#1,202: Do This Monthly To Protect Practice Profit

0:00Hey everyone, welcome to the DennyLine team podcast. I'm your host, Kierden. And I have this crazy idea that maybe I could combine a doctor and a team members perspective because let's face it, dentistry can be a challenging profession with those two perspectives. I've been a dental assistant, treatment coordinator, scheduler, filler, office manager, regional manager, practice owner, and I have a team of traveling consultants where we have traveled over 165 different offices coaching teams. Yep, we don't just understand you, we are you. Our mission is to positively impact the world of dental and I believe that this podcast is the greatest way I can help elevate teams, grow VIP experiences, reduce stress, and create a team. Welcome to the DennyLine team podcast. Hello DennyLine team listeners, this is Kierden and you guys! You are in for the best tree of your life. Consultant takeover. That's right. Get ready, they're drop in some dynamite.

1:02Our consulting team is incredible guys and we are so blessed and so fortunate to have them sharing tips and tricks with you today. Hello, dental 18 listeners, welcome back to the DennyLine team podcast. I am your host today, Tiffany and I am so excited to have Miss Christi here with me. Christi, you have been with us for quite some time. We have done a lot of podcasts together and I truly love and appreciate your willingness to jump on. You just came from a coaching call so thank you for hopping over here to me. I know your brain's a little busy with notes and getting everything wrapped up. We do a lot for our clients so I know Christi, you just spent an hour with a team or a doctor and next steps are my future notes are wrapped up and you get a nice little email over to them and that's what our clients come to expect. Christi, how are you today? Thank you for serving our clients in coaching calls and serving our clients and our audience on the podcast today. How are you? I'm doing

2:03good. Happy to be here with you. Awesome. Thank you. This is why I normally schedule their Mondays and I am just really working to get ahead and Christi graciously accepted my Tuesday invite to come podcast with me. Thank you, Christi. Christi, I know I always say this I kind of hand pick different podcast topics to make it the most fun for you ladies while you're here with me. I get to talk about all of the pieces and I pick things that I think you guys are going to enjoy the most. I think all of you, all of us consultants could speak to all of the topics that we have but we all kind of geared towards favorites and things we love, things we do a lot of and something that you do a lot of is you look for the money and finding it seems to be something that you enjoy but also something you're just really really good at. I know, sure I speak to that often as well and today I wanted to talk a little bit more in depth

3:04on profit because I know we talk we've spoken a lot on a lot of different podcasts about AR, bringing AR down kind of how to find those controls within the practice but making sure we're looking at monthly financial controls that protect the practice profit was something I wanted to chat with you about today. So how's that sound, Christi? Sounds like a plan. Find the money. So one thing I love that we like to do with our clients and something we do I think in our personal life too is control what we can and then you know leave the rest for later we fix the rest later we work on the rest later and something that we can control is how much of our profit is being spent to a certain extent. So there's different spaces within the P&L within the practice spending that we do have control over that I think we don't spend enough time projecting and looking at to be able to know that we are profitable or that we can create that profit

4:06and to me when I see a topic that says monthly financial controls that protect practice profit I think of budgeting I think making sure we're working within the means of what we already have so that we're not overextending ourselves just like we do in our personal lives. So Christi you work with practices within their finances and their profit a lot. What are some areas that you work specifically on helping them to protect their profit within those numbers? Yeah well I think it's important tip that we look at it routinely number one and understand what our fixed expenses are and then what are ones that we can actually maybe pull levers and see where we can budget and plan for so many things again just like we look at numbers inside of the practice there's lag and lead measures right I kind of look at the P&L the same way there's lag and lead measures and so sometimes it's just being more proactive and really looking and planning

5:13ahead versus reactive and looking at the bank account to go is there money? Yeah which I think we all do that at some point right yeah professionally when you're looking at a P&L I love that lead measure lag measure P&Ls are full of lag measures and doctors will look back and gosh I have a practice that only gets them quarterly and I'm like I don't know how we do this it's so hard we've got to be looking at these every month like you said so we're looking at those like lag measures how do you pulse within that those lead measures what are you using and what are you seeing as lead measures when you're looking at those numbers monthly? Yeah well number one we might be planning ahead for hiring a new teammate what is that going to cost us and so wrapping that into our budgeting for the month or maybe there's a new piece of equipment that we're looking to buy or a C course we're going to like looking ahead and planning for those expenses on a monthly basis so they're not

6:13a surprise to us when when they do hit that's brilliant I love that so making sure even if we know hey we're gonna try to bring on an associate this year so that associate cost a lot of dentists know look at the associate cost and start you know planning for 30% goes over here 20% or whatever you're gonna do goes over here start putting that aside but to your point Chris see for hiring something that I think we fail to think about often when we bring on an associate is the rest of the team that may need to be brought on as well so do we need more dental assistance for the associate do we need another treatment coordinator to work that schedule sometimes even Christie there's hygiene right there's a hygiene hire that needs to come along with that associate so it sounds like for you you're looking at with that practice okay this is our current lag measures this is our current what we can say is our usual and customary employee cost and then as we add these other additional team members we can expect that employee cost to become

7:17ex dollars and then turning that into being able to see what the what the production and collections cost need to be in order to cover that volume yeah you got it tip spun on and we can almost do that for anything that were future pacing and planning right to see if it makes sense even yeah and as you're saying as you're saying not to you said um planning for a large equipment purchase so with that then you can look and say okay well this is what our profit is or what we project our profits be in the next coming months can we set aside or how much can we set aside out of that profit each month to be able to afford that large purchase rather than vice versa I think a lot of practices and people we say oh I want or I need this and they offer low percentage rates or no percentage rates so instead of saving towards that thing this day and age we just say oh cool let's get it and I'll pay monthly to pay it off so you're you're even

8:21thinking potentially flipping that mindset and saying let's let's project and see when do we need to make this purchase how much will it be and how can we get the money for it yeah absolutely and sometimes we do need to finance it but also knowing what that's going to look like too I mean maybe that makes more sense yet agree with you TIP we need to kind of look at where our expenses happen especially like with team it's easy to look back at the last 12 months or six months and say this is where we've been running you know what's kind of funny about that is we just came off of a month where many of our clients had three payrolls and being able to budget for those ahead of time right yeah so planning ahead and knowing what we're looking at but you have to be looking at it routinely absolutely I totally agree with that quarterly yearly it does not it just doesn't work it does not you're left in the dark so much

9:21monthly financial control so we can project we can look and see okay where's our growth taking notice do we need to prepping plan for any expenses and I love you're like even adding if we're adding debt what does that added debt look like against the current P&L and then too I was thinking earlier about this like what pieces do we use a lag measure for to like pull into this month for like you said a lead in a lag so I know a lot of practices I have them working off of budgets like to the max and so I have obviously I think a lot of practices work off of an ordering budget so a supply budget for the back office but I know a lot of them are like a little skewy too they're kind of all over the place they're like oh it's fine we're $3,000 over and I'm like $3,000 is like another percent or two sometimes so making sure we stay in line with that but projecting that and putting it on spreadsheets right so I have practices that have budgeting spreadsheets for

10:23that reason so they know exactly how much money they have to spend and I have dental assistants that find that to be like a game like that inspires them to go find the best deals because they know they only have X amount of dollars because the spreadsheet told them and then they're entering all that data what are you seeing outside of supply costs that you've got offices I know I've got you know if you're doing some obscure things like what are you having practices look at or have you in the past trying to gain that control maybe of their profit within the budgeting world outside of just the normal dental supplies yeah I love that you mentioned the dental supplies and doctors if you're not letting your team do this like do it and and really I liken that tip to going to the grocery store without a list or with a list right be very intentional and I really like to have my offices ordering twice a month and you set the time aside you know Wednesday the first week of

11:23the month and Wednesday the third week of the month or something similar so to your point there but also the other things that I would look at and it's coming up big right now especially with inferences how much are you spending are you taking the credit card payments and letting another 4% go out the door you know so many docs are complaining about their reimbursements but yet you're allowing them to pay you with credit card you know that's a big one that could save you look it look at those hopefully you're entering the payments in your software and you're designating it to a payment type run that report and see what what how much did you take in on credit card insurance payments and pretty much you must all times it by 4% you know and see what you could be saving that's a huge one right now yeah I completely agree with you that's massive and a lot of practices are doing credit card payments for supplies in order to get points and then they pay off

12:24the credit card but I do see often practices that end up and we all do that we do this in our first of life too we're like oh I'll get the points but then when the payment rolls on we're like oh shoot I didn't plan for that so now we're paying it over time and we are adding that extra whatever percentage that APR might be per month to that to that balance yeah the other thing when you're talking supplies tip back in our day we had a wait for things to come in right now we truly yeah now truly most practices they're getting it within a day or two I just I challenge you to reframe your mindset sometimes the salesperson comes in and they're like bye three get two free or whenever you know it's like that's money sitting on your shelf and many times even if you think you're gonna use it over time that money could be worth more to you in the bank than sitting on the shelf I just want to ask you what if running a practice could be easy what if profitability wasn't just possible but easy what if your team was fully engaged bought in and motivated what if developing

13:30leaders in your practice fell effortless what if living life on your terms wasn't a dream but was your actual reality and generally team we make all of this possible and easy truly with expert consulting proven strategies and real world support we transform your practice and your life and it's not just something that we think about it's something that we've done and done successfully for hundreds of offices and I'd love to invite you to be an office that can transform and change this year let's make this a reality I want you to book your free practice assessment with the Denali team today at the Denali team dot com and let's see what's possible for you in your practice what if all of this really could be easy let's stop wondering let's take action I can't wait to welcome you as the newest member of Denali teams consulting head on over to the Denali team dot com and let's get you truly living your best life yeah that's a really good point and I was thinking too as you're speaking there's so many different areas of that like quick return

14:35I have an office that we've dug into our finances many times and their supplies are just like out of this world and I'm like what the heck they were up to like 15% one month and I was like guys what are you ordering like what is are we remodeling or we restocking the entire office what did we order and when they went back they're like I don't know so they go back through and we have them on budget spreadsheets right well they go back through and what was happening is the office manager and the front-off at this gal were every day like oh we need toilet paper oh we need and they have prime so prime is a phenomenal tool very dangerous tool right it's dangerous in my own home yeah so being able to at the click of a button get something tomorrow or sometimes even same day because you need it it's very easy to just keep that open and be like oh order this order this order this and the next thing you know you've spent two three four times your budget because you're not

15:36paying attention to it being all lumped together so I love you're ordering two times a month on the budget because it avoids that even if you have an Amazon cart full right I tell them that's fine put it in the Amazon cart that's how you want to roll put it in the Amazon cart and you press order on the order day and you see your total because how many times have we gone I used to do this and I probably should do it again I would throw stuff in the Amazon cart and then I'd wait a couple days and if I remembered that I needed the thing I'd go back and I'd order it yeah or I could sometimes go back in and be like oh I don't know why I thought I needed that there are so many things that I did not end up ordering because I just sat on it for a couple of days so if we do that instead of the quick instant gratification because to your point no matter when you order it's going to be there in a couple days it used to take weeks it used to take like a month to get implants supplies we had to schedule an implant six to eight weeks out just to ensure we have the parts and the rep

16:37would still have to bring stuff but it's not like that anymore like there's zero competition when it comes to shipping rates you remember or shipping shipping days remember Henry Shine was like oh we'll get it to you within the within the week free shipping and it was like yes I'm using you because you have it up and how everybody has it yeah I love that you said the implant thing Tiff because I know even back in my day it was like oh gosh it's not here and Dr. Wood's been 75 dollars to overnight it and I'm just looking at it like oh man so I hope that you guys are separating out your invoices and you're really scrutinizing those truly Tiff you know when you were talking one of the other ones that's really hit me hard lately is ink and and heaven forbid guys if you still have the Pitney Bose postage machine I challenge you to get rid of it yesterday because truly in this day and age with text to pay and I hope you're not sending postcards anymore and I hope you're not

17:38sending paper statements like the ink in the postage is just outrageous and what you're paying for those machines get get on use your technology we all have it yeah I agree I loved my Pitney Bose machine when I was in office it was a long time ago but I was obsessed with that machine because it was so handy but I think to your point now even paper statements I think are done online and accompany Prince it and and sends it so we don't even like print at the office and touch them anymore it's literally all done online so yes get rid of the Pitney Bose I know they're really cute and they're super helpful I was attached to mine but we all gonna say goodbye at some point I love that yeah another area that I've seen practices like forget that they spent on is like team fun budgeting so oh I just you know got my team Starbucks three four five times like I've walked

18:40into an office I have a couple offices that do this and if I come to your office yes I do enjoy this so by all means create a budget around it I'll walk in and they're like hey I'm putting a Starbucks order in tiff what do you want and I'm like heck yeah right so I get on there and it's door to ash or Uber Eats or whatever out that's gonna deliver to the office and I'm like for this is like a hundred and twenty five dollars worth of Starbucks like that's I know I refill my app way too often and they need a budget for that but those types of things go unnoticed again because everything's just it's not cash or not seeing it it's auto online and it's like right now so I have a lot of practices my practice actually with the Amazon situation they have an Amazon bucket but then they also have a team fun bucket and so they have a budget every month of you know profit an amount of profit that goes over their team fun bucket and they use it or they bank it and so they can get future items but that was something that we had to create for that practice because

19:45their profit was just getting eaten out because the office manager's like well she needed no shoes you know like it's it's uniform only that's not part of your uniform allowance though so it's just like this weird spending habits are you seeing things like that too or it's just these like one-off yes team appreciation but when we're not budgeting for it that's where we get confused on the piano yeah I think it's funny and listening to you talk it's so funny how it mirrors our personal life and again you think about going to the grocery store if I don't have a budget all of a sudden I mean think of Costco we walk out and it's like oh man that hurt but if we have our list and our budget that we're sticking in we leave and and we know about what it's going to be so to your point we love team fun right we love celebrating and doing that stuff but yeah have your budget and and even more so with than that like have your budget and let your team plan it you know

20:45let them have fun with it but but definitely know where you're spending and know what the budget is for it yeah yeah I love that I actually have an office that just started a new kind of like a kudos board if you all right it's a big board and they write these kudos up there they put the the posted sticky notes up there with so-and-so's name and what they do now instead of it being like this person got five she gets a gift card or whatever we pulled her name she gets a gift card or he gets this what the office manager decided to do was count up all of the praise that's on the board at the end of the month and the number of sticky notes that she has for each one is a dollar and then one she has a rotating schedule so then someone is responsible for taking that pool of money and going and getting something fun for the team and so it could be a hundred dollars because they put a hundred sticky notes up there she has just no idea she just put the sticky notes up there and

21:49then they get that budget amount and they go get lip glosses for the team or lunch or something with that money and I just I thought that was really cool but what she did was she budgeted that right she's like okay well we know what our profit is and if I have a team allowance of X amount of dollars every month it might roll over some months may need more etc but she's created that budget around it as well yeah I love that it's it serves so many purposes right keeping the culture alive celebrating they could even make it around core values but also having that budget and it gives team something to look forward to celebrating too yeah I agree and get some of my reason to put sticky notes up there I'm like happy a fair all day putting sticky notes up there you'd have to create a whole new budget yeah but if you mentioned something else you know a lot of us have subscriptions or apps that we're using I think those at least quarterly it's worth taking a look at and just seeing are we using this anymore or not I mean yeah do's in subscriptions

22:57is a big area for looking for some leaks there I totally agree I totally agree I know I I tell myself if it's an app or if it's a subscription that you don't want to look at yeah probably need to look at it so my Starbucks app that's very easy to be like oh add 25 real quick or I usually add 15 or 20 but the other day it was like the 25 said get an extra star right and I was like oh cool what I'm gonna add it anyways start adding 25 start adding 30 and when you look back to see how many times you just added whatever to that app to be able to buy from that store and when I look and like would I have bought 125 dollars worth of Starbucks if I were using cash probably not probably not but it's so simple to add it to the app and spend and that's their business that's a whole business model and it works and it's phenomenal but when we're looking at monthly financial controls I think that's a huge space Christie that we forget about like how much

24:01are we paying for these subscriptions and realistically prime if you're not using the TV you know the movies the TV shows the whatever music all of these other pieces the audible that comes with it like if you're not using those pieces we're only using it for shipping to your point earlier I don't know if you guys have checked this or not I love the amazon I'm not here to say don't use them or don't subscribe I'm not here to say that so amazon don't come after us but the shipping was like two or three days more than what it was going to be and it really just makes you stop and think so for your practices where your your team members are just like click click click it's really easy way those are really easy ways to your point Christie to take a look at what are we actually spending and like you said those are monthly financial controls controlling when we're ordering how we're ordering and how much our budget is in any perspective of the practice supplies or not

25:03really are those financial controls yeah agree with you so much Tiff so take a look inside it's not just the health of the practice inside it's also looking at the health of the practice from the outward perspective to in planning right yeah and for yes the planning is huge if you're not planning you're not budgeting pleased by all means do it and if you're here saying I feel like it's sometimes like the block scheduling conversation Christie where they're like well I can't budget because I'm overspending and I know that like no still budget and look at how much you're overspending you should still be saying five percent of last month's collections would be this amount to order supplies and if you're ordering eight nine or ten percent of supplies because you're building cool still be in the habit of budgeting just like block scheduling well Christie I can't do block scheduling because I just need patients on the schedule and we've just started okay but what if

26:04what if you put it on there and you got used to it while you're building same thing with the budget like just because you're spending more than what you should be because maybe you need to right now doesn't mean you can't build the habit of at least looking at it and knowing what it should be I agree with you a thousand percent because even if we say five percent if you're at eight right now and you come in at six or seven it's still over five but we're gonna it adds up right and you're gonna be pleasantly supplies at the end so yeah agreed yeah agreed I love it all right action items I love your perspective Christie of what you said looking at the piano monthly and looking for the lag measures which is everything a piano is and the lead measures that are within that because they're there no matter what your lead measures are in there as well so take a look where are you budgeting where are you not budgeting and where you off budget when you are budgeting I think those are

27:04the three key pieces and look at that piano monthly Christie I know this would be a really good one for us to ping and pong off of thank you so much for your words of wisdom and for being willing to jump in with me in the middle of your coaching call day absolutely it's a pleasure awesome all right guys go take a look at your panels if you need help deciphering any of it if you need help like putting it together I know a lot of practices come to us and say hey I can't read this because it's confusing and my CPA now does it differently than my CPA before well guess what you have all the tools at your disposal to ask your CPA for what you want so reach out to us hello at the donlay team.com and we are happy to help you get all of that in order learn how to read the piano do all of the pieces and budget we are happy happy happy to help and we visit five star review let us know what you thought of this podcast and any tips or tricks you may have for others and any nuggets you took away from us and just like always we will catch you next time and as always thanks for listening I'll catch you next time on the Denali team podcast

28:05and that wraps it up for another episode of the Denali team podcast thank you so much for listening and we'll talk to you next time