ve liked to, I put here underneath skills in the pillars. I want to review the four and I like, I’m going to go back and forth and I like each of you to tell me a little bit about the skill sets or the things that you, cause again, every year it’s different, but what are skill sets that we could be touching on?

13:40
that when you think of this fall under this category. So let me go in order. So the first, the way we have it is culture. So Shelly, you’re going to start with culture. So, Shelly, tell me what are some things that pop up in your mind, skill sets that we’ll be drawing from at different growth summits that fall under culture? So people have an idea of these more. I would go with the five dysfunctions that always falls into culture. You only want me to give one?

14:08
So you’re, it’s okay. So five, this functions of a team is one and these are different aspects. Uh, what are some others that come to mind? So we have to look at this. What are, me like two more examples of, of, of areas that could pop up that fall under culture skill sets. Uh, core values and accountability. Okay. That’s good. So when I’m thinking culture, these things pop up, Ooh, that’s good. This is juicy. This is, cause a lot of dentists like, I want something tangible and I can’t walk away with. So these are.

14:37
You know, cause we’re talking big picture. So Eric leadership, do a two day retreat on this. If you can only give me three, just give me some examples. Cause again, um, we will touch on it, but we have, because it’s such an important leadership itself. And of course, when we say leadership, what’s interesting about all of these, every one of these has within it, the other. So it’s like you start there and then it starts to go. But I want to make sure that we, we, we try to, to chunk it. So when you say leadership, what are.

15:06
three things that come up that fall under this category. foundationally with leadership, if you don’t have self belief that you can be a leader, you won’t be. And so the first thing we always start with is where is your mindset? Do you have a champion mindset? Are you being distracted by your inner critic too much? Are you approval addicted, fear of rejection? It’s been called a lot of things. So the first thing we have to do is master that first. So mindset always comes first. Then we work on emotional intelligence training.

15:36
And then we then put it into a systematic process and go, okay, five levels of leadership from John Maxwell. How does this apply to each of my team members? know Shelley loves that part of it. And it’s like, I’m actually evaluating with every one of my team members. What level am I on with them? Have I reached through, for me, it’s level four, personal development. Have I gotten there? So without going into extreme detail, those are the three things I’d say that jump out at me right away. Well, I think just, just to note, it’s always fun to point this out, but, uh,

16:05
Both Eric and Shelley are Maxwell certified trainers from John Maxwell, who’s like one of the pinnacle when it comes to leadership training. And so it’s great that, I mean, besides both of your impressive resumes, both of you guys, that that’s there as well. uh Eric uh used to do, was one of the lead speakers on bootcamp and other speaking platforms and speaking circuits out there. So it’s great to have the gravitas and the experience that both of you guys bring.

16:35
uh into the practice and for those that don’t know, Shelly was a uh office manager, amazing office manager, turned coach and then what do you know, she’s a COO, didn’t plan on it, but she’s like amazing integrator and a graphic designer, she does so many things, unbelievable. And Eric uh took his father’s practice just like mine and just turned it into uh the amazing um pinnacle of practice.

17:04
success and I remember we were talking recently like I was throwing there I don’t know what I’m doing and now look at you so uh This I think it’s nice to the human component and when you go to the website you read about their bio You’ll hear some of this, but I just want to point that out With respect to that. Okay, so we did culture. We did leadership now systems and communication. We’re going Systems over to you Shelly give me the sound some skill sets or some some areas that come up when you think about systems Which is what you do all day

17:34
Yeah, everything that you do is a system. So this one can go for a lot of different areas. It can be systems within your team, as far as your huddle, your communication, as far as how do we have these particular meetings. I’ll just say meetings instead of huddle. ah So your systems for your meetings. It could be your systems with regards to your patient experience, how you actually process your patient, what are the different steps.

18:01
And then your systems behind the scenes of how do you get consistent results showing up every time that you do some form of a task. So systems is a hard one to describe in three things because it’s all encompassing of everything. um But you never know what you’re going to get at this auto summit with regards to systems. Cause I think every presentation is going to have some level of a system integrated into it. And yeah, I think as you’re

18:30
as you’re talking, I’m thinking about the Google Sheets, the documents, the details. I remember even one of our clients who’s an office manager go over how they use AI and other ways to make things more efficient. Just giving people a visual. Eric, are going to say something? That was the exact thing I was going to say about standard operating procedures. Do you have assistance for it?

18:59
And here’s what I would say. This is what happens. We’ll get it on a leadership call with a doctor. We’re doing our CEO therapy time and they’ll say, so-and-so isn’t meeting this expectation. They’re not here. Anytime where there’s attitude, performance, skillset, implementation of something, it’s not happening the level that you want. The number one rule we always do is go back to training. Then you say, okay, so the training isn’t there. have to training. And while you’re doing the training,

19:27
pay attention to what you’re saying you’re gonna do and write down the steps. What is it that you’re gonna do? Put it, a nice pen and paper works great. Then you can put it into AI, then you can put it in notes and you can have it in Google Sheets and all these things. But you have to systematize everything, especially when things are operating the way you want. So you don’t have to go to that one person and then go to that one person, go to one person, you have three conversations about the same thing. Have your time set aside, a system set aside for training the thing that’s not.

19:55
being performed to level what you want. Just like you would do if you didn’t know how to do a clinical procedure, you’d go, I need to go to a course. I need to go to training. It’s the same concept. And we forget this. Now, there are people out there, team members maybe, who don’t have the capacity to implement and you’ve been going over and over over again. That’s different. And we can talk about that in leadership. So the fourth pillar, communication.

20:18
And as Alex mentioned earlier, and as I was talking about level 10 clinician, level five communicator, you’re only as effective as you can communicate, meaning your team and your patients, they’re paying attention to what you’re saying to build credibility so that you earn the right to do what you want to do, which is get them as healthy as possible, as quickly as possible. So our communication skills, mean, beyond core, you know, culture and leadership and all that, for talking about patient communication, we’re talking about

20:47
not only marketing website and asking for referrals, but that new patient great call process to when the patient shows up in your office, how you greet them to chair side, how they, we find out their emotional drivers, finding their why to the 95 five rule focusing on condition and consequences. So if they want to get the dentistry done, instead of being told they need something ah to case presentation formula, how to handle objections through preventing.

21:16
and stopping cancellations. mean, those are just some of the verbal skills that go into the process. And there’s, I don’t know, 16 hours of training minimum that we talk about within just those things alone. So when you’re doing one hour team meetings every month for 12 months, you’re talking about taking 12 months to get everything you want to hear at least in what we’re trying to offer from a teaching training position. Now we’re talking about, you know, one solid day focused on

21:45
say case acceptance, two days focused on the verbal skills it takes to interact as a team or to get your patient as healthy as possible, as quickly as possible. So that’s the overarching, I guess, big picture of what we like to cover there. And if your case acceptance isn’t at 80 % of the people scheduling 60 % of the dollars, then we can help. One of the things I think about as well as I’m listening is, and how we

22:15
our culture, I’m about to culture again at All-Star, is we, and we talk a lot about this with the mastermind group, but I think this goes true with the coaching clients and membership and even our guests, is we’re very collaborative. We’re really good listeners, at least Eric and Shelley are. uh But they make sure that I hear it. I’m picking on myself here. But the point is, as a culture, we listen. And I joke, many truths are in jest, and I’ll tell you this point and I’ll get to the other point.

22:45
is, uh, I don’t have to be a great listener. I don’t have to be the good guy. I think I am. But if I have good people around us that run this company and I get out of the way and I know what my strengths are and my weaknesses, then it works. Right. I had a, I had a, um, yeah, I just, I just, there’s a guy, great text from a client that we didn’t see eye to eye many years ago. And it was just like, we work things out, right. Because of, of just our culture, right.

23:15
That’s me being D being so, you know straight but then I have people that soften this right and then I have my eyes here that is go on forever and I bring them in so it’s a great it’s a great balance, but I will say even bigger than this one thing I love from Tony Robbins as well and I appreciate this is the one of the things I appreciate about him the most is he makes it bigger than himself uh And working for him you may think it’s all about him. It’s not it’s the mission All-star we’re maniacal about the mission. It’s bigger than any person. We even say with coaching clients if

23:44
You’re unhappy, which people are really happens. We changed the coach. We don’t care. I mean, we want you happy. The president of coaching comes in. We want to make you succeed. If you’re willing to try, we are all men. Those who want to try, we cannot let go. It’s those who don’t try that we go, okay, fine. Even then we’re still trying to help, but it’s collaborative. So the ideas that you have, what we learned through our, what we’re learning through our coaching process with all of you and our membership and those in your feedback, we want to

24:13
put this into this event with our knowledge is to make it wonderful. It is in us preaching to you that we know it’s a journey we’re doing together. And so I want all of you to understand that’s the ethic, right? Far from what we talked about before, far from sales and preaching. This is to you and telling you what to do. This is a collaborative process with great people and look at the end of the day, we’re looking to have a great time and learn together and do something every year we can do this together and have fun and grow.

24:42
And that’s the idea. And if you want to be a part of that, where this is important, you have a fun time with good people and you’re going to learn a lot and get a lot of value, know, ROI, return on investment, return on energy, ROE, return on time. That’s what it’s all about. So for those that want to learn more about this and are looking to sign up, you can go to allsteadonellacademy.com, click on events, pick the event you want. We’re talking about the growth summit. You can sign up right then and there, depending on when you’re listening to this podcast, there may be

25:11
an early bird special, take advantage of that if you can. uh If you have a larger team and you want to break it down in payments, you can do that as well. Just reach out to us on our contact form there, or you can email our COO directly, Shelly at UlsterDentalAcademy.com. And everybody is a VIP. Everybody’s a VIP. We take great care of you. It’s amazing. And I think about this, and this is a little side, 30 seconds aside, but it’s amazing.

25:39
how very few don’t show up. People don’t show up for job interviews. We have to deal with that with our hiring service because we hire for dental offices. People just don’t show up to prove on themselves. But the ones that are coming to events, the ones that are just showing up, you showing up, you making the investment on the events and coaching and learning on yourself, that separates you from 95 % of those that are out there. Then once you’re there, you just gotta be kind.

26:09
Learn, be open-minded, and you’ll never have to worry about corporate dentistry, insurance companies, any of that. You have self-efficacy. You have self, you have freedom. You have agency over your life. That’s our goal. At the end of the day. Now I’m preaching now at the end of the day, what we agreed on at All-State Only Academy is our goal is to facilitate transformation. That’s our goal. Personal and business slash professional transformation.

26:38
for all people. All right. So I’ll give you, about uh finished here. I’m going to give all of you eyes a quick last thing to share. We’ll go with Eric and then we’ll end with Shelly. What would you like to say as we round out these four pillars of practice growth? You know, I reminded of something I like to say, you know, in my purpose is to help people achieve the level they never thought possible. How do you know how high you can go when you’re self-imposing your own lid?

27:08
It’s called the law of the lid by Maxwell. And I don’t think people realize that there’s another level to them. And you have to have moments of breakthrough. have to have places you go and you surround yourself with really good people to figure out what that breakthrough is. And I think this is one of those events that allows you to recognize, I didn’t even realize I could go to another level here with who I am as a human being and who I am growing to be becoming someone that I didn’t even know was possible. And then results show up.

27:38
of all, shall we? I that. To echo off of what Eric was just mentioning, a lot of people who are listening, they’ve been in dentistry for a long time. Maybe they’re early on in their journey. This type of an event, there’s something for anybody regardless of where they are in their journey. And so if you’re brand new, team member, just joined, has no dental experience, they’re going to take a lot out of this. You’ve been in dentistry for 20, 30, 40 years. You’re going to take a lot out of this.

28:06
as long as you’re open and willing and ready to acknowledge where you have opportunity to continue growing, the sky’s the limit. So I’m excited for this event. I love it. I love that it encompasses not just patient care, but the team as humans um and pouring into them. If you take care of your people, the people take care of your patients, the patients take care of your numbers. And so start within your team, make sure that you have a really strong culture, you’re focused there.

28:35
pour into your team and magical things can happen. So. I love when you use that quote and I was gonna say it, but now you make me say it is Eric’s quotes are simpler. Yours are beautiful. They’re both profound. It’s easier to copy Eric’s quotes than it is yours. Cause like, what did you just say? And it’s like, wow, that’s amazing what you say. So anyways, I wanted to jump in. Beautiful, beautiful points, both of you.

29:05
Um, super inspiring and I was happy you that was, that’s your core quote, Shelley. And it’s, a beautiful quote. It’s what you live by and you remind all of us. And, uh, anyways, we love having both of you, uh, Eric Vickery, Shelley Vanaps, just, ah, we, love you. You’re, you’re family. Uh, I, and, um, yeah, great. This was a fun podcast. So thanks for joining us and remember to follow us on Apple podcast, Spotify, YouTube, get the episodes as they are released, share with your friends.

29:34
And we can do this together. From that time, go out there and be.

29:49
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Dental All-Stars. Visit us online at AllStarDentalAcademy.com