Eric Vickery discusses tips for successful leadership through self-evaluation, integrity, and adapting communication styles for a stronger team influence.
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About Eric Vickery
Eric holds a degree in business administration and brings a strong business and systems approach to his consulting. His initiation into the field of dentistry was in the area of office management. He managed dental practices for over ten years and has been consulting over 250 offices nationwide since 2001.
About Alex Nottingham JD MBA
Alex is the CEO and Founder of All-Star Dental Academy®. He is a former Tony Robbins top coach and consultant, having worked with companies upwards of $100 million. His passion is to help others create personal wealth and make a positive impact on the people around them. Alex received his Juris Doctor (JD) and Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Florida International University.
Episode Transcript
Transcript performed by A.I. Please excuse the typos.
00:02
This is Dental All-Stars, where we bring you the best in dentistry on marketing, management, and training. Welcome to Dental All-Stars. I’m Alex Nottingham, founder and CEO of All-Stars Dental Academy. And with me is Eric Vickery, president of coaching for All-Stars Dental Academy. And we’re talking about integrity and leadership. Please welcome Eric Vickery. Hey, Alex. Hello again. Glad to be here. Hello, sir.
00:32
are some of your passions and I could list a bunch. You have a lot of passions. I mean, a lot of things you do insurance, freedom, speaking, following skills, coaching, a whole bunch of things. Uh, but, but these are really true to your heart, uh, case acceptance, and then we’re talking about leadership. So with leadership, I think it’d be interesting. And we’re talking about integrity. Now for those that may or may not know, depending on our logo, which you can see.
00:59
It says training with integrity is our logo from the very beginning. Yeah. And you may have to use a magnifying glass on the podcast, but that’s, that’s our, and integrity means to be whole, to be, um, a straight shooter, if you will. So Eric with, I think it’d be interesting. Tell us a little bit about, I love your origin story into not just dentistry, but into the, into growing.
01:27
into the dental coaching space and then eventually coming on to All-Star. You’re a president of coaching, a mastery coach, but executive coach. But before joining All-Star about eight to nine years ago, you were on the cusp of potentially joining a different company. Give me the story about how all that came to be. I think people are interested in how you ended up with All-Star and how integrity played a part of that.
01:57
So actually this is my second origin story. It was the hero’s arc of like I was like, you had a couple of them. Six episodes, you know, Star Wars. So I had an origin story that we won’t get into that I love that is where I was birthed out of this with so many mentors that poured into me. And when that ended back in 2010, when the economy just tanked, I was approached by another leader in our industry to
02:25
run the West Coast division of that consulting agency. And we sat down, flew to this meeting in LA, I’m in Northern California, and we met for maybe an hour. And there were some things that were said that I think if you’re, as your EQ antennas are up and you start- Emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence, sorry, yeah, emotional intelligence things start, I’m thinking, and my wife was sitting here,
02:54
What would she think about what’s being said? She’s always my, she’s my compass. She’s my North Star when it comes to that kind of stuff. And so I remember sitting in that meeting and hearing some words, I don’t know how specific we want to get, but hearing some words that just made me uncomfortable. And I thought, I don’t think as great of an opportunity as this would be, this isn’t the spot for me. That just doesn’t match who I am at my core. And I had a…
03:20
I don’t know, for lack of a better phrase, I had an icky feeling when I left and I shared what was said to my wife. She’s like, that’s odd. You know, it was real sales pushy and getting money from dentists and we’ll make millions and all this kind of stuff. And I was just like, that’s not really who I’m trying to be. I think if I’m really passionate about what I am and what I have to share, the money will show up, the clients will show up, you know? And I think a lot of dentists think that way about their patients. And so,
03:49
For me, and I have this quote on my email signature, and it just says unknown, I don’t know where it came from, but it said, if you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters. And I left that meeting, and I’m certain the ball was in my court. I left that meeting, and I never reached out again. I just said, you know what, we’re just better left. Leave that alone. And just a short couple years later, I ran into Heather and Alex, and
04:18
It just was such a better fit when it came to, I think, because we come from family and dentistry. I think Heather and I both worked in dental offices. I think there’s just some camaraderie there in that and the sacrifices that we made in dental offices to grow them and turn them around. So I felt like, all right, I get to be who I want to be, filled with integrity with our clients and see results show up because of that. So I don’t know if that’s enough detail, Alex.
04:46
No, it’s beautiful. I mean, I think in a nutshell, you will offer a chance, a high paying opportunity to lead and as you put it, uh, sales and unethical, um, kind of ways of doing coaching or consulting. And you’re like, well, that, I mean, money’s nice, but you have to have the integrity and then you came to all star and all star was newer. We were the new kids in the block at that time. And.
05:16
We had a kind of a smaller coaching company at that period and a bunch of different leaders over the years. And I remember that kind of maybe year five of you with All-Star, you know, you only had maybe a client or two or maybe none at that time, you know, up and down and, and I’m like, Eric, is everything okay? And he like, listen, I believe in.
05:43
You said, I put words in your mouth. What did you say at that time, which was kind of prophetic? I said, Alex, I get where this call is coming from. I want you to know something. I’m in this for the long haul. I get what All-Star is about. I just need time. I just had so many clients over here that I needed to fulfill my relationship with as I could grow into All-Star. And I said, I’m here for the long run. I really believe in what All-Star is doing. And I think there’s a great synergy in what I have to offer in addition to what you have.
06:12
already offering clients. And, and I think that really came to fruition. I think that was probably three years, two or three years into me coaching with you. And then at the five year mark, we were really moving. So, yeah. And then we had multiple iterations of president of coaching. And then I’m just like, wait a second. And then you just hit it off with the clients and, and then we’re like, will you be president of coaching? You’re like, okay. And
06:40
and the rest is history. You’re just a diamond in the rough, not just as a president of coaching, but as a speaker. And we’ll talk a little bit about that later. I mean, if you have the blessing to be at an event with Eric, and you said to me the other day, you said, Alex, you know, you do a lot of coaching a lot and you’re an amazing coach. But you said, you’re really a speaker that does coaching and not a coach doing speaking.
07:08
and pouring into and leading or preaching or whatever the hell you do. It’s amazing. The greatest show in dentistry when you’re leading it, Eric. So, and also one thing I really appreciate about you is that having that foresight. I acknowledge and you’ve worked with me for 10 years is that I can be impatient at times and you’re like, Alex, patience, it will get there. And that’s awesome. That’s integrity. That’s belief in
07:36
I think it also it’s belief in yourself, belief in the company. And I, uh, Shelley, our COO says that if you take care of your patients, they care, take care of you, you know, your payroll, if you take care of your clients, they take care of you. So that’s this idea of integrity and leadership. Well, and we’re talking about leadership. So if you want to talk about a concept or a coaching hack, leadership is this. Out of that story, what is the takeaway here? It’s if you can’t believe in you, your team’s not going to believe in you.
08:06
I love John Maxwell, but he’ll say all the time when people come to say, all right, how do I get followers? Well, the first follower you need is yourself. Would you follow you as a leader? What do you need to work on on you to do that? So start foundationally. Just start with personality profile, disc. Look at strengths. Look at your strength finder. Look at your emotional intelligence and say, okay, where am I on these platforms? And say, all right, self-evaluate.
08:32
How am I as a leader? Would I love following myself? Just like would I do business with you on our last podcast when we talked about phone calls. If I was calling me and listening to me on the phone, would I wanna do business with me? Would I be excited about doing business with me? Same thing here. When you look at how I lead, would I be really excited about that? I just did a team meeting this morning on disk with a team.
08:58
and it’s 8.03 and I’m sitting there and doctor’s sitting there and one team member’s sitting there and then everybody shows up about 8.04 and doctor says, guys, meeting started at 8 o’clock. I’d really appreciate if everyone would be here by 8. Okay, now clarity of expectation creates excellent execution. That was reactive. That was not proactive. Where’s the lack of clarity from? Is that from the team?
09:27
Is that from the doctor? What is that? Now, in that meeting, I also discovered the doctor’s disc profile came out at 52% D. So, her saying, boom, this is the expectation. I used that as the example in the meeting and said, look, that’s why this comes across as task and tell. You’re telling them and you’re saying, just do this for me, be here. So here’s my, and then what you find out is every single one of the team members’ S personality style, except for one.
09:57
And you’re going actually to one D one I. And you’re going. So just for those that don’t understand disc. Yeah, I know. Here we go. Right. Dominant style. Yeah. As does more steady. Most, most team members are steady. They need that coddling and support. Many leaders are D dominant or directive. And so disc is a nice personality profile. We talked about it in other podcasts. We discuss it in our coaching program. And also we do it often in our events, especially with leadership. So, so essential.
10:26
to understanding where you are as a leader in this because you’re self-evaluating. Just like you listen to your, you want your admin person to listen to themselves on the phone on a new patient phone call, I want my doctors listening to themselves as they lead in those moments. And I can get away with calling her out in that moment in a very, very nice way and saying, hey, this is how that’s going. But these people, you’re speaking D dominant, they’re listening S steady. Whereas there’s a disconnect there because you don’t see it in L, B,
10:54
pretty rough here. I didn’t say this, but you don’t see it as abrasive. They receive it as abrasive. How can you be proactive and do that? If you had to do it over again, how’d you do it differently? And you need to self-evaluate your leadership style consistently and not to conform, not to bend over to the masses. That’s not what we’re saying, but to be more effective in how you communicate. Same thing. You want your leadership skills up here, your communication skills have to be up here and that. So, you know.
11:21
We’re really getting into the weeds of the heroes acronym that we use at leadership. So heroes, humble, equipping, relational, optimistic, egoless and servant leaders. And in this humble process, but confident, how does that sound to you? Well, that just sounded, when you delivered it that way, it just sounded like, do this, come on guys, let’s go, do this. And that doesn’t get people fired up and want
11:51
to follow. Leadership is influence. Nothing more, nothing less, John Maxwell, right? Influence. How do you influence them? Did that really influence them at the next meeting to be there at 7.59, or did it make them go, oh, here we go again? That make sense? Yeah, yeah. So you can really get into the hero’s acronym and really solve a lot of issues with leadership. So let me ask you this.
12:19
Give me the hero’s acronym in less than a minute. All right, heroes, H, humble. Okay, here’s, let me back up. This is really important. Both ends of the spectrum. Heroes is just to remember the concept of this, but it actually takes both. You have to be firm but friendly. You hear how there’s both ends of the spectrum there. Okay, so heroes. Heroes are humble and yet they are confident. Heroes are humble and that’s the H, humble and confident. Right? You can be humble and confident.
12:48
Okay, they are equipping, and yet they’re constantly learning as well. So I can teach my team how to answer the phone because I’m learning how to answer the phone listening to All-Star online, listening to Heather and Larry talk online. Okay, I’m in coaching. Look, I can be coached, you can also be coached. Let me equip you, and doing that the right way, by the way. R is relational. You’re relational, but you’re also firm. So that’s the R, relational and firm, meaning
13:18
There’s a fine line to walk here. If Alex is my employee, my team member, and I’m too in relationship with you, all of a sudden you’re borrowing money from me. All of a sudden you’re watching my dogs for me for free on the weekend. And that line gets crossed in that employee leader relationship and also too firm. And you get into the boss strategy where you’re just, this is how I want it done. And I think in the example I was using before, I think it was too firm.
13:45
So relational and firm is the fine line we walk there. Now, the E is egoless, which is an actual word. You’re without ego and you’re a visionary. Egoless and visionary. I know you’re our visionary Alex. And the vision can’t be like this. What we just, the story we just told, hey, let’s grow millions of dollars. That’s full of ego, that’s lacking integrity, and nobody gets behind that vision, all right? And then it’s a servant.
14:15
Servant leadership is something that’s been around for a long time. That doesn’t mean you’re constantly serving your team. I had a doctor say to me, I had to sweep the floor the other day in the hallway. None of the team members were doing it. They were with patients and I swept the floor. And I said, okay, great. How did you communicate to them the expectation, clarity of expectation there? She goes, no, they saw me sweep the floor. I go, and they probably thought, my gosh, doctor is so sweet. She must love sweeping the floor. Let’s let her do that every day. Okay, right? But without explanation. So it’s servant.
14:44
and directing. It’s both. So when I guys at morning call the next day, guys, you saw me sweeping the floor yesterday. I love being able to jump in when I can. How there’s that word again, how can we make sure that we’re all on the same page and making sure that floor looks pristine? Would you want to do business with us if you saw the floor the way I saw it? Let’s talk about that. And you just create ownership mentality in that conversation. So that’s the hero’s acronym. Hero’s acronym. Yeah. Humble, equipping, relational,
15:14
and servant. Oh, that’s the hero. Yeah. So heroes, I got to make sure I can spell right. We forgot optimistic in the beginning. So humble, equipping relational. Optimistic is the one that we skipped over. Optimist. People don’t want to follow people who are negative, right? Optimistic, but real. Optimistic, but a realist as well. Okay. Optimistic. E is
15:44
a client we were working with. Oh, where’s Opti- wait, so we have humble. Humble. Equipping. Relational. I mean, again, equipping is- Equipping. It’s just, I want to be able to train my people. So you’re able to utilize tools and- Yeah, I’m equipping you. So humble, equipping, relationship. Relational. Not relational, so it’s nice but firm. Optimistic. Yep. And then ego-less. And ego-less is part of optimistic.
16:14
No, H E R O E S H E R O E S egoless and servant is last. So you got to know how to spell heroes. Can you spell heroes? That’s how you spell heroes? Exactly. Heroes has an E in it? Has another E in it. So I had to then come up with, yeah, heroes. Now, hero, H E R O, we could have stopped there, but I needed servant leadership to be in the acronym. So I had to find another E. You made this? Yeah. So wait, does heroes really have an E in it? Yeah, type it out. Heroes.
16:43
That’s if it’s plural, right? So hero. You can do it both ways. You could spell, well, I’ll take out the capital here, H. But there’s multiple ways of, look, we’re all learning a grammar spelling lesson today on the podcast. H-E-R-O-S is not spelled right. It’s H-E-R-O-E-S. So my wife, the English major. So the plural of heroes is E-S, and you made it happen. So this is the Eric Vickery President of Coaching acronym. I love it. Yes. Love it. So I was supposed to say this on optimistic,
17:13
was so excited, I got over this. People don’t wanna follow the negative leader. You and I, just story time, you and I, we’re talking about this client that we had, and we have a certain level of, I love that you have a certain level of people who are in the mastermind group, if it’s okay to talk about the mastermind group. Of course. Yeah, so, and I remember us talking about it, like, he’s just not a good fit right now. And we talked about it, and honestly, I think it boiled down to his lack of optimism. Very, very much, you know.
17:42
saw the dark side of things, I think a little more a little bummed about things. And he just needs some coaching or maybe therapy to get to a place to get to that. Because here’s the deal. I’m not listening to Grumpy Gus as a team member. I’m just not doing it. Debbie Downer is not someone I’m following and not that you’re going to be ignorant of challenges. That’s the realistic part of this. You’re optimistic and you’re realistic, but you’re not pessimistic.
18:11
That’s the balance we’re looking for in that category. That makes sense. Often when we talk about mastermind, the primary, my number one, like attribute to look for is humble is humble. And I think this is nice because I think this is more holistic for sure. Optimistic and ego less. So the opposite opposite of ego list is look how good I am ego. We don’t want that because the numbers speak for themselves and, and you, and you have a balance. You also don’t want to be. So you have.
18:40
ego-less, but you also don’t want to be self-doubting unnecessarily. Where you’re like, I’m not good enough. That’s right. And here’s where we’re going. That’s the visionary balance of that is here’s where we’re going. Yes, exactly. Correct. And you’re making, and this all goes to, and I think why we, we love what we do at All-Star is All-Star is not about me. We have the founder’s story, which is Heather and I and helping my father transform his practice from 1 million to 2.4 million in 18 months.
19:10
beautiful story. I talk about this in the webinar and other things that we do. Your story transforming your father’s dental practice. So like we have a lot of us we have the founder story. But and that is all stars bigger than Heather and myself. It’s bigger than the new the president and everybody we we make the hero, the hero of all star is the dentist, the dentist is a team and the patients. Yes, I’m making all star a place that and
19:37
What’s nice is when you make it something bigger than yourself, it holds you accountable. It helps you grow. I mean, even doing this podcast today is very therapeutic, getting coaching from our president of coaching and hearing about this. I needed to hear this, Eric, what you had to say as leader to hear evaluate. Am I looking through these characteristics? I did a podcast with Shelly. We talked about the firefighter versus fire lighter.
20:06
Are we here to help or make things worse? And I think that’s critical. And we love to invite anyone listening that resonates with heroes, resonates with integrity, that All Stars is a place. We’d love to have you be part of this movement of service-based, integrity-based, great training, and great life and support. So Eric, let me ask you this, as we wrap things up here in our podcast. I love to get for you. I mean, our kind of…
20:35
major coaching tip here was heroes. Can you give me a little bonus coaching hack? A short thing that we can as we close out in the heroes acronym or just in leadership and just in general leadership. Okay. This is our section at the podcast. I want to coaching hack. So I would say this. You’ve talked about this before. The three hats, the dentist or any entrepreneur has to wear, right? The artists, the entrepreneur and the leader.
21:04
Most dentists just want to live in the artist world. I just want to do dentistry. Most, not all, but most. And what we’re saying is, hey, entrepreneur, hey, leader, let’s pay attention, let’s wake that skill set up, and let’s dive into that. And so the six pillars of any business, you read these books, you read business books, Donald Miller’s book, How to Grow a Small Business, or Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. I’m reading one now on how to grow an elite organization. Okay?
21:33
You read these books, you study all this, you get your MBA on All-Star Dillon Academy with Alex talking about this. What you’re going to hear are the six pillars of business. Now we do this at our leadership retreat. We do this within coaching in a way. It’s not so formulated, but at our leadership retreat every January, we cover the six pillars of business. And so I want you just to audibly check this off. Number one, you have vision and goals. Do you have clarity of expectation?
22:01
from your team, you hear the hero’s acronym, you hear that in the ego lesson visionary, right? Number two, team, do you have ownership mentality and culture, is it beyond the job description? How are you developing your team? You’re equipping in your hero’s acronym, right? You’re equipping. Number three, KPI understanding. We do KPI coaching, and can you lead from the numbers as an entrepreneur? Do you know that when X is down, you gotta push levers one, two, and three?
22:30
as a leader of your business, instead of just going, man, September was rough. We had a lot of cancellations. Why? What do you do in replace of that? So what action do you take in being optimistic about growing your business? All right. And then four, systems. We’re big, even in our verbal skills, they are systematic. So how can you create your standard operating procedures for even just answering the phone? Four case acceptance.
22:57
for insurance freedom, for scheduling, for huddle, all of that’s a part of it. Five, training and development. And it’s gotta be fun. Too many, you talk about this all the time, Alex, too many dentists don’t have team meetings. They’re not doing the training. And lastly, the six pillars, leadership development. And understanding all of everything we’re talking about is a part of leadership development. We get heavy into emotional intelligence, EQ, we get heavy into one-on-ones with your team members.
23:24
When the leader grows, it creates space for all of the team members to grow. And that’s what we’re trying to talk about drinking from a fire hydrant. Let’s go fast. These coaching acts, they’re short, Eric, man. 15 seconds, bro. You go, you don’t stop. Oh, this is this guy. It’s a problem. This is a problem. This is why I’m saying live events, man. So that goes to my next point, Eric, what’s new at all star. What’s going on at all star. Tell us about some of the events that are happening. I think that the two big ones being live and leadership.
23:53
We’re about to flip the calendar October here. And so January is right around the corner. We have nine seats left in our leadership retreat, January 24th and 25th in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where we’re covering all of what we’re talking about today, where you’re not just, look, knowledge isn’t power. Stop believing that lie. Knowledge is only potential power. Knowledge is power when you put into action. Without action, knowledge is powerless. You can say it any way you want. January is about.
24:18
putting pen to paper, it’s about taking that paper and going into action and saying, okay, what am I gonna do differently in 2025 to get me different results so I’m growing? So that’s the first thing I would say, we covered a lot of that today. So we have a leadership retreat for dentists and practice owners, and this is where they’re gonna work on improving their leadership skills, their culture, that we’re gonna have immersive workshops, mentorship and action-oriented exercises there. Understanding your business completely, knowing what your…
24:45
you know, even like your profit loss, your KPI numbers, all of that’s a part of all those things, as well as your leadership development. We have a lot of what dates those are going to be on the 24th and 25th. Yeah, it’s a Friday, Saturday. That’s January 24th and 25th. I’m pretty sure the numbers leadership and as of this recording, or record, this is only only have a couple like a handful of spots left. So if if you reach out and it is full, then we’ll get you on the next one. But
25:13
certainly as soon as you can reach out for that. And then we have the the All Star Dental Live, we call live events. That’s in Austin, Texas, and that we’re looking at the latest growth strategies for your dental practice. And in addition to all the great content we have, you’re leading the show as MC, we’re going to have our we’re gonna have our whole leadership leadership team or speaking team and great experts all in dentistry. But but I think
25:43
Contents is one part of it. It’s also the energy, the culture, the rubbing shoulders with the top 3% of dental practices in the country. That’s All Star Live. We do it once a year. And this goes what we spoke about earlier, creating that movement, being associated with that movement and aligning with each other and becoming motivated. That’s gonna be on the 16th and 17th of May. May.
26:08
And then
26:36
Nothing better than when at the end of a program somebody walks up and says, this is the best continuing education I’ve been to. And that’s just so, so great to hear without ego. I’m being egoless. But the vision of that saying, hey, I want my team to be inspired to grow, grow themselves to grow my practice. That’s what we’re trying to do. I want to say this. And this, this is, it was interesting with the leadership retreat, for
27:06
You know, I’m, what would I say? Uh, curmudgeon, like, I don’t want to do an event. They’re not that profitable. And, and you’re like, Alex, yes. The president coaching says our clients need it. I said, okay. And then I said, okay, well, we’ll do it. If, if you get 10 people to sign up, it did that in two days. So, uh, it’s a smaller event. It’s all almost sold out based on this recording. But I think that that.
27:35
that that’s the point of of these events designed not to make millions for us necessarily. It’s designed. It’s an opportunity for all of us to elevate together and with intention and purpose. And and yeah, so that’s what’s new at All Star. It’s gonna be a blast. I mean, there are great, great leaders already in the room that are those that have already signed up to attend. And that’s also what makes it powerful.
28:05
when you’re rubbing shoulders with other people who are going through similar things. So and it’s interesting all the keynotes we worked with and great speakers. It’s interesting when I when I talked to them about events, they said, look, the content is not the key. It’s the energy. It’s the energy that bring back because we are about action oriented content. Don’t get me wrong. That’s important. That’s the price of admission. I keep saying that. But it’s the energy you bring back.
28:33
It’s your team that has, as you talk about in Heroes and others, that ownership or the six pillars you mentioned it, the ownership mentality. That’s where we’re looking to galvanize. And it’s an ongoing process. And like I mentioned before, this is therapy for me. I get to talk to Rob Shoulders with the president of coaching at All-Star and that’s what we do. We, dentists report to me they feel like they’re on an island by themselves. Even I sometimes feel like I’m an island. We’re a virtual company.
29:00
And they don’t know what other people are going through. So think about those six pillars. Think about those six pillars of not forget about the clinical side of it. The artistry part of it, just those six pillars. Can you check all those boxes that you’ve got them all down? If you can’t, there’s, there’s some, something that you can do to support you in that and come join us. It’s, it’s, it’s a blast. It’ll be, it’ll be very, very powerful. Yeah. Eric Vickery, president of coaching, all-time dental academy. Thank you for joining us. Remember to follow us on Apple podcast, Spotify, YouTube.
29:28
Get the episodes as they are released, share with your friends, and until next time, go out there and be… Be… An All-Star.
29:39
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Dental All-Stars. Visit us online at allstardentalacademy.com
