Shelly VanEpps discusses how to maximize dental practice efficiency by involving teams, streamlining processes, and investing in cohesive systems.
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About Shelly VanEpps
Shelly is the VP of Business Development & a Mastery Coach with All-Star Dental Academy. By aiding in the growth and expansion of All-Star, Shelly’s passion for dentistry allows the company to focus on guiding dentists and their teams towards achieving their vision of a successful dental practice. Because each office has their own definition of “success” Shelly focuses her attention on customized coaching by applying her 21 years in the dental field to each department within the office. In addition, as a John Maxwell Certified Leadership Coach, Shelly enjoys working with doctors and office managers on shifting their approach from a managerial approach to a more effective leadership style.
Episode Transcript
Transcript performed by A.I. Please excuse the typos.
00:02
This is Dental All-Stars, where we bring you the best in dentistry on marketing, management and training.
00:11
Have you ever had a time where one of your team members came to you and said, doctor, I understand why you want me to do that. I just simply don’t have time. If that is the case, I’m here to tell you, you are not alone. This is something that we hear on a daily basis in our coaching programs is I want to implement this and that, but my team, they just don’t have time. They’re not going to do it. And so what I encourage you to do is step back and do a
00:39
process where you’re going to walk through your entire day. You’re going to walk through your week. You’re going to walk through your month. You’re going to set the tone for what the expectations are and together determine how much time does it truly take to do each one of these tasks. So for example, if you’re saying, oh well, flipping a room, how long does that take? If one team member is saying, well, it takes me five to ten minutes and another team member is saying it takes me one minute,
01:09
You have a great differential right there. So you need to step back again and say, okay, Joe, show me how you flip a room. What is your process? You do this in one minute. What exactly are you doing that’s allowing you to do that in one minute? Now, Susie, you’re taking five to 10 minutes every time. Show me your process. And then together determine what is the true best process. Joe might be missing steps. Susie may be
01:38
over the top, you know, either just super slow or she’s doing things that aren’t necessarily critical. Now we obviously have to stay within OSHA standards, so I’m hesitant to say that with this particular example, but I hope that you get where I’m coming from for this. So if you have a team member who is setting up rooms, one team member takes one minute, one team member takes
02:07
Big difference. So again, streamlining your systems, figuring out what your efficiencies are, and doing that as a team. This team building exercise is where you’re gonna get the buy-in. When they feel like they have an opportunity to have say in how something is done, they’re going to have ownership in it. And so I encourage you to include them in these, carve out time in your week, in your month, in your quarter.
02:35
to truly break down your systems and then have them documented so that they can be repeated from person to person. And there’s no uncertainty of how something should be done. Now, once you’ve developed these efficiencies, you can then break that down and say, okay, based on what we’ve decided, this is how much time it should take to do X, Y, Z. Therefore, we have some time to be able to focus on doing an ITERO scan during our hygiene visits.
03:05
Now you’ve gotten the buy-in and they say, yes, now that I’ve streamlined this system, you’re right. We can implement that. I take 25 minutes to do an ITRL scan, she takes two. So what needs to happen? Practice. We need to practice. We need to continue to improve our skills so that we can do things efficiently. And again, carving out time. So I think you’re likely getting my theme here and that’s investing in your team.
03:35
That’s a matter of stepping back, having conversations, working with them, bringing them all together, having some camaraderie and developing your processes and your systems together. Until next time, go out there and be an All-Star. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Dental All-Stars. Visit us online at allstardentalacademy.com.
