0:00

All right, welcome back to the Dental

0:00

Domination podcast.

0:04

My name is Dan Bryan. I'm the co -founder at Dentalscapes.

0:06

I am not here to talk about dental

0:06

marketing today though, believe it or not.

0:10

I'm actually here to talk about something

0:10

that I believe is probably pertinent for

0:15

the majority of listeners, those that own

0:15

their own dental practices, and that is

0:20

staffing, dental staffing specifically. And obviously we are in a time of great

0:22

upheaval and turmoil within the

0:27

marketplace. And so... I don't think there's much more pertinent

0:28

topics to dig into today than really

0:34

dental staffing. And so I'm really excited to dig into this

0:35

with a very special guest we have on

0:41

today, Dr. Mike Neal. He is the founder and owner of Build My

0:43

Team, which is a staffing agency for

0:49

healthcare practices. He's actually a practicing optometrist

0:50

himself in Hawley, Pennsylvania, a rural

0:55

practice there. And I know Dr.

0:58

Neal, you actually started Build My Team

0:58

back in 2018 after experiencing some

1:04

staffing problems yourself. So if you don't mind, would you introduce

1:06

yourself here in a minute and also sort of

1:12

share with us and our listeners what kinds

1:12

of issues you were facing that led you to

1:17

create this new agency? Yeah, you betcha.

1:20

So welcome everybody. I'm a practicing OD, meaning optometrist.

1:25

And what does that have to do with a

1:25

dental podcast or dental marketing?

1:29

Well, what that means is essentially all

1:29

of our practices have very similar types

1:34

of problems when it comes to a team and

1:34

similar opportunities on solving those

1:39

problems. So this all got started with my practice,

1:39

which was a staffing disaster back in, 20,

1:47

before 2018. we were hiring wrong.

1:50

We were hiring based upon what people said

1:50

they were capable of doing, what the

1:54

resume said they could do and interviewing

1:54

that type of thing.

1:58

What we ended up doing was, getting so

1:58

frustrated with the existing process and

2:06

the results that it generated in the, you

2:06

know, we were just hiring wounded puppies.

2:10

I mean, we were hiring people that were

2:10

trying to nurse back to health, trying to

2:12

be doctors about it. Empathy was.

2:15

wasn't one of the main things. And, and it was, it was just categorically

2:17

disastrous.

2:20

the results that, that it gave us were

2:20

awful.

2:22

And I was in executive coaching at the

2:22

time with a, an organization called

2:27

strategic coach. And I looked into how they were,

2:27

essentially doing their hiring.

2:33

that got me looking into the four seasons,

2:33

Ritz Carlton, Disney, those types of

2:39

organizations and how they did their hiring. What I realized is they were hiring

2:40

completely opposite to how we were.

2:44

in our practice and we were doing

2:44

everything essentially upside down and

2:48

backwards. Yeah, you talk about hiring backwards.

2:53

So what does that actually mean in

2:53

practice?

2:56

Sure. So what we were looking for, you take all

2:56

the applicants, we wouldn't get that many.

3:01

We'd take them and we would try and figure

3:01

out who was great at the job.

3:04

What those other companies were doing is

3:04

they did upside down.

3:08

They got a lot more applicants and they

3:08

figured out who could not do the job.

3:14

Exact opposite of how we were doing it.

3:16

And the ones that were left are who they

3:16

sorted through.

3:19

And so what that led to is build my team

3:19

building a system, which essentially,

3:25

Our team members write the job description

3:25

for our client practices.

3:28

We publish it out to 22 different job

3:28

boards and we get a lot of applicants.

3:32

That's what we're used to.

3:35

From that point, our automated system will

3:35

send a text to the applicants.

3:40

They get it within about five seconds of

3:40

applying for the job and it starts them

3:44

through our assessment process.

3:46

And this is all done from their cell

3:46

phones.

3:49

The assessment process first tests their

3:49

mindset, make sure they have a healthcare

3:52

mindset. They like to serve people, take care of

3:53

people.

3:56

They do not have entitlement, all kinds of

3:56

stuff like that.

3:59

And that's critical because otherwise

3:59

you're just dealing with people who are

4:03

applying for a job. The entire bell curve, essentially.

4:07

So, open -ended questions? I'm just curious.

4:11

they're based upon a field of science

4:11

called psychometrics.

4:13

And there's all kinds of different ways to

4:13

tell things about a person without

4:17

directly asking them.

4:19

because for example, if you ask a person,

4:19

if they have great stress tolerance, when

4:23

they're applying for a front desk job, you

4:23

will a hundred percent get yes.

4:27

They might be shaking like a leaf and

4:27

sweating at the time they give you that

4:29

answer, but they're going to say yes. And so what we're able to do is determine

4:31

if that's actually accurate or not.

4:36

After the mindset assessment, the next

4:36

thing we do is we take a look at,

4:41

what they are capable of in terms of their

4:41

speed of learning.

4:45

And we want people who can learn quickly,

4:45

but not too quickly.

4:49

And they also have to be able to learn

4:49

quickly enough.

4:51

We are looking for people for these

4:51

positions based upon natural strengths and

4:56

talents and not experience and not

4:56

resumes.

5:00

So when they apply for these positions,

5:00

they have the right mindset to be

5:05

successful. They learn quickly so that they can be

5:07

successful.

5:10

and they pop into these positions with the

5:10

natural strengths and talents for each

5:16

position. And each of those are different, of

5:16

course.

5:20

Yeah, so once you once you partner with a

5:20

practice on the actual recruitment and

5:26

sorting through the applications, what

5:26

does the process look like then?

5:29

Does the practice itself handle the

5:29

interviewing and the hiring process?

5:33

Or are you involved in that stage? What does that kind of look like taking it

5:34

to the next step?

5:38

Once they go through our assessment

5:38

process, we know generally more about them

5:44

than they know about themselves. We can determine their stress tolerance,

5:45

how they like to work with people, their

5:48

detail orientedness, how they follow

5:48

process or don't, God forbid.

5:53

Each different position has different

5:53

algorithms behind it as to what makes a

5:58

person terrific. So for example, terrific front desk dental

5:58

person or dental front desk person.

6:05

sorry, dental assistant, biller, those

6:05

types of things.

6:08

And what our system does is it outputs

6:08

what's called an insight report.

6:12

And this is a PDF that our consultants

6:12

will send over to the practice and it

6:16

tells the practice all about this person,

6:16

but not from a resume standpoint, it's

6:21

what they're actually good at. From that point, the final candidates in

6:22

the entire process go through a video

6:27

interview. And this video interview is conducted by

6:28

our team.

6:32

It's automated and a one -way video

6:32

interview.

6:35

And they're asked a bunch of questions

6:35

that they record their answers using our

6:39

software and it's sent to our team for

6:39

evaluation.

6:42

What they're looking for is not whether

6:42

they're white, black, pink, green.

6:47

It doesn't matter if they're male or

6:47

female, nothing like that.

6:50

We're looking for how they answer the questions. So by the time they get to the point of

6:51

being sent one of these video interviews,

6:55

we already know they can do the job. We're 97, 98 % certain of that, depending

6:57

on the position.

7:00

What we're looking for at that point is to

7:00

determine how they would represent your

7:04

practice. We want to make sure that, you know,

7:05

depending on the position that they are,

7:10

either assertive enough or not too

7:10

assertive.

7:13

Are they outgoing? Are they more straightforward?

7:16

Are it all depends on the position as to

7:16

what we're looking for.

7:19

And, we want to see how they're dressed.

7:22

Are they taking this seriously? Are they eloquent when they're speaking?

7:26

Are they colloquial when they're speaking?

7:29

is there all kinds of slang involved? All that type of stuff factors into the

7:30

decision and.

7:34

That's the also the check and balance

7:34

against just an assessment based process.

7:39

And so when that's all said and done, the

7:39

cream of the crop gets sent over to your

7:43

practice. And up to that point of practice usually

7:43

has less than an hour's worth of work in

7:48

the entire process. So if they want to, they can interview the

7:49

people in person.

7:53

Most do some practices. Don't they say, you know, have that person

7:54

show up on Thursday, that type of thing.

7:58

So it's up to the practice. But the key point is that they have

8:00

virtually no time involved.

8:04

at that point. Absolutely. So I have a question.

8:08

I want to go back to something you've said

8:08

a couple of times and it's just, it's

8:10

really interesting. And I think sort of gets to the heart of

8:11

what you're doing and your philosophy, but

8:15

you said, you know, a couple of times now

8:15

you don't hire or look to hire based on

8:19

resumes or based on experience.

8:22

So I guess my question is, does experience

8:22

count for anything?

8:25

Are you ever evaluating whether or not say

8:25

a DA has worked in a dental practice

8:30

previously or. or whether or not a front desk person has

8:31

any direct experience, you know, handling

8:35

reception or that sort of thing. What's the deal there?

8:38

we do, however, it's not what you think.

8:41

In order to get to the point of our team

8:41

opening up a resume, they have to go

8:46

through the entire process. And we're very specific about that because

8:47

otherwise what we're doing is we're

8:51

sending you over, candidates that we know

8:51

cannot do the job, but have experience

8:59

doing the job. The reason they're jumping from one dental

8:59

practice to another is that they didn't

9:03

work out at any of those practices.

9:05

And so we have to be extremely cautious

9:05

about that.

9:08

Now keep in mind, this only applies to

9:08

unlicensed positions.

9:12

The hygienist, the F does, obviously

9:12

dentists.

9:16

We're not involved in the hiring of those

9:16

positions.

9:19

We're talking about the administrative

9:19

team, the billing team, even practice

9:24

managers, but not licensed positions.

9:26

And so experience for most of what I'm

9:26

talking about is more of a red flag than

9:33

it is a solution. statistically speaking, over these

9:35

positions.

9:38

So now another question I have that I

9:38

think will resonate with some of our

9:43

listeners is that obviously the hiring

9:43

market right now in dental is insane, but

9:49

retention is also an ongoing challenge.

9:51

And so what's sort of the difference in

9:51

terms of the retention rate that you see

9:55

adhering to this hiring strategy versus

9:55

sort of your traditional judging on

10:01

experience and resumes and that sort of

10:01

thing?

10:03

What's the real value add there as far as

10:03

retention goes?

10:07

Well, that's a great question. It's tremendous, vastly different.

10:11

And the main reasons being we're asking

10:11

people to be themselves.

10:16

Okay. And what you're asking in the traditional

10:17

approach is asking them to be who you want

10:22

them to be. These are markedly wildly different

10:23

approaches because we're hiring based on

10:29

natural strengths and talents. They roll into the position.

10:31

They learn extremely quickly.

10:33

They do. what they don't think is special and what

10:34

you and the rest of your team are like,

10:38

holy cow, that person's going to be great

10:38

at this job versus somebody who comes in

10:44

via a, more of a resume and traditional

10:44

approach.

10:49

They don't have all of the natural

10:49

strengths and talents.

10:51

So it's hard for them. It's work for them.

10:54

And you can just imagine when something's

10:54

hard and when it's work and stressful, the

10:59

retention plummets. Whereas we take people from outside of,

11:04

Generally outside of dentistry, bring them

11:04

in.

11:07

They think, my God, this is a terrific job. I get to sit in an air conditioned office

11:09

for most of the day in front of a

11:13

computer. Nobody's yelling at me, throwing at things

11:13

at me.

11:16

I'm not having to dig holes for whatever

11:16

it might be.

11:18

It doesn't matter. The point is they walk into the job

11:19

capable of doing the job, enjoying it

11:25

because it's not hard for them. and yet they are exceptionally productive.

11:30

I mean, these are a players and B players

11:30

that we're bringing to the table.

11:34

These aren't folks at the C or D player

11:34

level.

11:37

And that's the power of our assessment

11:37

process and filtering those types of folks

11:43

out. Yeah, now let's talk about culture really

11:44

quick because culture is obviously

11:47

important in the recruitment process. You want to make sure that they're going

11:49

to be a good fit for the individual sort

11:52

of personality of the practice and the

11:52

other team there.

11:56

You know, obviously team based care is so

11:56

important now building building a high

12:01

functioning dental team means, you know,

12:01

adhering to the practice culture.

12:04

How do you gauge that in the recruitment

12:04

process and how do you also recommend that

12:09

the practices once they.

12:12

are handed off these qualified candidates,

12:12

how do they gauge that in an actual

12:16

interview? Sure. So it starts off with a consultation call

12:17

with our team members.

12:21

We want to hear everything about your

12:21

practice.

12:23

That's how everything starts. We want to hear the good, the bad,

12:24

definitely the ugly, any of the problems

12:28

you're having, why you think you're having

12:28

those problems.

12:30

It needs to be a blunt, direct and

12:30

incredibly honest and candid conversation.

12:35

That's where our team members turn around

12:35

and say, now I know how to help this

12:39

practice and how to bring the proper

12:39

people in.

12:42

So it's not just,

12:45

you know, completely computer based.

12:48

Although our process is exceptionally

12:48

automated.

12:50

We are with these finalists candidates.

12:53

We know that they can do the job, but

12:53

which would be the best candidate for your

12:57

particular practice? And when our, our clients are very honest

12:58

and communicate as much information as

13:03

they can about that, our team members,

13:03

they find it straightforward.

13:06

And by the way, you got to keep in mind

13:06

that let's say a dental practice is hiring

13:10

once every month or two, our team members

13:10

will have filled multiple positions per

13:14

day. They are just at a completely different

13:15

level of doing this on a routine, regular

13:22

basis. And they get very, very good at this type

13:23

of thing because our company does one

13:27

thing exceptionally well, and it does it

13:27

over and over again.

13:30

We don't have multiple ways that we

13:30

service our clients.

13:34

And so the more that they can be honest

13:34

with our team members internally, the

13:39

better the results are. What's the typical timeline from

13:41

consulting with your team to actual

13:45

placement? What does that look like? So from the time of the order, most

13:47

positions are anywhere around the four to

13:52

six week level with exceptions on both

13:52

sides.

13:55

The fastest we've ever filled the

13:55

position.

13:58

and this was early on in the company is

13:58

that I got a text from a practice.

14:04

boy. Sunday night.

14:07

we posted the job Monday morning, had

14:07

applicants.

14:09

They ran through the process. Person was figured out by, Tuesday

14:10

evening.

14:14

They showed up for work on Thursday. That's the absolute fastest this has ever

14:15

happened.

14:18

Can't really beat that. Yeah.

14:23

yet ridiculous. Usually about four to six weeks,

14:24

generally.

14:27

Okay, awesome. And so for practices that may be

14:28

interested in working with you or, you

14:33

know, going through this system, what does

14:33

the process look like?

14:37

So, you know, what is the financial model

14:37

look like for you?

14:42

How does it actually work? Yeah.

14:44

So when a practice wants to work with us,

14:44

the hop on the website, build my team .com

14:49

schedule a consultation. All phone calls with the clients are

14:50

scheduled, for the initial one so that we

14:54

have the dentist full undivided attention.

14:58

cause we all know how that works in a

14:58

practice, you know, everybody's, pulling

15:01

at them. So they start off with a schedule call.

15:03

And as I said earlier, we want them to be

15:03

completely honest, candid, blunt.

15:07

Do it from your car if you need to we've

15:07

had clients start crying because the

15:12

stress is so high We're here to help I

15:12

mean that we do one thing exceptionally

15:17

well as I said and that solved these types

15:17

of problems we can Reliably and

15:22

predictably bring these a players on to

15:22

their team So it starts off with a call

15:27

then we create a job description For the

15:27

practice we publish it to 22 different job

15:32

boards the candidates start coming in

15:32

immediately

15:35

and they receive a text message within

15:35

five seconds of applying for these

15:38

positions. That starts the assessment process.

15:42

They go through the assessment process and

15:42

then at the end of it, we send over the,

15:47

the A players to the practice.

15:49

Now there's one thing I forgot to mention

15:49

earlier in the four to six weeks on

15:53

average, what the practice has to be ready

15:53

for is if we find somebody early.

15:57

Okay. So what I mean by that is an A player,

15:58

when we send them over, you have to reach

16:02

out to them right away. I, in my practice, it's within an hour or

16:04

two.

16:07

We literally stop what we're doing to

16:07

reach out to them.

16:09

The reason being these A players want a

16:09

decisive workplace.

16:14

They want somebody who knows what they're doing. Doesn't have to mold decisions all day

16:16

long.

16:19

Can, can show them that they're a leader,

16:19

a decisive leader, and they want that type

16:24

of environment to work in. You get back to somebody after a week,

16:26

they're gone.

16:29

They're absolutely long gone. Those days are over.

16:33

They're absolutely over. So for one tip for any practice is just to

16:35

be vastly more decisive about moving

16:39

forward with, with candidates. And, so for example, in our practice,

16:41

somebody comes in first thing in the

16:46

morning from build my team, cause bill, my

16:46

team does the hiring for my practice.

16:50

What our practice manager will do reaches

16:50

out within the hour, two at the absolute

16:55

latest and tries to get them in that

16:55

afternoon for an in -person interview.

16:58

Super assertive. you know, the days of being more choosy

17:00

and not wanting to appear to candidates

17:05

that you're, you're assertive gone, throw

17:05

that out the window.

17:08

It is doing you a massive disservice.

17:11

Yeah, absolutely. Now, just as far as what this looks like

17:12

in practice and what a successful practice

17:17

looks like when they're, you know,

17:17

adhering to these hiring, this hiring

17:22

philosophy, what does a good retention

17:22

rate look like?

17:24

You know, when you evaluate a practice and

17:24

its performance, you know, a lot of dental

17:29

practices, obviously right now are having

17:29

a hard time keeping talent.

17:32

So what is, what does a healthy practice

17:32

look like from that standpoint?

17:37

Well, it's hard to throw a number at that

17:37

because it depends on a bunch of factors.

17:42

Like for example, let's say you're located

17:42

near a military base.

17:45

That's the first thing that comes to mind. And you're going to have perhaps spouses

17:46

that are working in your practice and they

17:50

just up and get transferred by no fault of

17:50

their own or otherwise.

17:54

Contrast that to a place where there isn't

17:54

a lot of opportunity and team members tend

17:59

to stay for a very long time.

18:02

We, the team members that we place into

18:02

practices are

18:06

vastly better at staying in the practice

18:06

because of what I said earlier with

18:10

they're using their natural strengths and

18:10

talents in the position.

18:14

so our, the people that we place in the

18:14

practice, the percentage of time that they

18:18

stay, you know, is it a year, is it two

18:18

years?

18:22

It's vastly longer than what a practice is

18:22

used to.

18:25

And, and we want that, we don't want high

18:25

turnover in a practice for the simple

18:30

reason being that for our company, when we

18:30

send somebody who's an absolute superstar,

18:36

Who do you call next when you, when

18:36

somebody leaves, you call us again.

18:40

And so we, we end up taking over this

18:40

process of hiring for, for most of our

18:46

clients, permanently. And that's what our goal is, is to, to

18:48

learn your practice so well that, you can

18:54

send us an email, phone call, text

18:54

message.

18:57

You know, I need a person at front desk.

18:59

Here's what I liked about the last person. Here's what we can improve on, for the

19:01

next person.

19:03

And then our team is off to the races.

19:06

That's great. Now what does the pricing model look like

19:06

for practices that might be interested in

19:10

working with you? Sure. So first of all, it's much more in, I, I,

19:11

I'm hesitant to give exact numbers

19:16

because, we, we basically want our

19:16

potential clients to call.

19:23

And I'll tell you why. first of all, the numbers are less than

19:25

you think. And there's only, two different models of

19:27

working with us.

19:31

one is, per higher price.

19:33

So if you just want one person at a time,

19:33

that's a,

19:36

Fixed number it is not based upon their

19:36

salary or anything like that I don't like

19:41

that approach at all because we're trying

19:41

to get you the best value highest quality

19:46

person for the best cost essentially that

19:46

we can the other is a membership model

19:53

where there's a very small monthly fee and

19:53

Much reduced price per hire and that's for

19:59

practices that want to move forward with

19:59

us on a regular basis so between those two

20:06

It costs approximately half for us to do

20:06

it for your practice versus what you're

20:11

spending to do it yourself. And that's so long as you're efficient

20:13

about it.

20:16

So if you're inefficient, the numbers are

20:16

even better than that in terms of the

20:22

value. And one thing I wanted to mention too,

20:23

most practices to go end to end hiring

20:28

somebody put in less than an hour's worth

20:28

of work.

20:32

Okay. So you have that consultation.

20:34

It might be 30 minutes. It might be about an hour, but then you

20:35

sit back and you wait for the applicants

20:38

to come in and us to send you the people.

20:40

And there's a, an email update once a week

20:40

to tell you where things are at.

20:45

but you're literally our process, and our

20:45

system is so automated that candidates can

20:50

apply in the middle of the night and get

20:50

responses in the middle of the night.

20:54

Okay. So your practice is hiring 24 seven when

20:55

you work with us and that makes you much

21:01

more competitive. than the dental practice down the street.

21:04

Sure. Well, Dr. Neal, this has been such a great

21:05

conversation and it's fascinating to learn

21:09

about how you're doing recruitment and

21:09

hiring differently.

21:12

And I can see the value and I can

21:12

understand that idea of working backwards

21:17

essentially in hiring and not hiring based

21:17

solely on experience and the resume, which

21:22

is obviously something that is sort of

21:22

ingrained in us naturally to do.

21:27

I love this. I love the inspiration from Disney and

21:28

Four Seasons and I think you're definitely

21:32

onto something. So what can folks listening today, what

21:33

can dentist owners do to engage with you

21:38

to start the conversation? What's the best way to get ahold of it?

21:41

So if your average day to day is

21:41

stressful, your team members driving you

21:46

nuts, you don't have any hair left on your head. I mean, you can tell from my video that I

21:47

went through it all.

21:52

Call us, go to buildmyteam .com, schedule

21:52

a consultation and just start talking.

21:57

We're here to help. We're here to serve your practice.

22:00

And we do this not only in dental, but we

22:00

do it in 10 different healthcare fields

22:06

around the country and in Canada.

22:08

Private practices are all super similar.

22:10

We have this completely figured out and

22:10

dialed in there's no reason to do it

22:15

yourself anymore And as I said, we're we

22:15

cost less than what you're spending now So

22:20

imagine a an environment where you go into

22:20

work each day and you are excited about

22:25

your team members That's what we can

22:25

produce for you.

22:28

So build my team comm set up that phone

22:28

call and we start there

22:32

Thanks so much. Dr. Neil and I will put all that information

22:33

in the show notes if you're just joining

22:37

us for the first time I hope you've

22:37

enjoyed the dental domination podcast.

22:39

Thank you all for listening so much Thank

22:39

you.

22:42

Dr. Neil for taking the time if you liked what

22:42

you heard today Please take a moment and

22:46

review us on Apple podcasts or Spotify or

22:46

wherever you get this show And thanks so

22:51

much for listening and thank you so much. Dr.

22:53

Neil I hope to stay in touch and I I look

22:53

forward to connecting with you in the

22:57

future Same with me, Dan.

23:00

This was fantastic. Thank you so much.

23:02

Awesome. Thanks, Dr. Neal. Take care.