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This is not a podcast about dentistry. This is a call to leadership. For those who are carrying pressure, for those building something bigger than themselves, for those who refuse to average, this is where discipline replaces chaos. This is where clarity replaces confusion. Where leaders are forged. Welcome to the Iron Dentist. I'm Dr. Bobby J. Grassi, and this is where dentists stop reacting and start leading at the highest level. Hey guys, what's up, man? It's Dr. Grassi. And after seeing the great response of our first Quality of Habits and Success Dentist Part One, we decided to bring you a second part with more tips and tricks and how to actually crush and grow your practice to that next level. Keep in mind though that this is not only a business related, but this is also intended to make your work on yourself as a person, as a professional, but more importantly, as a leader. You cannot run a business without being a good leader. All right, without further ado, let's jump right into this. Hey guys, like I said, Dr. Bobby Grassi, born and raised in Flint, Michigan. I've taken a practice from $150,000, excuse me, $750,000 a year to over 4.5 million in literally a 10-year span. And I'm just an average Joe, just like you. I have one, I'm I worked by myself with three hygienists. I have processes and systems in place. And I really hope that if you listen to what I'm saying, and I'm going to teach you how to become from a dentist to a dentist CEO. And that's why it's called the dentist CEO brand. So welcome. Um, where we're going over how is how you can start your own game of success and bring your dentist practice to that next level. Bring whatever you're doing, not only just your dental practice, but whatever you're doing to that next level. My intention is that by the time it's over, whether or not anything has changed in a particular for each person varies depending on their unique situation. So at least one thing will be abundantly clear. You have no choice other than what happens next. You always have that choice to cause and create whatever you want because everything rests upon who we are as individuals and ultimately only ourselves and the commitment to change for the better. That is the only way you're going to get results. You have to decide. That's what's beautiful thing about this, is you have that choice to decide. And it wasn't, even in my practice, it wasn't until I decided to choose to change before it actually happened. So these are many things you need to do and to be a successful dentist. There's many things you want to implement, and it can be hard to know where to even start. And that's why we're kind of doing these quality habits, what it takes. You will learn about the qualities and habits of successful dentists, not only that I've studied, but this processes and systems that I've implemented so that you can start implementing them right away, right now. Like you don't have to do anything. And as I said before, I'm Dr. Bobby Grassi, born and raised in Flint, Michigan. I've taken a practice from $750,000 a year to over $4 million. I know if I can do it, you can. I know what it's what it's like to have staff members that don't get engaged. I know what it's like to not have patients accept treatment. I know what it's like to struggle as a dentist even financially, even trying to get your freedom back. Like how do you gain your freedom back? How do you learn the processes? How do you actually ready? Work smarter and not harder. How do you actually work in your business versus uh how do you work on your business versus in your business? And so in this episode of the dentist CEO, I'm talking about why you should reinvest in your practice, the importance, uh look for the opportunities to network, how to build a team to never stop caring, how to build a team to never stop caring. You are not alone. Let your support staff help you, be proactive, become a jack of all trades, and last but not least, probably the most important, be a servant leader. So, what does it really mean to reinvest in your practice? As a dental practice owner, doctors are constantly bombarded with different ways and ideas of how to spend their hard-earned money. There's always sales reps or vendors or marketing teams saying they can do it, and you're told over and over again that you need to reinvest back in your practice. This is absolutely true. This is actually pivotable, and I don't disagree with that. But marketing is where you want to put your money to help grow in practice, get new patients and increase your revenue. But if you were to reinvest in marketing and if you're gonna increase in the new patients as a result of this, can your staff handle the increase in patient flows? Are they doing the right things? Are they picking up the phone the right ways? Because the whole goal of marketing is just to get the phone to ring. The whole goal of marketing is to get new leads coming your way. But does your practice have systems and protocols in place right now? Do you even know the new cost of acquisition of a new marketing? Do you even know how much you should reinvest? Should you do outside marketing? Should you do internal marketing? I have I have a philosophy that I believe in internal marketing. I believe that's where all your money should spend because those are the patients that you like. Even in a marketing point, does your do you do your does your staff know how to pick up the phone to get them two choices? So making sure you have a good foundation and important is important to building a solid dental practice in this day and age, right? The three areas we need to look for in the different deficiencies are one, we need staff training. If you're not investing in your staff or training your staff, just myself, I spent over $150,000 over a two-year span training my staff. Always role-playing, training. That is the utmost must because just because you need, you know, you might know how to do something doesn't mean they know how to do something. Just because you can do something doesn't mean they can educate that. The best thing you can do is have other people live and breed the culture that you have and the systems you are in place. You must they must embrace that and become part of you. And then the development of your systems and the office protocols, you must constantly be developing and revamping. I have a group of five or six of my employees that we kind of brainstorm and we use ideas and systems in place to figure out what system is working, what's not, because marketing is constantly changing. You know, it used to be you could do marketing the yellow pages. I'm getting, I'm aging myself, or you could do email blasts, you could do mailers through snail mail. Marketing is constantly evolving and changing. And are you doing that? Are you doing videos? Are you doing TikToks? Are you are you whatever it is to relate? Are you on Facebook? You know, what ads are you running? Are you are you doing focal ads? Are you are you literally do your ads represent the culture you're practice? Do your ads or marketing represent what you want? And are you taking your hard-earned money and reinvesting into growing? Do you have a scarcity mindset, abundant mindset, right? So the introduction of the digital technology into your practice, I believe that this needs to be done first and foremost. I think people want videos. If they're looking at TikTok, should even our our spouses look at TikTok or our kids look at TikTok. That's the wave of the future. You know, so you got to get involved in technology. And before we invest into marketing, the practice, if you should build a house on a solid foundation, you should also do the same with your business in your practice. Like know what you're wanting to build, how you want to build, and know that okay, my processes and systems are in place. I have the right staff, my staff is trained, that we are moving in the right direction, and make sure that you truly have the staff that can support your marketing. Now, secondly, looking for opportunities to network. Join local, state, and national uh dental organizations, connect with alumni groups, find a community on social media, attend events and conferences. Building relationships is probably one of the most important things in networking with other dental pressures, both locally and regionally. It can enrich your career and give you a sense of deeper satisfaction. You can see what other dentists are doing and bringing them to the table professionally and get feedback on how you can improve your own offerings. Like to me, I have a lot of people that mention me, mention me in different things, whether it's orthodontics, implant dentistry, running a business. I have a business coach, I have implant coaches. I mean, don't get so naive and don't have your ego so big that you can't learn from other people. The beautiful thing is you can learn from all kinds of people. Imagine when you were in dental school and when somebody was taught you how to do a first prep, right? Now you do things a little bit differently. Yes, they showed you the techniques, they showed you the system, but you make it your own. That's what you can do when you network with other people. Not just in dentistry. Network with the building business professional, network with lawyers, network with people. And the more people you can network with, the bigger you're gonna be. When you network with your peers, you establish a special, reliable relationship that allows you to share resources. It's your simple, it is even if your supply shipment is delayed, you can borrow gloves, composite materials, and other necessities for a nearby dental practice to get what exactly you want, get you through these hard times. Found, find, be that source. If somebody doesn't have an implant, be the one to give them the implant, bridge that gap, reach out to them, find an excellent article on the recent trends, embraces, forward it to an Orthodonist. You meet with the last event you attended. Like always do a go above and beyond. Go show them that you're more than just you. Like just reach out to them. Everyone loves to be touched, like emotionally like it. So do a random act of kindness, send them the free food, buy their staff lunch, like do something cool to stand out. I mean, that's what I did. Networking only not only gives you the opportunity to be mentored, but you're also able to mentor others as you grow in your dental career. Mentoring other dental professionals can help you learn critical leadership communications, how to communicate with your staff, what how are they resolved? It'll help you create interpersonal skills, right? It also helps reinforce or expand knowledge of a particular subject that you're proficient in. Like if you're good at implants, talk about implants. Be a mentor that. Now I love implant dentistry. So a lot of my marketing campaigns go to implant dentistry. One, I love doing it. Secondly, my team gets fired up because they're doing they're learning new things. And thirdly, the patients love that we're giving them the top-notch service in one place. Hone in your skills. Build a team that never stops caring. Third, the early stages of my dental practice are some of the most important. This is the reason with new growth or new opportunities happens. And the way you approach it matters. Once you've purchased your practice, you can start working towards your professional, your personal and professional goals, right? I mean, that is the finally turn your dreams into reality. How do you do that? Build a team that never stops caring. We do morning huddles every day, and we always say to people, how are we going to reach out to them? What are we going to do? So many times in dentistry, people try to do sales calls, they try to do marketing calls, or they're trying to always get new patients to come in, or they're trying to reactivate patients. I mean, we've all been there. What's changed my practice is the follow-up, right? If we do a procedure, are you calling your patients? Are you reaching out to them? Are you just calling them just to say hi? Are you doing random act of kindness? Like never stop caring. Even when I fail, when I stop doing what I believe in the random act of kindness, I see my practice dip. Remember, your patients tell you a lot without calling you. I believe what I said, hear what I said. If you're not getting a good retention rate, if you're not getting good things to come back to you, if you're not reactivating patients that you might have lost, if you're losing as much patience as you're gaining, look at your processes and systems and figure out how you can get better, but never, ever, ever stop caring. And then let your support staff help you. Every dental practice is made up of various dental team members. Most have an office manager, a front desk, dental hygienist, and of course, at least one dental assistant. It's not uncommon for an office to have many dental assistants or staff, depending on the size of the practice. And although dental assistants wear many different hats, when it comes to keeping things on track, they are also, they are perhaps one of the most integral members of my dental team. Like I always say to people, I think sometimes we have a backwards. Like they're here to assist us, they're an integral part of what we do. And I remember when I had a practice, um, when I had a was growing my practice just to million dollars, I started, everyone kept saying you need 24 or 25 members. I mean, at one point I had 28 team members on my field. And I realized that it's not about the team members you have, it's about the quality of the team members you have because I had 24, my payroll was off the chain, and now my practice wasn't growing, it was actually going the other way because there was chaos. My systems and processes weren't good enough. But now I'm back down to 14 employees that beats runs and beats as one drum, and now we are engaged in. So it's not about the amount of employees you have, it's the quality. It's almost impossible for a dental office to run on time, but they don't have great assistants, departments, uh, hygienists uh are the are they what are their core values? Is it time, money? You might even have a lead dental assistant and several other dental assistants who float throughout the office performing various tasks. I've cross-trained all my hygienists and all my assistants and my front desk people to do multiple tasks because what are you gonna do if your your team members don't show up? What are you gonna do if somebody gets sick? Set the room up for each pressure, take it, take x-rays, everyone should be able to do this, process sterilization and perform dozens of other duties. There's there's one that they they essentially are the backbone. Your staff is the backbone of what you do. You know, it's great that, yeah, your name might be on the building or your your company's name might be on the building, but you can't do anything without a group. You can't do anything without a team. Yes, you're the quarterback, yes, you're the CEO. But if your team doesn't believe in your vision and your dreams, it does not matter. But the more you can help them grow, the more that they can contribute to the practice, the better the job security they have or the perspective, the income they might learn, the hard they work, the vital their concerns, every member of the Dell team, if you really take their concerns and consideration and in their concerns into consideration, you're gonna dominate. So it's bigger, you know, it's bigger than just a team. Like get that team and invest in that team and show them what they can do. Another thing, be proactive. Today, many people are interested in learning about their overall health. They they hire personal trainers and nutritionalists, they help the that they help they that helps them be proactive about the short-term and long-term health goals. People want to feel and look their best for short term and get ahead of bad habits, they could result in serious conditions in the future, right? They're trying to learn new things. This dedication to proactive health extends to the mouth and modern patients and seeking dentists who provide them with a proactive dental care. Like in my practice, I talk about sleep apnea all the time. No, I can't diagnose it. No, but I can I have sleep moders in here and I tell them the importance of their overall health. It's got my office is called Grassi Dental and Wellness. We need to be synergistic synergistic with the other doctors. We need to bridge the gap to medicine and dental. We're not one and the other. We're together. We're a synopsis. A lot of patients want to not just treatment for their dental problems, but forward thinking care of their overall health of their mouth. And how does it play? How does their how does their mouth uh help diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, you know, uh hypertension, if I mention it, Parkinson's disease, dementia, Alzheimer's. I mean, how does it do this? You know, how does it relate to cancers? Does it have an impact? We all know it does. We do a bad job explaining. According to the Cold Ach study concerned by Cantor, conducted by Cantor, excuse me, the modern dental practice wants their dentals to provide positive reinforcement for what they're doing correctly. I have often been told by patients that they felt scolded by their formal dentals for not flossing, brushing, and keeping regular dental appointments. Don't scold your patients. Understand that you probably didn't floss one day either. The perceived judgment may cause patients to dread their regular hygiene appointments and even make them discouraged about the progress they have made. Like try to tell them the good, not just the bad. Like that's one of my downfalls. I'm just telling you that as a dentist is we always are looking to find the flaw in somebody, right? We're looking at what the cavity is, we're looking at certain things. But if you can tell them what they're doing right, whether it's your like you say with your kids, you hate to be barred-boded with what you're doing wrong, but sometimes you need to be told what you're doing right. And then what's really helping is become a jack of all traits, right? Many people think that the famous saying was originally a jack of all traits is the master of none. However, if you know the original saying goes, a jack of all traits is the master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one. So, what does this mean for us dentists? If you're going to deliver on both clinical expertise, practice management, you're going to have to be the jack of all traits. But we all know what they say about being a jack of all trades. Owners of small practices tend to do a lot, right? They tend to oversee all the parts of the managing their practice while at the same time focusing on clinical aspects. Needless to say, that doing this would be futile an exercise, and there are just too many things involved. With a small team, which is usually made up of the owner, usually the lead dentist, a dental assistant, the front desk officer, office manager, a small dental practice management company that practice well, well, does the front desk officer double as the business manager? If you thought I could manage your dental practice well being the jack of all trades, you can only do this if you're looking to, you cannot do this if you're looking to grow. If you're looking to grow, however, make sure you hire experienced personnel to handle the aspects you cannot or outsource these duties, right? To to really raise your dentist practice to the next level. It wasn't until I invested in my team, it wasn't until I invested in them to I really got the outcome I desired. I started putting lead people in the hygiene department, say, hey, this is your business run it. I'll incentivize you. Hey, this is the front desk department, my office manager. They shadowed me, they talked to me, they did all these things in place to really grow my practice. It wasn't until I had an outside coach to really know the business of how I scaled my practice. I had to take what I knew from dentistry, but how do you go from a dentist to really the CEO? How do you go from being in your practice to working on your practice? How do you go from here to there? And a lot of it is this trusting your teammates to do what you need to do. Yes, you're gonna run the show. Yes, you're the leader of the practice, yes, you're doing all this, but you're helping them grow and guide. And you'll be shocked of how much it'll light your team up when you allow them to be that leader, allow them to make some decisions, give them the autonomy to be the best version of theirself and encompass what your core values are in their practice. And once you know you found that person, let them soar, man. You'd be shocked. They have great ideas, they have great impact, they will literally change how you practice and they will get the energy flowing and people will think they have the ability to grow. Last but not least, probably the most important thing, is be a servant leader. I truly believe we are put on this earth to serve. I truly believe we are put in this world to be a difference maker by serving. That's why you got into dentistry. That's why you are doing what you do. You you want to be a servant leader. But the dentist professional is guided by normative principles that provide guidance to all leaders and practicing dentists and addressing the needs of patients in the profession. Yet there's room for incorporating new ideas to help dental professionals and even their professional organizations, obligations. The concept of servant leadership, especially that is in contrast with self-serving leadership. Most DSME are self-servers, they do what they want to do only when they want to do it, right? Well, servant leadership serves others. Self-serving leaders suggest that servant leadership is consistent with the high ethical and professional ideas of the dental profession. The servant leader is the anathesis of the self-serving leader with increasingly seeks more power and acquisition of material possessions. The servant leader's highest priority is the people, patients, slash students, slash customers he or she serves. The concept of servant leader can take us away from take us away from self-serving, top-down leadership, and encourage us to think harder about how to respect, value, and motivate people, ultimately providing better service to our patients. It is not hard for us to dictate. We all dictate in our life. But really, what's changed my career, what has changed the growth or the projection or the altitude of my practice is becoming a servant leader. The minute you can remove your ego from who you are, the minute you can take away you out of the equation and you're here to serve others, that's when you're gonna blow up. Whether it's your family, whether it's your friends, whether it's in your dental career, the more you can do that and serve others, the more you can make sure that not, I'm not saying you're never happy, but the more that you can give them what they want and serve them, whether it's time, management, money, financial plans, uh, meeting all their barriers, the more you can serve their needs and wants, the more patients you're gonna get. You won't even have really have to market. Patients will be coming in droves. Being a servant leader is like being a Christian. You must be a servant leader, even to Christ your God. So when we become self-serving, when we get so caught up in ourselves that our ego gets in the way or we think we're entitled to something, that's when everything fails. Learn how to be a servant leader. Learn how to put others first ahead of yourself, and you will dominate. Whether it's your staff's training, whether it's marketing materials, whether it's how you pick up the phone, whether it's the time and needs that you have for your patients. We all see we're great at customer service, but you can't be great at customer service if you don't serve your patients. If you don't serve your staff, you don't serve your team. And guys, I hope this call was really a value to you. I mean, was this call a value to you? Did you get some great insights or tips or tricks of what maybe you could do or how to implement them in the practice? Do you want more of these types of podcasts? Do you want more information to dive in, to scale your practice, to really take it to the level? Well, let us show you how. Please email us at the infothedentistco.com or go to thedentistco.com so we can help you crush your dreams. Sign up today. What are you waiting for? All you have to do is join the conversation. I can show any one of you how you go from $750,000 practice all the way up to a $4.5 million practice. It's not hard. It's not rocket science. And I would love to help. I would love to serve you, not only teach you of how to become a dentist, but how to become that dentist CEO you've always wanted to be. How to truly get more of your freedom back, how to make more money, how to become a seven figure profitable dentist in a blink of an eye, how to truly work less and work smarter and actually gain more. How to truly lead. And grow your team. And if you're not that person that wants to do it yourself, let me help. Guys, I hope this message has helped. We'll talk soon. Have a great day. If this episode challenges you to think differently or lead better, share it with someone who's committed to growth and personal responsibility. Subscribe so you don't miss future conversations on leadership, discipline, and performance. And remember, leadership isn't a title, it's a daily decision. This has been Dr. Bobby J. Grassi, and we'll see you next time on the Iron Dentist Podcast.