Episode 221 – Self Reflection & the Dental Practice, Part 2

“You’ve always said there is no silver bullet to success… but there is a silver bullet, and that’s taking great care of your patients and the rest will follow.” ~Regan Robertson

Continuing the conversation from the previous episode, Dr. Bruce B. Baird (host of The Productive Dentist Podcast) and Regan Robertson (co-host of Everyday Practices Dental Podcast) take an even deeper dive into the principles and philosophies that have guided Dr. Baird’s remarkable career in the dental profession. They highlight the significance of surrounding yourself with humble, knowledgeable individuals who are dedicated to sharing their insights and expertise for the benefit of others. 

Throughout Part 2, Regan and Dr. Baird explore the intersection of data and emotion in communication, while emphasizing the pivotal role of effective communication in dental practice success. 

As you listen to this episode, pay close attention to the following:

• Are there more important ways do do things in your practice than adhering to the status quo?
• How much do you value genuine connections with like-minded individuals? What can you learn from them?
• Where does true success come from?

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Regan 0:01
Hi, Doctor. Regan Robertson, CCO of Productive Dentist Academy here and I have a question for you. Are you finding it hard to get your team aligned to your vision, but you know, you deserve growth just like everybody else? That’s why we’ve created the PDA productivity workshop. For nearly 20 years, PDA workshops have helped dentists just like you align their teams, get control of scheduling, and create productive practices that they love walking into every day. Just imagine how you will feel when you know your schedule is productive, your systems are humming, and your team is aligned to your vision. It’s simple, but it’s not necessarily easy. We can help, visit productivedentist.com/workshop that’s productivedentist.com/workshop to secure your seats now.

Dr. Bruce Baird 0:47
We don’t have any high and mighty people that work with PDA. I mean, you know, we’ve got a lot of phenomenal folks. But they’re all willing to share their journey and you know, where they’ve gotten to and how they got there. And all of our folks that work with us, including yourself and we go down through our employees, they’re all people who are striving, striving to be the best they can be.

Regan 1:18
Welcome to the Everyday Practices Podcast. I’m Regan Robertson, and my co-host, Dr. Chad Johnson, and I are on a mission to share the stories of everyday dentists who generate extraordinary results using practical proven methods you can take right into your own dental practice. If you’re ready to elevate patient care and produce results that are anything but ordinary. Buckle up and listen in.

Regan 1:51
Welcome to a special cross-collaboration podcast episode of the Productive Dentist with Dr. Bruce B. Baird and Everyday Practices Dental Podcast with Regan Robertson. You know, self-reflection can be a powerful aid in our journey or a crutch that can bury us in that victim mindset. Bruce and I have joined forces for this special two-part episode to provide insight on how you can use your past experiences to fuel your future success. Let’s stay in that abundant mindset and get you the best 2024 you can possibly achieve. We also dive into the new features offered at the PDA productivity workshop and the new the all new Seller Readiness Summit and even provide you with some of our strategies that, that you can implement to achieve your goals. This is an action-packed two-part series just for you. Let’s dive in. This makes a lot of I mean, this makes a lot of sense because when we bring in alliance partners to to the events, we know that we have vetted them out carefully. They align with the philosophy and I think the same goes for you know for the investment grade practice and the seller readiness. We brought in additional speakers that have that same level of excellence, which is a really high standard. Talk to me about Kyle Francis a little bit Kyle Francis, we have podcasts with him. I will link all of the podcasts by the way, everyone that we have done with Dr. Maggie Augustine with Wade Keifer I think we have one with Jackson but Kyle Francis is another exceptional partner of ours helping over at IGP and Seller Readiness, but he’s not a doctor. Tell us about Kyle and how you got to meet him.

Dr. Bruce Baird 3:29
You know, Kyle, and your people come come come into your life, you know, for a reason or for a season or there’s all those sayings but Kyle and I have gotten to know each other over the last three years and I find out that Kyle went to went to college with my daughter and my son-in-law and he knows Matt and my Maggie and anyway, but Kyle has a unique business sense. He understands, he’s in the business of seller readiness. He’s in the business of all of that he’s got the number one brokerage firm in the country, practice transition strategies is his company and it’s the largest brokerage firm, but now he’s stepped into becoming an investment banker. So his knowledge is so beyond what I’m you know what I understand and so it’s funny because I love talking to him to Kyle, because I asked him questions that are totally stupid questions,

Regan 4:41
There are no stupid questions.

Dr. Bruce Baird 4:44
But he makes me feel like it’s the first time he’s heard that question, you know, and so I asked question like, “Oh, the same-store sales or was in no way, wouldn’t it? What do you mean by this or what do you mean by this term?” And so I have learned so much in the last three years and I think our relationship has grown because we’re back and forth. You know, he’s able to ask me questions about the dental industry and dentistry, although he knows it very, very well, but just a, just a solid person, as the day as long, a great human being and I have enjoyed his knowledge in practice transitions and brokering and investment banking and private equity. And I have asked, you know, I love hanging around people that are a lot smarter than me and, and because I figured I’m gonna learn. One of my, one of my favorite people here in town, where I live in Granby, and unfortunately, he just passed, but he was like a real estate magnate. He was like, he was the guy And I, I knew him because I had used him he was a financier, he was all of a sudden, I had used him I had owned some properties, REIT, you know, real estate properties, I own some shopping centers and stuff like that and I always respected him and he and but anyway, so I brought him a bottle of Johnnie Walker blue, which is his favorite drink and I brought it over to his house, I said, “Hey, John, I wanted to give you this and,” and I started going over and having a sip of Johnnie Walker blue with him on his back patio every month, for the last two years and Ford, like I say, unfortunately, just passed but those will wonderful times for me to ask questions and he was willing to share all of his knowledge, but that’s the way college Kyle is like, you know, you ask him the questions, he’s always there is no, there is no barrier, there’s no barrier there. I mean, you can literally ask anything and, and he’s going to share with you his knowledge, and he’s going to share with you his his take on it and he’s also humble enough to say, “You know, that’s not the only way of doing things, there are other ways to do it. Also, I’m just going to share with you what I know,” and that’s, that, to me is amazing.

Regan 7:13
One of my favorite Bruce Baird quotes of all time, which I’m not going to tattoo it, but if it’s tattoo worthy is, “Be the best at what you can be at and then share it with others” and I love that I carry that with me quite a bit in art, aren’t we both really lucky with the people that we’ve surrounded ourselves with? One of my mentors, Skip Miller, which I brought up on our last podcast episode with Chad, passed away recently, but he embodied that character, and I don’t mean to be emotional, but he was you could call him for anything and when I find in the leaders that are truly admire trouble from, from my perspective is they are they are experts in their fields and that can be so intimidating and you can wield your expertise in ways that feel intimidating and Kyle is super humble. I was nervous the first time I even reached out to him and I thought, “Oh, this is a big company and I want validation.” Actually, I wanted validation from his experience in brokering practices, if the marketing that we provide really does increase the value of the practice, and he didn’t and so I would have probably said that’s I don’t think believe in stupid questions ut that’s how I felt, you know, I felt like it was a lower level question and he never made me feel that way. Not for an instant and I think that’s what you’re saying is you can ask anything, and he’s, he’ll make you feel comfortable.

Dr. Bruce Baird 8:38
Yeah, I mean, and, you know, those are all the people that we surround ourselves with. I mean, we don’t have any. I don’t, we don’t have any high and mighty people that work with PDA. I mean, you know, we’ve got a lot of phenomenal folks but they’re all willing to share their journey and you know, where they’ve gotten to, and how they got there and all of our folks that work with us, including yourself, and we go down through our employees, they’re all people who are striving, striving to be the best they can be and I can, I can say that, just across the board because, you know, we’ve never, I don’t know, our philosophy is we’ve never arrived. We’re on a journey and there’s a lot to learn and gosh, that is fun. I mean it because you know what, if there’s nothing else to learn, I think that’s when you die. You know, I think that’s when it’s over. You know, and I don’t want it to be over I really want to continue to learn so that you know, my life has meaning and so it’s you know, whether it be watching my grandkids do something I want to learn more about what they’re doing, I want to, you know, it’s all of that. So you get to become, again, the older you get, the more you reflect, and, and I enjoy it, you know, I enjoy seeing where I’ve been and where I’m going, I would hate to think I’m in the same place that I was 10 years ago, or the same place I was 20 years ago and we’ve surrounded ourselves at Productive Dentist Academy with people that are just like that. So that’s why I love I love work. I mean, I love working with folks that are that have that, that have that idea in their mind, you know, I don’t like arrogant. I don’t like arrogant, no one else. I just don’t I just I just don’t surround myself with people like that and we all have people are, you know, that we know that are just like that and I just don’t spend my time with because they are and I can’t help but let them let them do their thing. So anyway,

Regan 10:48
Well, this gives us a good window of what you can expect. You know, whether you’re thinking about transitioning, but have never been to PDA. And so you’re you know, when it comes to the seller readiness, or if you’ve been through the productivity workshop, and you’re ready for 2.0 coming to Investment Grade Practices, you know, or you’re joining us at the workshop, that we have so many avenues for it, I think it gives a really good flavor for what you can expect. One of the most powerful things and I round out our very long conversation. Thank you for taking all this time with me. I have a lot of fun doing this. It’s, it’s a balance what, no matter your industry, no matter your trade or your craft. To me, it comes down to two elements and its data and its emotion and how you blend the two and communicate and I want to wrap back around to something you said earlier that you said really get some dentists tied up in bunches and it gets me tied up in bunches is the best clinician doesn’t always win. The best communicator wins and that is if you’ve I mean, that’s a hero’s journey, that’s a mission in and of itself. I get up thinking Bruce every day about the dentist that is so totally gifted and can bring someone to health and they don’t have the skills to get over the hump and attract those, those patients that they deserve.

Dr. Bruce Baird 12:12
It’s the saddest story. I mean, we see it. People have been through kois they’ve been through spear they’ve been through panky they’ve been through Dawson, they’ve been through all these programs, they’ve spent a fortune learning the best techniques, the best technology, the best of everything, but yet they haven’t learned to communicate so patient says yes. It’s not sales. It’s, it’s, and I, You know, people say I’m a great I’m a great salesman. I mean, I can sell ice to Eskimos and the whole story. The reason I do it is because I’m so committed I am, I believe so much in what we’re doing. It’s easy for me to sell, you know, I couldn’t sell if I I just couldn’t. I mean, I could not sell anything if I wasn’t totally committed.

Regan 13:00
You’re not selling you solve problems, you solve problems for people. That’s how it’d be and that comes from a genuine heart, too. I think that’s to me, that’s how I define the difference between sales and a solution. I just, I know we have to use the word sales, but that’s what I see.

Dr. Bruce Baird 13:17
Well, yeah, sales, sales its solutions and that might be my next podcast.

Regan 13:22
So let’s make that the next podcast, there is not

Dr. Bruce Baird 13:26
They’re not sales, it’s solutions and so that’s why I always tell patients, you know, if I was in your situation, this is kind of where the way I’d be thinking, this is what I would do. Now, there’s a lot of different ways of doing things but this is what I would do if it was me and if you built that trust and that relationship with the patient. It’s so easy to get patients to say yes, but it’s when you get bowing down with your with your anal retentive, gentle background, you know the engineering background and you want to explain to them how you do it felling people don’t care how you do the filming, they want to know what that feeling is going to do for them. It’s going yes, because to last, it’s going to mean you’re not going to have pain, you’re not going to whatever but you know, we get way too technical and that’s why I always say there’s only two types of patients. There’s engineers and non-engineers and the biggest problem with dentists were engineers and not many of our patients are engineers. You know, you got to understand if I’m going to tell somebody if I’ve got a pilot in the chair, or if I’ve got an engineer in the chair, I do have to talk about the molecular structure of titanium. I do have to release but 80% of my patients could care less about any of that. They don’t give a crap about any of that. They just want to like me, you know they want they want to learn Like the office, they will, and then they’ll do whatever we asked him, asked them to do. You know, so yeah, I’m super excited and super, super pumped to be able to share that at the workshop over the last 20 years.

Regan 15:10
One of the coolest investments of I think PDAs entirely, this is completely biased. Since I am the chief communication officer with PDA, the best investment we have made is taking that internal communication that you’re talking about your proprietary, this is how I talked to patients, and cohesively moving that into your external advertising and your external message so that the whole thing feels seamless, you know, when you’re getting a massage, and like they don’t take one like one hand is always on at some point, they typically don’t have a handoff, that’s how I think of external advertising, pulling it through the entire patient experience and this year, the the I guess, I’m super pumped, I am, I am, I couldn’t get him any more pumped for this, we have I mean, I will be presenting the elements of Authentic Marketing versus Authority Marketing. So if you want to expand beyond a 50-mile radius, and you want to build out your own persona, there’s there’s two programs for that I hit on at the workshop. And IGP is an Investment Grade Practice Summit, though we have Dr. Adrian Reynolds, our Chief Human Resources Officer, and Matt Hutchings, who is our employer brand manager. So I don’t know how many practices today think about marketing to attract talent but we started thinking about this years ago, and we have an entire division now devoted to this, because of the challenges that sprung up from COVID. We had all of this Fallout and nothing you know, so one part that’s really frustrating is a doctor who can’t communicate how clinically excellent they are. They are the secondary pieces, what if you have constant team turnover or you can’t you just can’t find team?,

Dr. Bruce Baird 16:56
Right, right. I did. That was my I actually did a podcast on team this past week for Productive Dentist Academy for Productive Dentist Podcast, but yeah, you know, it’s it is very frustrating. There are things that hold you back, you know, not being able to be a team not being able to communicate with patients but those are all solvable. Those are all fixable. Can you have a persona that’s 100 miles away from your practice? I think so because we did it. You know, we did it, our average new patient would come 50 to 75 miles to come to our practice and we’re in Boulder, you know, Texas out in your out of Granbury, Texas. So can it be done? Yes but I would hate to do that. If I couldn’t communicate with the patients 90 miles, and I wouldn’t be able to just get them to say yes, you know, you know, and most people, they’re really fired up about getting new patients, I need new patients, I need new patients. Now you really don’t. For the most part 95% of all dental practices, if they just did the work on the people that were in their office, that had already come that were treatment pending that they told them they needed it, but they didn’t do it. You don’t need any new patients there is you just need to work on the people that you have and, you know, so when you’re doing that, and you’re communicating and you’re getting a lot of people to say yes and you expand your marketing through authentic marketing, and it’s the real deal and people are coming in, guess what happens to productivity is skyrockets. Guess what happens to stress it goes way down, guess what happens to your life? I don’t know, you’re helping more people and if that’s, you know, the money always takes care of itself. So it’s not about production per hour. It is but you know, we that’s how I, I measure, that’s how I measure things, but it’s the money goes takes care of itself. Just take great care people and if you do that, you know, you don’t have to worry. I had a partner that walked out, not a partner but associate the walked out, took eight eight employees and opened up down the street and he was a good friend of mine. I thought and and I I could have done a lot of things I could have sued him, they were running charts off. They were doing all this and you know, I talked to a very, very knowledgeable dentist. He happen to happen to be an orthodontist and my office, kind of a traveling. He came into the office a couple of days a week and he was in his I thought he was like 60 years old but I found out after he passed he was like 80 but he was in great shape and everything else but the reason I bring it out because he told me said, “Bruce,” and this is 35 years ago, he said, “Bruce, just don’t worry about it. Just take great care of your patients, you know, and everything else will take care of itself,” and I said, “You’re right,” and the only thing I did, I did put a billboard above his trailer that he opened a single trailer and I put a billboard talking dentistry for the, for the new millennium and really, we have paved parking we have, you know, because anything I did, there was a little rude, but, but what I’ll say is I concentrated on taking great care of the patients just like Travis told me, and what ended up happening was informants, we were producing about 30%, more than we used to produce with eight more employees and an associate and, you know, that taught me a great lesson 35 years ago, it was like, you know, just take care, just take great care of the patients, and you know, everything else takes care of itself. So it’s true story.

Regan 20:49
You’re good at saying in the hero’s mindset, as opposed to the victim, you don’t play victim? Well,

Dr. Bruce Baird 20:55
Now, um, it’s just not worth it. It’s just not worth it. You know, that’s, that’s, that’s the scarcity mindset, as opposed to abundance and, you know, if we can share that with dentists across the country, then we’ve done, we’ve done some amazing stuff, and we’ve really helped some people. So that’s my, no, that’s my deal. I’m, I’m at the point in my life, where this is what I this is my, this is my jam. This is what I like, you know, and, but I really feel like it’s been that way, for a good portion of my career.

Regan 21:35
Well, you’ve said often that there is no silver bullet, you know, it’s a lot of different little things and I think, if I can take away from this particular episode, you know, there is a silver bullet take great care of patients and, and the rest will follow and how that happens is through many little tiny steps and I thank you and Victoria, both for putting together three events that take a look at those intersections that in the long run, equate to taking great care of patients.

Dr. Bruce Baird 22:07
I couldn’t agree more.

Regan 22:09
Well, thank you for your time today. Dr. Bruce, are you going back to Cabo anytime soon? Are you staying in Dallas?

Dr. Bruce Baird 22:14
You know, I’m gonna be I’m working with private equity group Skylark in, in Dallas, which is exciting and they’re all PDA docs, so they’re all unicorns and it was kind of fun, you know, and going to all these offices, finding out what they’re doing, you know, that is special in their office and sharing it with the other offices that are part of the deal. So I’m, I’m super pumped.

Regan 22:41
The unicorn is an actual financial term, isn’t it?

Dr. Bruce Baird 22:44
I think so.

Regan 22:45
I believe it is. I have to ask Kyle, I think it is a real term and let’s end on that noon. Unicorns.

Dr. Bruce Baird 22:52
We create unicorns at PDA, creating unicorns. That’s what’s fun. Thanks, Regan.

Regan 22:56
Thank you, Bruce. Thank you for listening to another episode of Everyday Practices Podcast. Chad and I are here every week. Thanks to our community of listeners just like you and we’d love your help. It would mean the world if you can help spread the word by sharing this episode with a fellow dentist and leave us a review on iTunes or Spotify. Do you have an extraordinary story you’d like to share or feedback on how we can make this podcast even more awesome? Drop us an email at podcast@productivedentist.com and don’t forget to check out our other podcasts from Productive Dentist Academy at productivedentist.com/podcasts See you next week.