Dental Practice Heroes

4 Steps to Bring New Skills Into Your Practice with the DPH Coaches

• Dr. Paul Etchison, Dr. Henry Ernst, Dr. Steve Markowitz • Season 3 • Episode 50

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New skills mean nothing if you don’t put them into practice. So in this episode, we discuss why dentists often struggle to implement what they learn from CE weekends and what you can do to change that. Learn the steps to integrate new skills or systems into your office, including how to get your team on board, market new services to patients, and more. Join us to make sure your next training translates into real-world results that stick!

Topics discussed in this episode:

  • The challenges of implementing new skills
  • 4 steps to implementing new skills
  • How to get buy-in from your team
  • Marketing new services to patients

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Paul Etchison:

You leave a weekend training fired up to bring new skills back to your practice until Monday rolls around and that momentum fizzles out Sound familiar. Join us as we explore why our post-CE ideas so often go nowhere and how you can turn them into real results for your practice. You may want to offer new services or improve office workflows, and the strategies in this episode will help you get your team on board and make it happen. You are listening to Dental Practice Heroes, where we help you create and scale your dental practice so that you are no longer tied to the chair. I'm Dr Paul Etcheson, author of two books on dental practice management, dental coach and owner of a $6 million group practice in the suburbs of Chicago. I want to teach you how to grow and systematize your dental practice so you can spend less time practicing and more time enjoying a life that you love. Let's get started. Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome back to Dental Practice Heroes. Thank you so much for being here.

Paul Etchison:

Today. We are picking apart topics. It's one that everybody every dental practice owner is guilty of, including myself is we love to take CE, we love to go learn things and often we bring it back to the practice, and not so often do we actually implement and get it off the ground. So we want to talk about how can you go learn things at a weekend course and then take them back and actually make them change your practice, because that's what we're all looking for. So I'll go to you first. Steve, have you been guilty of this as well? Why is this important to you?

Steve Markowitz:

Yeah, of course I would say earlier on, when I first started doing Invisalign or Theraliners, I think, I took courses a couple times a year and then I would go back and I would just expect that, just because I had the information and my team knew I went to take a course, that they'd be excited to get behind me and all these new Invisalign starts would be happening and it would be a great thing for my practice. And then nothing actually happened. I didn't do any more starts than I was before and then, as time went on and there was a larger gap between when my last start was and the next course that I was going to take about it, I kind of lost momentum and lost confidence, and I could see that my team did too. They were like what are you doing? There's so many more things that we can be doing to help our patients. How do we do this? I'm sure that happens with every single learn new skill is how do you get it up and running?

Paul Etchison:

Yeah, and I think it's always these skills. It's easy if we go and we take an endo course and we're already doing endo and we're just going to improve what we're existing doing. But it's the skills like Invisalign cosmetics, like veneers, ortho, just things that we're typically not doing very often and we're trying to get those procedures rolling in our practice. Henry, is this really that big of a problem? Or are we all getting had by the industry and they're just sucking us dry, getting us to come to these courses and they know they're never going to implement that?

Henry Ernst:

I think, if I look at the why here, something similar to what you mentioned, steve, is we're setting a trend here. We're going to a course, especially like something that's outside the normal stuff Invisalign, or I just recently took a course on Botox for TMJ, and that's a great example, because if we go to a course like that, we're the one with the enthusiasm, we're the one with the knowledge and the excitement. And if we were that type of dentist that shows up on Monday, next thing you know we're just getting involved in our day-to-day and next thing you know it's gone. The enthusiasm is gone, the whole momentum is gone. You have to pass that off to the rest of the team. So I look at it like this when I come back for a quick and this is a perfect example, it's recent, I just did this in October.

Henry Ernst:

So number one is education. We've got to educate the rest of the team on what exactly we're looking for and who is the target patient. You know, in that case do we have patients who grind their teeth and have TMJ and have bite guards and they don't wear them and they're so uncomfortable, they're all hypohygienic Like, oh my gosh, tons of them. Right, get the education, get all of the equipment. Don't have any excuses. Buy every last piece of equipment that you need for that particular procedure. And now the team is involved, you have everything you need and then set a goal. You know, hey, I want to do five patients every month to start right and make everybody accountable for that. So when you're coming back from something like that, you're not just it's excitement and it's your excitement, and by Wednesday it's already gone, because then your team's just going to be in that realm of oh there goes Dr Edge off to Chicago for another course. He's going to come back and be excited. You know what? By Thursday he'll forget about it.

Paul Etchison:

Yeah, and it's true, and I've been guilty of that as well, you know. It's like I remember going to take a practice management course and getting so pumped up and so excited about it. And then I came back and I told my team about it. They weren't as excited as implementing these new things as I was, and it was one of those things where, like I would, it was like I was just dragging them up a hill and I'm like why can't we do things this way? And they're like we don't understand why we have to do it this way. It doesn't make sense. I'm like it totally makes sense. We don't understand why we have to do it this way. It doesn't make sense. I'm like it totally makes sense. And eventually, like a year later, I brought the whole team to that course and they were all in. They were like let's do this.

Paul Etchison:

And that's what made me realize is that when we're at these courses, there is an element of education that is teaching us why this is important and getting us excited. And we're like yes, yes, yes. But then we come back and we just tell our teams this is what we're doing and we skip the whole part about like this is why we should be doing it. This is why I think it's cool, this is why I think it's going to be beneficial. And then we get upset that they don't go through it. But they didn't have the same experience with this new protocol or whatever the hell we're learning.

Paul Etchison:

And I think when you go to these courses I mean the people that are usually speaking at these courses, for instance, invisalign they're telling you how they are starting a million cases and how they're doing this, and a lot of times, like I'm thinking of like scanning every patient and then we go back and we say, okay, cool, well, my team doesn't want to scan every patient, but we're going to ramp it up every way. And then we go man, it's just not taking off. I don't get it. What do you say, steve?

Steve Markowitz:

I love the Botox example because I think that's a perfect thing to get the team involved in. I've never met a team that doesn't want that in their own lives.

Paul Etchison:

At least for themselves, yeah.

Steve Markowitz:

For themselves, yeah, but I think that's the best way to get them to see the value in it and to trust that it's going to be best for their patients. I think Botox is an easy step to try a new scale and then scale it. I would have them be involved. I would schedule them as patients. They'll be the ones that will sell it. They know that you can do fillings and crowns, but they don't know that just because you took a weekend course or a year course that you're the expert in whatever that is. But if they see you do it and they have it done on themselves, let's go. So I do agree, henry.

Steve Markowitz:

What Henry said is make sure you have all the stuff, make sure you have patients lined up, make sure you have a written protocol that you know well enough that you can hold your team accountable to. This is the system of how we're going to schedule, how we're going to answer questions, make an FAQ about things that patients may have, about the new procedure that you're implementing, and then start seeing the patients and start gaining the confidence in the team and have them be part of it. If you have a person on your team with a missing tooth, gaining the confidence in the team and have them be part of it. If you have a person on your team with a missing tooth, you are doing a free implant on them. Go do it. Get them to talk about how great of an experience that was. If you have an assistant that has a wrinkle that they don't like, throw some Botox in there. Get them to see that that wrinkle is no more Gaining the confidence of your team.

Henry Ernst:

Let them tell your patients how good you are and then create the systems around them when the patients are aware that you are able and capable of doing those procedures. So our state is unique. In North Carolina, general dentists can only use Botox for TMJ and migraines. That's it. We can't do it for, yeah, our state is so backwards. That's a whole another story. But in general, like in this example, like I got myself and one of my associates took the course and then we just had I broke it up between he and I like I did all the marketing aspect of it, Like we put little things in every single room that said Botox for TMJ and it had all these little bullet points. Do you have this? You know, we got all the materials, we had it in place and I think we've been about three weeks into it and we've had a few patients that we've done. You know masseters, temporalis and stuff like that. So ours is unique.

Henry Ernst:

And to hit on some of the points that you were saying, Steve, don't forget the admin, right? The admin has to understand what are the codes In this case? What are we doing? For if they ask for medical insurance, hey, we're giving them a form and we're letting them do it. You know that kind of thing. What are the specific procedures, not just in the chair, but what is the procedures look like up front and checking them out, Keep in mind. I also like to, like you said, hey, we did a couple patients for free, right, and we did like a little YouTube video. Hey, this is what we're doing now, and so they're kind of like, yes, they're getting a service for free, but also you're making sure they're okay with being a marketing person, right, we're going to maybe show the video, we're going to edit it real nicely and we're going to show our 3,000 people that are following us on Facebook what we're doing, right. So I think that's really important in the beginning also. Also, maybe Invisalign is a good one for this one Track, the at-bats. So a lot of times we're tracking.

Henry Ernst:

When we first started really heavy Invisalign, our goal was to do 100 starts a year. Well, in the beginning, like, it's easy to say we want two a week, right. Well, what about the at-bats? We said scanning every patient in our practice was not realistic. Okay, I get it. Let's do something that's realistic. Let's say every hygiene chair and every hygienist will do two scans in the morning and two in the afternoon. That's realistic, right? And then let's keep track of that and let's audit that. So this way, those are our at-bats, right, we're tracking the at-bats because the at-bats will lead to hits. No at-bats, no hits.

Paul Etchison:

Yeah, it's true. I mean, it's one of those things that is it. When I did the scanning, it was like let's do everybody. And we did everybody for maybe a week or so, for maybe a week or so, and everyone's like we can't do this. And it's like, oh, we can't do it. There was no in between, it was just all or none.

Steve Markowitz:

Henry, what specialty procedures have you had luck with when you went and took a new course and brought it in?

Henry Ernst:

Well, I mean, implants were well like. I was a different world back then. I was taking implants when I was an associate and I was fighting that battle where nobody else was excited about it. I couldn't really focus the practice like I wanted to, so I basically did a lot of that myself and I would just gosh, this is old. These were when we had paper charts, maybe like 2007. And I just looked through all the paper charts of the whole entire office and I found anybody who had a missing tooth and I had like a little stack and I just reached out to all those patients and we had like a little stack and I just reached out to all those patients and we had like a deal. Back then it was like $2,000 for implant and the restoration but you got to pay for it ahead of time and I mean I just did it on my own.

Henry Ernst:

Nowadays I would involve the whole entire team and do somebody, person or two for free, have them be the marketing. People have no excuses. So you've got every last piece of equipment you need and just you got to go all in right. It's going to be very the team's going to lose their focus if they're either not educated on it. They're like oh, I don't know, go ask Dr Etch, you know. Or oh, we can't, or then it doesn't give confidence in the patient. If the patient's in there, oh, we can't do this today because we don't have one piece of equipment. The doctor didn't order you know. Like, do it right.

Steve Markowitz:

I was going to add to that. We've had great luck bringing implants into our offices. I haven't had great luck bringing Invisalign or Ortho into our offices and I think the reason for that is our system and our structure of how we schedule that we know really well and how we get people like the team sees the value in there's a missing tooth, let's go replace that. I've really had a challenge of getting everyone behind, seeing crowded teeth and getting them. I know it's not right, but seeing crowded teeth or worn teeth or any type of malocclusion, having the team see value in correcting that. So I think the answer to that would be having the team see value in the service that we're providing greater than the cost. And I've been able to figure that out with replacing teeth and I would love and I think that's something that everyone who's listening can comprehend of getting over that hurdle, to be able to bring that new service into their practice.

Paul Etchison:

Yeah, I mean it comes down to. I mean we're down to I mean we're focusing generally on clinical procedures now, but even extending it to administrative protocols and case presentation, any kind of system in the office, anything you're going to implement, it comes down to I think we just skipped that whole education step. We've got to get buy-in from the team. Like Henry, you mentioned the TMJ Botox. I mean you've got to like get some team members that get it. I mean I put it in my masters, it's awesome, I love it.

Paul Etchison:

And like, as soon as it starts wearing off, like I notice it when I wake up in the morning, like there is such a benefit to it. But if my team doesn't believe that and they just look at it as something like 50 units of Botox, that's going to cost over $600. That's a big expense for a lot of people. What is the benefit? So I think it's like we've got to set up these processes or at least meetings to talk to the team about it. Otherwise we're just coming in and hoping that they know what we know and saying, hey, this is what we're doing because I said so and as far as I'm concerned, because I said so doesn't motivate my team very well.

Steve Markowitz:

Paul, that just reminded me of a story. We don't do a ton of All-On-X, but we do a fair amount of All-On-X and I assume that our patients know that we can do those types of procedures. There was a patient I just walked in to do a hygiene check, wasn't my patient? I walked in and he's like I just got these down the street and he had both upper and lower all on X and I was like you did what he's. Like, yeah, I just got these down in the town next door. I know that they do them.

Steve Markowitz:

I didn't think that that was something you guys did and I was like, oh my goodness, it was such a kick in the face of like. We had a patient who's been a patient for a while, didn't have a clue. He thought he had to go down the street in the town next door to get a certain type of procedure. So I think the next step in this is making sure that your patients are aware not just that your team is that's the first step but also that your patients are aware, especially when you're bringing something totally new into your practice, that it's something that not only can you do, but you do it very well.

Paul Etchison:

Henry, you got anything to close us out here.

Henry Ernst:

Well, as far as Invisalign goes I mean what we have done because you got to remember that maybe it's been about two and a half years now where we've done 100 starts at least every year Well, what happens is you develop like a big, huge log of people that need to continue treatment. So what works for us is we have two employees and every day that the practice is open, we have one whole column where that person is. Almost they're not a doctor, but they're kind of like when they're like an Invisalign concierge, right, they take care of all the Invisalign patients. They're also the one who will run into the room and take care of hygiene. So we made that commitment to say, hey, we have one column that's totally dedicated and every day we have that. So it allows us to take care of the existing patients, because you know the doctors come in and do what they're supposed to do, but a lot of the visits are very assistant driven and I think that's really, really important. There's two ways you can do this also is we had tons of employees at one time that were just like an Invisalign. We're doing it. Let's get them on board too.

Henry Ernst:

I have instructed other clients to say, hey, if money's kind of tight, maybe have a patient of a list of employees. Hey, these are the people that want Invisalign. You know what, every five we start, we're doing another one, right? Maybe that gets people involved and excited, because I'm telling you, when we first started, we did a ton of people all at once and we did one of those big Invisalign events, that's. You know, something else you could talk about at another time, baby, but I mean, at one time we had like 36 starts at one of those Invisalign events, which was amazing. That's a big day. I love that it was a big day.

Paul Etchison:

We've got my rep. He always wants me to try that, but I feel like he's so like drop in so much. It's like I'm like putting up my armor, like no, don't tell him I'm here, I don't want him to know. So well, if you guys are thinking about like working with a coach and taking your practice to the next level, we are going to be talking about branding and versus advertising and how we can utilize that to get more patients and grow our practices. Thank you so much.

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