Boost Your Dental Practice (E.241)

Transform Your Dental Practice: Expert Insights on Patient Care and Growth

“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 Episode 239, 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

[00:00:00] Announcer: The Productive Dentist Academy Podcast Network.

[00:00:02] Regan Robertson: No matter your industry, no matter your trade or your craft. To me, it comes down to two elements and it’s data and it’s emotion and how you blend the two and communicate.

[00:00:17] Dr. Bruce B. Baird: Hello everyone. This is Dr. Bruce B. Baird, and you’re listening to the Productive Dentist Podcast.

In this podcast, I will give you everything that I’ve learned over the last 40 years in dentistry, working with thousands of dentists, and I’ll tell you, it’s not that my way is the only way. It’s just one that has worked extremely well for me, and I’d love to share that with you. So you too can enjoy the choices in lifestyle that productivity allows.

More time for things you love, increased pay, better team relationships, and lowered stress. Let’s get into it with this week’s episode of the Productive Dentist Podcast. End 1

[00:00:54] Regan Robertson: Doctor, did you know that PDA coaching doctors grew 219, 000 on average in just the last 10 months? If your revenue goals fell short this year and you suspect that patient communication and inefficient systems are holding you back, Productive Dentist Academy can help, but you have to take action.

Register today for the PDA conference March 13th through the 15th in Frisco, Texas. Go to ProductiveDentist. com to snap up your seat. It is the nation’s leading course for growing your practice and your team. Plus, while you’re there, you can set up a free 60 minute sign up. to identify your own uni for growth.

And if you ac score a one on one with P dr bruce Baird. That’s ri 10 and then his calendar go to productive dentist

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. 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.

This is an action packed two part series. Just for you, let’s dive in one of my favorite Bruce Baird quotes of all time, which I’m not going to tattoo it, but 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, I carry that with me quite a bit. And aren’t we both really lucky with the people that we’ve surrounded ourselves with?

One of my mentors, Skip Miller passed away recently, but he embodied that character and, uh, don’t mean to be emotional, but he would, you could call him for anything. And what I find in the leaders. that are truly admirable from, from my perspective is they are experts in their field and that can be so intimidating and you can wield your expertise in ways that feel intimidating.

[00:02:50] Dr. Bruce B. Baird: All the people that we surround ourselves with, I mean, we don’t have any, um, we 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, and how they got there.

And all of our folks that work with us, including yourself, and, and we can go down through our employees. They’re all people who are striving to be the best they can be. I can say that just across the board, because our philosophy is we’ve never arrived and there’s a lot to learn. And gosh, That is fun. I mean, 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, whether it be watching my grandkids do something, I want to learn more about what they’re doing. You get to become again, older you get, the more you reflect.

And, uh, 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 as them. 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, uh, that’s why I love work.

I mean, I love working with folks that have that idea in their mind. I don’t like arrogant know it alls. 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. I just don’t spend enough time with them because they are normal.

I can’t help them. So let them, let them do their thing.

[00:04:24] Regan Robertson: Well, this gives us a good window of what you can expect. Whether you’re thinking about transitioning, but have never been to PDA, or if you’ve been through the productivity workshop and you’re ready for 2. 0, 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, 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 a balance, no matter your industry, no matter your trade or your craft. To me, it comes down to two elements and it’s data and it’s 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.

[00:05:29] Dr. Bruce B. Baird: It’s the saddest story. Uh, we see it. People have been through COIS, they’ve been through Sphere, 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 a patient says, yes, it’s not sales. It’s people say, I’m, I’m a great, and I, I’m a great salesman. I mean, I can sell ice Eskimos and the whole story, but the reason I do it is because I’m so committed, I believe so much in what we’re doing.

It’s easy for me to say, you know, I couldn’t have said if I, I just couldn’t. I mean, I could not sell anything. If I wasn’t totally committed,

[00:06:08] Regan Robertson: 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.

That’s what I see.

[00:06:21] Dr. Bruce B. Baird: It’s 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 then I, I, if you built that trust and that relationship with the patient is so easy.

to get patients to say yes. But it’s when you get bound down with your anal retentive dental background, you know, the engineering background, and you want to explain to them how you do a filling. People don’t care how you do the filling. They want to know what that filling is going to do for them. It’s going to last.

It’s going to mean you’re not going to have pain. Hey, 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 have 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 do these, but 80 percent 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 to, they want to like the office they would, and then they’ll do whatever we asked them to do, you know, so I’m super pumped to be able to share that at the workshop over the last 20 years.

[00:07:44] Regan Robertson: One of the coolest. Investments of, I think PDAs entirely. This is completely bias 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 talk to patients and cohesively moving that into your external advertising and your external message so that the whole things feel seamless, you know, when you’re getting a massage and 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, I guess I’m super pumped. I am, I am. I couldn’t get any more pumped for this. I will be presenting the elements of authentic marketing versus authority marketing 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.

The secondary piece is what if you have constant team turnover or you can’t, you just can’t find team.

[00:09:02] Dr. Bruce B. Baird: Yeah, you know, it’s, it is very frustrating. There, there are things that hold you back, you know, not being able to be a team, not being able to communicate with patients, not, 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 Odum, Texas out in, uh, you know, 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.

Yeah. 90 miles and I wouldn’t be able to get them to say yes. You know, I, you know, and most people they’re really fired up about getting new patients. I need new patients. I need new patients. No, you really don’t. For the most part, 95 percent 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. 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?

It 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 that’s how I measure things. The money always takes care of itself.

Just take great care of people. And if you do that, you don’t have to worry. I had an associate that walked out to eight employees and opened up on the street and he was a good friend of mine. I thought, and, uh, I could have done a lot of things. I could have sued him. They were running charts off. I’m genius.

They were doing all this and I, you know, I talked to a very, very knowledgeable dentist and it happened to be an orthodontist in 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 up is he told me, he 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 new millennium, and, uh,

[00:11:28] Regan Robertson: really?

[00:11:29] Dr. Bruce B. Baird: We have paved parking. We have, you know, because you gotta go. Anything I did that 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 in four months we were producing about 30% more than we used to produce with eight more employees and an associate.

And, you know, that taught me. Great lesson 35 years ago, it was like, you know, just take great care of the patients and, you know, everything else take care of itself. So it’s true story.

[00:12:00] Regan Robertson: You’re good at staying in the hero’s mindset as opposed to the victim. You don’t play victim. Well,

[00:12:05] Dr. Bruce B. Baird: I’m no, I’m it’s, it’s not worth it.

It’s just not worth it. You know, that’s, that’s, uh, that’s the, uh, scarcity mindset. As opposed to abundance. And, uh, you know, if we can share that with dentists across the country, we’ve done some amazing stuff and we’ve really helped some people. So that’s my, I don’t know, that that’s my deal. I’m, I’m, I’m at the point in my life where this is my jam.

This is what I like, you know? And, uh, but I really feel like it’s, I’ve been that way for a good portion of my career.

[00:12:34] Regan Robertson: 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, there is a silver bullet, take great care of patients and, and the rest will follow.

And, and how that happens is through many little tiny steps. And I thank you and Victoria both for putting together events that take a look at those. intersections that in the long run equate to taking great care of patients

[00:13:02] Dr. Bruce B. Baird: didn’t agree more.

[00:13:03] Regan Robertson: Well, thank you for your time today, Dr. Bruce.

[00:13:05] Dr. Bruce B. Baird: Thank you for joining me for this episode of the productive dentist podcast.

If you found this episode helpful, make sure you subscribe, pass it along to a friend, give us a like on iTunes and Spotify, or drop me an email at podcast at productive dentist. com. Don’t forget to check out other podcasts from the productive dentist academy at productive dentist. podcast. com. Join me again next week for another episode of the Productive Dentist Podcast.