Something happened during a team meeting at the Mat center for dental practice success that caused us to complete reevaluate how we work with our team. It was a really important thing. It seemed like nothing at the time, But I think it's kinda turned into a landmark. As a matter of fact, I talk about it at my seminar some time to time, and that's what we're gonna be talking about. 1 of the many things we'll be talking about on in today's episode of the dental practice fixer podcast.
I'm doctor Richard Mat. I'm c founder of the Matter center for dental practice success and your host today. On dal fixer. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks so much for listing. As I was just about ready to hit record on this podcast. I was doing some multi multitasking. I was trying to write a an e newsletter from my dental list of Dennis and team members. I was having a text chain with some people in my office. I was having a text chain with my brothers. I was having
another text with some friends. This is like the ultimate multitasking, and I realized I wasn't getting anything done and decide I gotta stop Gotta stop for a second and just do 1 thing at a time. I think multitasking can be seen as something so positive. For instance, maybe you're interviewing somebody for a position in your off and they say I'm a great multitask. But I gotta say, I'm not always a
fan of multitasking. I think it's better to do 1 thing really well at a time time then do 3 or 4 things, mediocre. Is that even a word mediocre. It doesn't matter. It's a word now. Was kind of reflecting way back to when I was in college. I 1 summer. I went to College University of Maryland, during the summer and I was living in this of an apartment style dorm with 3
other guys. 4 of us. We each had our own little bedrooms, but they all connected to this huge living room area, and that's know, there were sofa is there and chairs in a Tv, and that's where we always hung out. We were always there. And, of course, as you know, I'm a musician, big music fan. I always wanted to have music blasting. On my big wooden Jb b speakers, they were handed me down for my brother, Dave. These things were awesome. I would just crack music up on these
things. But 1 of my roommates was a big sports fan, and they always wanted to have sports playing on the Tv said the typical scenario will be music playing on the stereo sports on Tv with the sound out, Then I'd be sitting there, taking all this in of trying to study for a chemistry exam, and I realized I wasn't doing anything well. I wasn't absorbing the music. I couldn't follow the sports. And, of course, I wasn't studying well, and I just realized you know what?
I'm gonna gonna go to the library. Spend an hour and a half to 2 hours of the library studying for Chemistry, then I'll be all set for the exam, and then I can come back to the room and listen to music watch sports, engaging conversation. Do 1 thing at a time and really do it well. And it reminds me, we had a team member at the Motto center. So several years ago, she was awesome at doing her job, but she just was
not a great multitask group. If she was doing something, you tried to throw something else with her. At the same time, she would get a little bit you know, up upside not with or whatever. You could tell she was uncomfortable doing that. But And at first, I didn't like it. But then I began to realize, you know, this is a person who is a great team member, smart, reliable. Really good at what they do. I'm gonna let her do what she's doing and finish it, and I know she'll do a great
job. I want to double or triple check. Whatever she's doing will be ready to rock and then on the next task. So I started valuing multitasking less. And doing a really good job and just doing it once and getting it over with more. It's a lesson I wish I would learn completely and stop trying multitask all the time, but I just thought I to throw that in there because right before I hit record, I spent the last 15 minutes trying to do too many things and not accomplishing
anything. If I would've have just done 1 thing at a time, it probably would have been better. So I don't think if any of us for the patient, we want the dentist doing a crown prep, and then doing other things at the same time I'm kinda like my old first dentist, doctor Isaac Cop used to do. He was my mom's Dentist, my grandfather dennis. He was, like, less of a dying breed. I mean, this was way back when I was a kid in the sixties. He be, preparing an a ama prep. Of course, he
was always a malcolm. Doing get ama and prep. He drop an instrument on the floor and pick it up. He'd be on the phone with a patient at the same time he's he didn't have any team members, changing the water in his fish tank and believe it or not smoking a cigarette. Yes. In those days, a dentist could smoke a cigarette while they were treating you. Crazy times. He was maybe the original multitask. I gotta say he was a good dentist.
Some of those older malcolm he did all I'll better still in place, 56 years later. Okay. Let's get down to what I wanted to talk about today before my ramble multi multitasking, which maybe you got some out of. And before I talk about that famous motto center meeting, I just wanna urge you to check the show notes for this podcast, they're are 5 great things in there for you to do 5 things that will help your practice enhance your life, all those other things.
If you don't have time or you can't check the show notes. Please subscribe to our e newsletter. Every now and then, I'll send out some great practice building information, maybe some motivational stuff, some things to talk about at team meetings. Also, of course, let you know about some complimentary webinars should we do and all kinds of other don'ts on here that can help your practice. Just go to mat dot com slash newsletter, matter dot com slash newsletter and.
If you're watching the video, you can I just took a sip out of a dental practice fixer coffee mug, which can be yours if you sign up for the newsletter because Every now, and then, we do a drawing of our new sign ups and somebody gets this cool coffee mug? So go to matter dot com slash newsletter to sign up I'm sure you love the great information you'll get? And of course, it's free of charge. How can you beat that? Okay. Let's talk about something now that I call the seating chart
rule. So this was several years ago, my brother, Dave and I Dave's c founder and my partner in the matter center. We were preparing for our annual holiday dinner, which, you know, typically met, reserving a semi private room in a big steak steakhouse downtown and getting a huge table and everybody just getting together for the holiday and having fun rem about all kinds of fun things and shouting the night away. Always a great event at the Matter Center. So, of
course Dave, and I get there early. Well, I get there early for everything. So does Dave. I'm I'm kind of like the airport dad of of life and were there early way before anybody else is supposed to show up. But 1 of the reasons we got there early was to place name cards on each seats. So everybody
would know where to sit. And we got a little gift for each person that year might have been a bottle of wine, and we would, try to figure out what kind of wine each person and then, you know, they get a personalized bottle with their place card, showing them where to sit. But the thing is that's not really why we were doing the place cards. We were doing the place cards because we wanted to have a specific seating chart to make sure that the dinner was
fun, and the dinner was success. Now that may sound good, but it actually wasn't because as we're putting this... This is really why we did it. We're thinking things like, oh, truly and karen can't sit next to each
other because they can't stand each other. They'll just be, you know, fighting all night whatever And now if we put Ashley and Sally next to each other They'll be whispering and making private jokes and pointing at other people and doing some back, so, we don't wanna put them next to each other when we kept it. This person next to this 1, we can't put burn debt next to this person because she can't see, I don't know. All these crazy reasons. And hell, if I'm sitting next to Linda, I'm
not doing that. And this is how the conversation goes as we're laying out these place cards and after a while, we start saying to ourselves. You know what? This is crazy. This is our business. We've got 15 people who work with us every day. They're part
of our work family. We see them, sometimes more than we say our own family members and we're struggling to figure out where to see people because some people can't get along, and some people get to evolve to these inside I'm back conversations that are very unhealthy, and there are people that work with us in our own office that we don't even wanna sit next to. This is crazy. So we finished pretty opposite eating in cards get face those parameters,
and the dinner went fine. And a few days later, we're talking saying, you know what? There's something inherently wrong with this. We should not be having to tell people where to sit in order to have a successful holiday dinner. And we made a goal. And that goal was that 1 year from then. When we met at the same restaurant the same semi private room. I love that term. Semi private room. It was a private room. It was a semi private room. We had a bunch of semi with us.
Maybe some of them were driving semi. I don't know. But when we met again, a year later, we were going to need eat a seating chart because everybody will get along. Well, everybody will work together well. And there's not 1 person there that that we as the owners of the company would not Not, I'm used like a double triple quadruple negative. Let me rephrase that. We wanna sit next
to everybody. We enjoy every single person's company in our in our company, enough that we would love to sit next to them at the holiday dinner, and this was our goal. And then, of course, we started getting a little more serious. How can we achieve this goal? There are some people who just are trouble makers in our office. You know, there 15 people are talking about? There's a prem Donna. There's a back s. There's somebody who says we've always done it that way, and I'm not changing. That's not
my job. Now I don't wanna be bragging on our team. We had a great team. Fantastic team. They did an amazing job, but some people didn't get long with others, or they didn't play well of others as they say. For those reasons and that was just put a little bit more tension in the office than we would like. So we decided well. If anybody needs a little pep talk about how to solve this problem, now is the time it was, you know, the validated or was over. It was the
beginning of the year. New Year's resolutions and all that Bs. So there... You know, we're gonna talk to each team member and individually about First of all, always start about how great of a job they're doing Because they were we love our team members. They were hardworking and smart and did a great job. But also, tell them about some areas where they could
use some improvement. And if that happened to be, the big gossip they're they backs or they didn't give a long someone else where they told too many inside stories and and kind of left others out of the equation. Yes. This was a great time to talk about it. And that this is the time to talk about this stuff, and we're gonna give you the chance to improve. We're here if you need us to talk about, you know, talk these things through, let's see if we can really work on things
and really improve. And, you know what? Everybody took it to heart because when we framed it that way, everybody knew that this was the ultimate goal. We have the ultimate goal of making the workplace a better place, making the workplace a place where we'd be looking forward to coming to every day and didn't mind who we interacted with because we enjoyed the company of every single person of the workplace. And you know what?
Our team members took it seriously, and they really wanted to make these improvements and sometimes we had to talk it out with people. Sometimes we had to get 2 team members in the room together and have a little referee court there and have them work out their issues with 1 another. Whatever it took. We didn't wanna fire anyone that's not what this was all about. We just wanted people to improve and improving in your job doesn't always mean doing your technical job better.
Of course, it means that sometimes, but it can also mean ramping up your people skills and your communication skills. And just giving people a break and appreciating others that worked around us. And 1 of the big things that I noticed I did this in my dental office too, was to make sure that everybody in the office really understood the jobs of the other people there.
Now we talk about cross training I think in a dental practice, you can do some cross training shore, but it's impossible to completely cross train every team member. You you know, you can obviously hide, how, you know, being a h janice takes licensing and such, but I think it can't have somebody who's a superstar every position in the practice. But you definitely can have every person in the practice, at least have a basic knowledge
of every position. Enough so that they could hop in when needed to do a job in a non licensed position, of course, but also to appreciate what that person's job brings to the table I'm sick of hearing about the front versus the back, the front doesn't appreciate the back, the back doesn't appreciate the front, Of course, this means the business area of the practice. Versus the clinical section of the practice, but, hey, front and back. I gotta tell you without the other,
you wouldn't exist. You wouldn't exist clinical team, you wouldn't exist without a great admin team and business team, getting patients in your chairs and making sure that they pay and their insurance forms are plea to propagate, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Front desk team. You wouldn't exist. And we didn't have a great clinical team so we could show off her beautiful work and patients would call and we give people incredible patient experiences in the clinical so they'd come
back and refer. Into all those things. So we need each other, and we also need to appreciate 1 another. Okay. So back to our goal, the next year, will we need a seating chart. Well, unfortunately, after a lot of work and talk and communication, 1 or 2 people just couldn't see that this was valuable enough to work on the issues that they were having, and we did wind up actually having to give a couple people, a job out opportunity elsewhere. And again, I am not a fan of
firing people. When we work with you if if we, you know, view contract a matter center to consult with your dental practice and we wanna be in your coach. We never come in and say this person's gotta go. You gotta fire this. But if you give somebody a lot of training, and lot of help and a lot of latitude and really try your best to work with them and they just can't do it Well, there will come a day when you will say, what took me so long. I guarantee it. So that is the ce chart.
The next year, we had our holiday party. We didn't bring a seating chart. Everybody got along. There was... I know speaking for my personal stance there there's not 1 person there that I didn't wanna sit next to at the company dinner. That doesn't mean we often to be on best friends go ski vacations together. That might be taking it away too far, but we do need to get along and enjoy each other's company. So important. That is the seeding chart rule. Okay. We talked about multitasking.
We talked about having a great team where everybody understands each other's positions and gets along well with each other. That should be enough for 1 podcast, but no. We've got our famous dental practice fixer mystery shopper calls to do, and we've got some good ones for you today that I think you will learn
from. Before I go over to Command Central and hit the button on the mystery shopper calls, I do wanna remind you that at the matter center, we do not pay a percentage for our credit card processing, every time somebody whips out a credit card, we don't pay a percentage to process the credit cards like you're doing in your office. Now, of course you have to pay the percentage of Visa Mastercard I'm. That's, you know, That's a given
like popcorn. But we just pay a low flat monthly fee for our credit card processing and we have saved I'm not kidding tens of thousands of dollars, and you should do the same in your dental practice. Just go to mat dot com slash save. You'll see the company we work with is called stacks. They're awesome. They work with hundreds of demo practices, maybe many more thousands millions. I don't know how many. They work with a ton of dental practices across the country.
You should be working with them too because you just pay that low flat monthly fee for your processing. Go to mat dot com slash save to learn more. I know you'll be glad. You did. And I got a few last week asking me what was that company I recommended to get more new patients into your practice because you were doing incredible search engine optimization. And when somebody Google's dennis near me, Cosmetic dentist, Ortho, whatever it is they Google, they're gonna find
you. The company is called simple impact media, and you can learn more about them by going to matter dot com slash SE0. That stands for search engine optimization, and ADW dot com slash s E, let's go on to our mystery shopper calls. Okay. Call this week. I said I was a patient who needed for crowns. Ding ding ding ding ding a huge bell should automatically go off. What's that bell? Doctor matter. Just got a new patient because I'm calling and saying I know I need 4 crowns. What's the catch?
I have a little bit of a gag reflex. Will you work with me? Now what's the right thing to say? I think you know, let's see if any of these practices did it. Okay. Go 2. Call. Number 1. So see what happens. K. My Dental. This is Dream. How may I help you? Hey Have a question for you. I I know from my last dennis, I need, like, 3 or 4 crowns, but kind of been putting it off because I can be, like, a bit of a gag. Do you see patients there who have that issue and how do how do you deal with that?
So we have a... We have a nit that we could get... You could get, sometimes that to where you don't get as much. We also have a sedative that we can... That doctor can call in. You just have to bring somebody with you. If you have an anxiety about about getting and things like that, we can give you the that. But, yeah, we see patients that have that issue all the time. Very interesting. What's nit? It's just nit oxide. Nit oxide or can I see? Alright. Great. Well, thank you so much.
You're welcome. Have a great day. Bye. How you too. Thanks. Bye. Oh, bye bye. Haven't we learned anything yet? Okay. Well, first of all, she used a dental terms. She said Nit, which I don't think most people know that is. I know laughing gas is kind of an outdated. But I have no problem using that term or even describe, but we have... Night... And then I said, what's nit, oh, nit oxide. Like, that really helps things I don't know what nit. I'm gonna know what
nit oxide means. You know, it's it's laughing gas. It's just something you breathe and it helps you relax. Just you know, just say what it is. But I gotta you at this office. She said they use non oxide. They use sedative. They see patients the gag. Okay. Good. Sounds like this will be a great office for me. And it sounds like I'd be a great patient for them. I know I need 4 crowns and then boom. No effort. Whatsoever to get me in.
Come on. Now don't you want a patient who needs 4 crowns, even if they're are a little bit of a Gag or. I mean, at least get them in and see, look, they're a horrible gag. You can't treat them, You can refer them, but you'll never know unless they come in for an exam or a consult, which will never happen in that office. Let's see if it'll happen in the next 1. Thank you for calling Dental Care. This is Chelsea. How may I help you? Hey, Chelsea. You have a question for you.
I was told a short time ago by another Dentist. I need 3 or 4 crowns, but I was a little hesitant to go in I can have, like, a bit of a gag reflex of the dentist to, see patients that have that kind of thing going on? We do. Sometimes, it just kinda depends, how bad it is because we may refer out to a specialist for that. Because they may have to do a s citation any sort of thing like that. It really just depends on the doctor, they would have to kinda see. Yeah. Okay. Say it's about a 6 or 6.5.
Yeah. They would have to determine that. I can't really say if they would or not, because each doctor is different on what they can handle. But I know we have referred out to specialist before. Just depending on how bad it is. I see. Okay. Great. Well, thanks then. You're welcome. Have a great day. Oh, you have a great 1 too. Bye. Thank you. Bye. I don't get it. I I made up the gag scale. She should even flinch that when I said a 6 or 6.5. But the heck does that even mean is
they are gag scale. I guess there could be. I don't know. But it was interesting said, I this was a multi doctor practice obviously she said some doctors handle that better than others, and then sometimes we have to refer. So why not schedule me with the doctor who handles the patients with the gag reflex really well? This made no sense Why not say, you know, oh, doctor Jones is great with
that. Cheese so gentle and she just has such a nice touch and she She doesn't mind seeing patients with Gag reflex or anxiety. I think you'll be really happy when you meet her. Can you come in tomorrow 02:30PM? If that's not good for you. We've got Wednesday at 01:30PM, which works. But I mean, come on now. Get the patient in no attempt This cannot continue. I swear can't. Let's see what calling family Dentistry. To get you to the best team member, please select from the following menu.
If you are becoming a new patient, please press 1. If you are an existing patient, please press 2. For all other questions for our office team, please press 3. May be recorded for quality and training Thank you for calling Family and Cosmetic dentistry. This is Jl. How can I help you? Hey, Jill. I have a question for you. I know that I need 4 crowns or at least I was told that previously. But I'm just a little concerned because sometimes I can I can gag a little bit
if the appointment really long or whatever? So I didn't go back to that, dentist. But do you see patients who have that issue at all? That have, like, a gag issue? Yeah. I'm, you know, or or can't do like, you a lot point expect that? You do you got lots of people? Yeah. We... All the time. No. Yeah. We do see that quite often. U. A lot of patients actually have that issue. I think we're, we're pretty good about doing brakes if necessary and trying not to,
you know, shut things down your throat. You know? Oh, that... That's actually really nice to hear. Because I I have some people aren't quite as gentle so I do appreciate that. Yeah. Cool. Okay. Well, great. Great. Thank you so much for letting me know that. I really appreciate it. Yeah. Of course. If you need anything else, just let us know. I, definitely will. You're really nice and, and I... I'll thank you so much. Thanks. Bye. Oh, wonderful. Thank you. Bye. Cool. Bye. Wonderful.
If you need anything else, just let us know yes, I do need somebody else. I need an appointment so I can come into your great office and get my 4 crown done. She was so nice she was kind of light lighthearted and fun and said, oh, yes, we see people like that all the time. We try to be gentle. We give you a break when a ran a million things down your mouth. This is exact me what I wanted to hear as a patient who has a gag reflex yet, she comforted me on the phone. She said the right things.
No attempt. To make the appointment, what the heck is going on here? Let's keep going. Yeah. Okay. How can I help you? Hey have a question for you. I know I need 4 crowns. That's I was told by my last dentist. Okay. I didn't go back though You excite like a little bit of a Gag reflex? And I I didn't think they were treating me very gently. Do you see patients there that have those issues? Yes. We do.
I know we can do, like, a a gas or whatever lacking gas or whatever it's called, but that does cost to extra, it's not usually covered by insurance. How much extra? I do not know that off the top of my head, because it's not used too often honestly. I, really What if you use that and I'd laughed too much? Would that cause a, me a similar problem? So the crowns I'm me put you on a brief hold. Okay? Yeah sure. What was going on? This person was kinda clueless. I mean,
let let's not downplay this left. I guess, I called I said, if a gag reflex, You said, use laughing. I yes. But then, like, talk me out oh, it's really expensive. It was not covered by insurance. We hardly ever use it. Now I feel like an idiot, then I asked... I kinda kidding around. I said what happens if I left too much and she starts, like, telling me the fees for the crowds. I think that's what she was doing.
And then put me on a hold. And I gotta tell you, you were not gonna hear her come back because I was I'm looking at the time of here. I was on hold for 3 minutes, and then I just hung up. I'm not gonna make you listen to silence for 3 minutes. I'll just say she was not good, then she put me on and I I could still be on hold in this office. I who knows what's going on there. It's never good to put patients on hold,
but if we have to come on. Play little music or something and come back right away, lost opportunity. Boom by, see you later. Actually, I will never see you again. Okay. That is gonna do it. For today's episode. Just a couple quick reminders. If you wanna email me about anything, my email address is rich, RICH at mat MAD0W dot com. If you have any questions about anything. Wanna see what it's like to work with us as your personal dental coach. Bring me to speak to your, meeting or study
club, anything. Which that's ask a questioner or say hi. Rich at matter dot com. Matter dot com slash saved see how to save money in your credit card processing, month after month, matter dot com slash s seo o, you can learn how patients will find you when they Google for new dentist And 1 more quick thing. If you're enjoying the demo practice fixer, please help other dentists all across the world enjoyed it as well.
By giving us a good rating or whatever podcast service you're watching or listening on, a review will be even better. I'm Doctor. Richard Mad. Thanks so much for spending this time with me today, and I will see you soon.