The Closing Institute - Peer Mentorship Call

June, 2024

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Bart Knellinger: Hey, guys. What’s up? How y’all doing? Hello. Hello. Guys, if you have, uh, if you have cameras, turn them on. I think- and everybody kind of, um, it defaults to mute, I think, for the most part. So, if you’re saying something, check the mute button. You have to…

Sara: You were correct.

Bart: There you go. There you go. What’s up, Sara? How you doing?

Sara: How are you?

Bart: I’m good. How you doing?

Sara: Good. Thank God. Can’t complain. Hold on. [inaudible]

Bart: Are you closing arches or what?

Sara: I’m just waiting for Lily. Sorry, Bart. I didn’t hear you. Can you hear me?

Bart: Yeah, I hear you. Are you closing arches or what?

Sara: Trying.

Bart: Trying?

Sara: We got some.

Bart: You got some?

Sara: Not as much as we’d like.

Bart: Okay. Cool.

Sara: I’m just waiting for Lily to join me.

Bart: All right, cool. I’m just, like, giving everybody a chance to, uh, a chance to log on here.

Woman:

or you don’t want us to unmute?

Bart: Guys, if you got cameras, try to turn them on. It’s weird talking to a bunch of black squares on the screen. Weird. There we go. There we go. Mm-hmm. I can see who- who we got, you know, still in bed. [chuckles] [hums]

Woman 2: Bart? Um…

Bart: Yes, ma’am.

Woman 2: We’ve had a- we’ve had a little turn on this week. The faucet opened back up and Tanya has closed at Dental Care and Impact Solutions, [inaudible], um, she- Tanya, our implant coordinator has closed close to 200,000 this week so far.

Bart: Wow.

Woman 2: Yeah. Everybody’s saying yes.

Bart: Wow. Wasn’t Tanya- that was the video we did last week.

Woman 2: Uh-huh. Yeah. She’s closed, uh, almost 200,000.

Bart: Wow.

Woman 2: We had a man come in today and he totally cut jock off about doing implants when he got up here to the front desk to check out, I walked around, I was talking to him, and I said, “Are you sure you want this traditional full lower denture, that thing’s going to jump around and flip and flop in your mouth.” He says, “Oh, no, I don’t want that.” So, I looked at Tanya, and I said, “Tanya, do you have time to talk to him today?” She said, “Certainly, bring him on in,” and she closed him at, uh, 15,000 for a snap-on lower.

Bart: Wow.

Woman 2: We- we did a husband and wife yesterday and their two cases were like it. He’s a fixed to full upper, full lower, and I think she’s a snap-on lower or something. But anyway, they- they, um, got approved for proceed for 60,000 and she’s coming tomorrow to pay the rest of hers. She’s, um, bringing the certified check to pay for the rest of hers so we’re doing her records and all tomorrow. But she’s closed a lot of cases yesterday and today. So, like, everybody just said, “Yeah,” you know, you just got to keep pushing and they do it sooner or later. We…

Bart: Sure. You know, they do it- they can come in waves.

Woman 2: Yeah.

Bart: You just get a momentum. Sometimes it’s like everything, that, like, you can’t get a yes, you know what I mean?

Woman 2: We were getting slightly discouraged, yeah, we were so discouraged going to Las Vegas and we didn’t have anything to say, or we’d all be sitting there with our heads down. But now, we can sit there with our heads up.

Bart: Hey, they- they come- they come in waves, and you get into this.

Woman 2: Yeah.

Bart: You know, sometimes you just get in a groove and you get some- get some positive momentum going.

Woman 2: Yeah.

Bart: And, uh, you know, it’s amazing. I always tell people, you- you got to hit- you got to hit the singles. You know what I mean? You can’t hit home runs every single day. And-

Woman 2: Yeah.

Bart: I see it all the time where patients come in and, yeah, it’s not the 60,000-dollar case, you know, that- that was treatment planned but it should have been a 12,000-dollar case.

Woman 2: Yeah.

Bart: It should have been 15 but it was- a lot of times, it’s presented as, hey, it’s, you know, 50,000 or it’s nothing. You know what I mean?

Woman 2: Yeah, Bart.

Bart: They either do the whole thing but there’s never really a, um, a secondary close that’s ready to go if that’s just too much for them.

Woman 2: Yeah, he- today, he said- the man said, when he sat down and started talking to Tanya, he says, “I definitely want something that I can take out when I want to take it out,” he said, “because I,” you know, he said, “I have this thing where if there’s something in my mouth and I don’t want it in there, I want to be able to take it out.” So, she immediately went to the snap-on, and, you know, of course, told him he, he could do the fix but, um, closed him on snap-on.

Bart: Awesome.

Woman 2: And then those people sometimes turn into fixed.

Bart: Of course. Of course.

Woman 2: So- so, you know, he always has that option if he really likes it. So, we were just excited today. Good God, if we had…

Bart: Hey.

Woman 2: Ugh, we were depressed.

Bart: Well, congratulations on that, and, and that’s the thing. If you, you hit the singles, those home runs, they come in, um, they come in waves.

Woman 2: Yeah.

Bart: You know what I mean? They- they really do. So-

Woman 2: You just can’t give up. Can’t give up. But Tanya can’t be here this afternoon. She had to go to the doctor before our trip to Las Vegas, so, um, she wasn’t feeling well and so she had to go to the doctor. So, I just thought I’d tell you her good news.

Bart: Oh, okay. Awesome. Awesome. I love to hear that.

Woman 2: Yep. All right. How do I turn it off? Where am I?

Bart: Guys, there’s a couple of things that I want to go through with everybody in the call. Guys, remember if you’ve got your, uh, all of you that are on the call, if you’ve got a camera, like, turn the camera on. There’s like, you know, 13 brave souls with their camera on, and there’s like 65 wussies with the camera off. There we go. There we go. There we go. There we go. Now I got… oh my God, I got a full screen full of faces. This is awesome. Cool. All right, guys, a couple of things I want to go through. Excuse me. Gosh, I’m trying not to come up- come down with something right before our Las Vegas- right before we got this conference. Um… [clears throat] But a couple of things I want to go through. Number one, um, I want to kind of run through what the, uh, what the protocol is if you guys find yourself in the practice, um, if you find yourself kind of not hitting your goals with the number of arches, right?

Has- has everybody set a goal with the number of arches that we’re trying to get to each month, each year? Everyone have a goal with the doctor that’s set? Okay. So, the, uh, the most important part about setting a goal, and actually hitting it, is knowing- knowing you’re behind or knowing you’re not going to hit it before you get there. Right? So, setting up some type of a, uh, some type of a forecast. I’m going to be rolling out in Vegas, a new forecast, but I know that some of you guys, some of you guys are able to attend. Some of you guys are not coming to it. So, I wanted to kind of go through that and give you guys an idea, because with this- with this form, you can basically manage the whole business. And the way that I see it, it’s really- it’s the treatment coordinator’s responsibility to manage this and make sure that you guys are hitting your goals. It’s your responsibility. This is something that you should go through every single morning in the huddle. And I’m not kidding, you can run the entire business from this one spreadsheet.

We’re actually working on, um, we’re working on turning this into an app right now, um, with the developers. Uh, right now it’s in a, it’s in a spreadsheet format, but very soon it’ll be coming over to you guys with the username and login so you can have everything right there. But I wanted to go through, how do you forecast to goal? And when, when is it time to kind of make some- some strategic changes here? Because you can’t just set a goal and not understand like, hey, are we going to make it? Are we not going to make it? Um, and a lot of times by the end of the year, you just kind of look up and go, hey, what, what happened? So, I’m going to go through this, this new form forecast with you guys.

And then, um, and then I’m going to go through how to roll back from the primary treatment plan to a secondary close without- without losing the patient. If that 50, or 60, or $70,000 case, you know, can’t be- can’t be completed. So, I’m going to share this with you guys real quick and I want to explain it so that when it comes over to you, you’ll know exactly- you’ll know exactly how to use it.

Okay. Guys, can everybody see my screen? Okay. All right. Look. [clears throat] So, are you guys- are people using a forecast right now? Are you guys using one? Okay, this is- this is really, really easy to use. All right? Um, I’ll be sending this out but here’s the idea, okay? If you want to do, say, if you’re looking to do, say, 10 arches a month, TCs, it’s your responsibility to know what exactly has to happen to hit the 10. And then if something doesn’t happen, it’s your responsibility to drive the- the strategic changes with the team. You guys have to be all over this. You should be managing it every single day. This is what you go through in your huddle. You know this like the back of your hand. Okay?

So, a couple of concepts here that we all have to agree on. Number one, it’s not how many arches you sell in a month, it’s how many you complete in a month. Makes sense? So, when you’re saying, hey, we want to do 10 arches a month. That doesn’t mean you want to sell 10. That means 10 is on the schedule and the doctor actually completed 10 arches. Now, why wouldn’t we count it when it’s sold? Why would we only count it when it’s completed? Somebody tell me. Why wouldn’t we count it when it’s sold in terms of the forecast? Why do you think?

Woman 3: Because there’s certain days of the month available to actually do the surgery, maybe.

Bart: Well, I would say that we only count it when it’s done because it’s only real when it’s done. Okay? So, when you make a sale, if you make a sale and you sell a double arch case, just because you sold it, it doesn’t mean that you’ve- you’ve earned the money yet. So, the money’s not even really accounted for as revenue, right? So, you guys see this right here that says deferred revenue? Everything that you sell that’s not on the schedule goes to deferred revenue. Okay? And for accounting reasons, everything that you sell, even if it’s on the schedule for next month, it’s still deferred revenue until that next month. Make sense? If you count all of the sales when you sell it, and then you produce it in another month, well, your profit’s going to be overinflated, right? Your numbers are going to be overinflated in the month in which you sold it, and then your expenses are going to be over- overestimated and overrepresented in the months in which you actually complete the arch. Does that make sense?

So, you want to show the- you want to show the revenue in the same month in which you have the expenses, right? Your implants, your labor, your, um, your lab fees, all of those things should come with the revenue. So, you never put revenue on just when it’s sold, it’s when it’s completed. What I did for the purposes of this forecast is a couple of things, right? So, you’ve got your production goal, and this is for the month, production goal for the month. You’ve got the surgical blocks available. Okay? So, here’s how many surgical- here’s how many surgical blocks the doctor has. And if you, if you guys aren’t blocked scheduling for the surgery, then, you know, you- you need to be blocked scheduling for the surgery, right? If you’re not blocking out enough surgical time to complete the goal in terms of the number of arches, you’re not going to hit it, right? You’ll fill that spot with something else, with something less productive. Okay? So you’ve got your surgical blocks, you’ve got your new patient consultation goal. Okay?

So, let’s say you want to get to, um, if you want to sell 10 arches a month, you know, you probably need at least, let’s say, 40 to 50 bodies through the door, 40 to 50 consultations. Okay? If you get 40 consultations, you guys think you could close 10 of them? Everybody feel pretty good about that?

Woman 4: Yes.

Bart: That’s closing at 25%. Okay, cool. So then that’s what this would say. New patient consult. This is, you know, this- this would be 40. Okay? And what you have to do is you’ve got to go through, and you got to do this for each month. Because what I’ve been seeing is what happens when, okay, you get to June and the doctor is gone this whole week. They’re at Disney World, for the love of God, they’re at Disney World. What do you- what do you do, right? You can’t hit the number of arches because you don’t have the surgical blocks. So what happens to the production goal for that month? You’ve got to bring it down or we’ve got to tell the doctor, “Hey, we’re losing, you know, we’re losing a week here. We need to pick up on the 15th and the 22nd when you get back.” Or we just need to prorate this month, prorate the goal for this month where I can still hit my- where I can still hit my objective. You got to give me something that’s reasonable to hit. Not even reasonable. You got to give me something that’s possible to hit.

All I can do is completely book you. If you’re completely booked, I should be at my goal. And you should be at bonus. Makes sense? So, it doesn’t mean that it always has to be like 15 every month. Sometimes the doctor is going to be gone. Maybe they’re gone for a week, maybe they’re gone for two weeks, whatever it is, but it just has to be prorated so that you guys don’t have a goal here that’s impossible. Meaning that the surgical blocks are totally full, but you’re not at production goal. We can’t have that, right? So, a couple of things, if you run into a situation where you don’t have enough surgical blocks to hit the goal, you either open up a Friday, you open up a Saturday, the doctor picks them up when- when they get back from vacation, or, um, in certain scenarios, you can look at, I’ve had doctors just bring in- bring in an independent contractor to do some surgeries while they’re gone, if they’re going to be gone for two weeks, um, because it’s- it’s a lot of- it’s a lot of revenue, you know.

Sometimes you can bring in a surgeon for a couple thousand bucks an arch and have them do the case. But either way, um, what happens is you’re missing a week and you’ve got a production goal that’s impossible. You’re full on the surgical blocks and then you guys are still doing a lot of consultations. So what happens when you do your consultations and the doctor only completes maybe 10 arches, but let’s say that you sold 25 arches, sold 25 arches, only completed 10? You’re booked out for the next month, right? But even being booked out next month, you’re only at 17 and you already sold 25 this month. What’s going to happen to this number right here? This deferred revenue number start- is going to start what? It’s going to start increasing.

And this is- this is not a really- this is not a good thing to have. It’s a better thing to have than no pipeline, but it’s not good because this is a liability. Meaning the further out you guys have these patients after you sell them, when they’re not on the schedule and you’re not actually getting through what you’re selling, um, the higher the risk of somebody asking for a refund or going to another practice that can get them in right away. Does that make sense?

So, all these numbers should make sense. You go, okay, we want to do 10 arches, uh, and an arch is 25,000. Okay. So the production goal is 250, 000. We’ve got X amount of surgical blocks available for it. And I need X amount of consultations. So this consultation, whose responsibility is that to make sure you’re getting the consultations? Who’s- whose responsibility?

Woman 5: The patient advocate.

Bart: The patient advocate’s responsibility. Surgical blocks available to make sure that you have enough surgical blocks available to hit the goal. Whose responsibility is that?

Woman 5: Treatment coordinator.

Bart: Kind of. And the doctor’s. The doctor has to make- the doctor has to have enough surgical blocks available. Okay? And then you’ve got the production goal with the cert- which the um, the treatment coordinator is responsible for. Now, look, every single day of the month, this is what you guys do at the beginning of the month, you plan this month out, okay? So daily production goal, whatever it is. Right here, we’ve got an example of like 44,000 a day, okay? You’ve got your surgical blocks for the day, and then you’ve got your surgical blocks filled. You got new patient slots available, so how- how many new patient consultations you guys can do that day, and how many you have scheduled? Then you’ve got dollars closed for the day.

The dollars closed has nothing to do with the daily production for the day. Daily production is what the doctor actually does. This is completed, right? Dollars closed is what you sold from these consultations. Makes sense? When you start hitting numbers, these fields are just going to turn green, and what you’re trying to see is at least, you know, at least three weeks, four weeks out, you guys are green. You’re full. Okay? Now, you’re probably not going to be full four weeks out with the new patient consultations. If you are, you need to be able to do more consultations. Okay? But what ends up happening is you guys are going to see situations where you can manage the schedule a lot better. Okay. So, for instance, um, let’s say, you know, we’re here, okay? And let’s say on this day, on the sixth, you guys have, um, let’s say, it says you got 20,000 scheduled, right? Or let’s say it says 30, you got $30,000 scheduled, but you have no more surgical spots. So, you’ve booked up three surgical spots, and we only have $30,000 on the schedule for the production. What would that tell you for that day? Somebody tell me, what would you do?

If your surgical blocks are full, but you’re not at your production goal, what do you do?

Woman 3: You open up more surgical blocks.

Bart: Or you move somebody, right? So it means that you’ve got maybe, you’ve got three removals on the same day, which should not happen, right? So what you would do is reschedule and move one of the full arches or double arches to that date. And then you would move one of the removals or two of the removals. You can’t have a day in which you have no surgical slots, and you’re not at production. Make sense?

So when you guys sell like an overdenture, or a locator case, you guys should be putting those in. That- that’s what you’re meeting with the doctor about. You know what I mean? Because there might be a day where the doctor’s like, “Yeah, this is a really easy case. It’s not going to take me very long. I’m going to knock this arch out, no problem.” Well, you might be able- he might be able to get one done in the morning, or a double done in the morning, and then you can throw that case in in the afternoon, right? Or he’s doing a single arch in the afternoon, you can throw that, that locator case in in the afternoon, right? But you can’t- you can’t afford scheduling mistakes here, right? Or like, just when you, when you guys let the patient dictate when they come in, and you don’t guide them at all, then you can run into major problems with- with the schedule. Um, you can run into major problems with schedule where, like, you’re booked out for two weeks, but you have one day with nothing in it.

What if you have this day with nothing in it, but you’re booked out this week? What do you do? This day’s got nobody and this week is full. What would you do?

Woman 5: You call somebody up for that day.

Bart: Start calling. Well, first off, anybody that you sell, you’re trying to fill this day right now. Okay? But you’re going to say, listen, if we still have an empty day, a week out, we’re just- we’re going to fill it with a reschedule because then that’ll give yourself another week to sell the day in which you just rescheduled, right? You move those patients up. Call somebody, “Hey, we just had an opening. We’re going to go ahead and move you up to Tuesday.” But guys, once the day is gone, the day is gone. You can- you can never get the production back for that month. You simply can’t get it back. It’s gone. You can never recapture it. You just- now you’re just, you just kick the can down the road. Okay? So, you go through this in your morning huddle, guys. And, if you’re dealing with a situation where you look at your- your new patient consultation, say you got 12 a day, right? And you’re only- you only have like 2 or 3 a day, 2 or 3 a day, 2 or 3 a day, what are you doing? You’re going to meet with a patient advocate. And you say, “Hey, what- what can we do to get more patients in the door? We’re not even coming close to hitting our daily goal here. What’s the issue? Is it that have the lead slow down? Do you not have enough leads? What’s the, what’s the deal with the- with the consultations?”

And you want- you want to make sure that the- the patient advocate is financially incentivized to hit the goal, whatever that consultation goal is, that they have a bonus around that goal, right? So when they hit it for a month, that they’re on bonus just like you guys are when you hit the production goal for a month. That way, you don’t really have to- you don’t have to motivate anyone, the compensation plan is motivating them. Because you can’t- you’re not going to hit the- the production goal, and you’re not going to fill the surgical spots available if you guys don’t have the consults, right? It can’t be done. So, by utilizing this one forecast, and you got to do it every month, because if the doctor’s out a day or the doctor’s out a couple of days or the doctor’s going for CE or whatever, it can affect the amount of surgical blocks you guys have available to complete the work in that month. And if it’s affecting it negatively, then you have to find openings in other places in the schedule.

You might have to work on a Friday and to- to open up a couple of surgical blocks to make up for it if you want to continuously hit the production goal. So, this is something- you guys should know this like the- like the back of your hand. And the thing is, when this is filled out, you can see this month, you can go to July, and you can look at the schedule in July. And then you keep an eye on your deferred revenue. So- and that’s where the conversation with the doctor comes in. This is why you have to own it. The doctors are never going to keep up with this kind of thing. So you have to own it. You have to be able to say, “Hey, doc, we sold 15 arches this month, but we can only produce eight. We only produce eight this month. I’m looking at the schedule, the surgical days that you’re giving me, we can only produce another eight.” Right? So we sold 15. What happens if we go sell another 15, right? We’re going to have 15 or 16 more in deferred revenue. We’re going to start to be booked out two, three months. We can’t do that. So we have to find a solution to, um, to open up more supply. The demand is bigger than the supply that we have right now. You guys know what I’m saying? Does this make sense? Who has questions on this?

So, you guys have to take charge with it. If you don’t- if you’re not doing a quick 10-minute huddle, right? You got a 10-minute huddle with a patient advocate and the doctor, right? And you’re going through the schedule, right? They’re like, “Hey, such and such is rescheduling.” Okay. “What date is that?” Okay. “That means we’re going to have a block open here.” You know what I mean? Okay. “How are we doing for the consultations for the week? We’ve got X amount. Okay. Here’s the production we got on the schedule for the week. Here’s what we got in terms of dollars closed.” And you just go through and you- you learn it like the back of your hand. And then what will happen is, in June, you guys are making strategic changes that are going to positively affect July. We’re doing that in June. So you should never get to a month where you have a surprise. Never.

So, if you’re not producing as much as you’re closing, it’s because you need more days of surgical blocks, right? If you’re not closing enough to build the surgical blocks that you have, it probably means you don’t have enough consultations and enough opportunities. And if you don’t have enough consultations and opportunities, the patient advocate either needs help with the lead management, or we need to generate more leads.

Who has questions? Who has questions? How do you guys manage right now? Like, if you’re not using something like this, how do you manage the goal? Because this is what every company in the world that’s worth anything has some kind of a forecast. You make a goal, and then you build a forecast, and you model what it looks like to hit the goal. And then- and then you just execute, right? But you know that it’s possible and you know exactly how to hit the goal. It’s just a matter of execution. Execution means you guys closing at the right percentage. The patient advocate scheduling and having these people show up at the right percentage. That’s, that’s the execution part, right? That’s where like the training and the skill comes in. But if you don’t have a model that you know, hey, this model works and we have a forecast and we know that it’s possible for us to do 15 arches, you know, what is the- I don’t know. What you- what- what do you do every day? Like how, how do you manage the team? Questions on this, guys? Is this simple enough?

Woman 6: It is. Will you share this with us by chance?

Bart: Yep. You’re going to get it. And guys, this is going to be in a, um, this is going to be in a format where the calculations will automatically, um, get done for you. You’ll just have a field where you’ll have to start off the deferred revenue. So it’ll say something like day one deferred revenue and you’ll have to put that in. Right? And what number do you put in? That’s all the arches that you’ve closed that are not on the schedule. So anybody that’s- that we’re waiting on medical clearance for, anybody that, you know, we just closed that we’re trying to find a spot for, whatever. If we’ve closed them and they’re not on the schedule, you add up all that production and you put that in day one deferred revenue, okay?

And then what happens is as you guys, as this number increases, this dollar’s closed, that deferred revenue is going to go up. As you schedule, right, the daily production, the deferred revenue is going to go down. And what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to keep deferred revenue to less than your monthly goal, which would mean you’re booked out one month. That’s the- that’s the idea. You start getting booked out more than a month with deferred revenue, then- then that’s a really- that’s a big, big liability for a business. Because the longer they go, the higher the chances that they get buyer’s remorse and they say, “Hey, I don’t want to do it.” Or that, you know, another practice calls them back and they can get in earlier, whatever.

You know, until you guys start working and do it, it’s, it’s not- it’s not real. And the treatment coordinator shouldn’t be paid a bonus until it’s done, right? Until the revenue’s real. It doesn’t matter what you sell, you can sell all you want, it only matters what we produce. Until we produce it, the money’s not real. Yeah, it’s in the bank, but it doesn’t mean that it’s real. You could give that money back. Makes sense? So, every month, I want you guys to do, is all you got to do is fill out the daily production on the goals and make sure the production matches the surgical blocks and make sure that the doctor’s actually there. Okay? So, if the doctor’s saying, “Hey, you know, we’re just starting off- we’re just going to block the morning spot. I’m going to give you one surgical block and a surgical block-”

Different doctors allocate different time based on experience, level, and speed. So I’ve got some doctors for a surgical block, they, they’re going to- they’re going to, uh, block two hours, and they’re going to do an arch in two hours. Some I have block four hours, so they’ll block the whole morning pretty much, if they’re going to do a full arch case. It doesn’t matter, whatever it is, it is. Okay? But if they say, hey, we’re going to do- we’re going to- if you’re just starting off, they say, “Hey, we’re going to do Tuesdays and Wednesdays, right, surgical blocks in the morning. I’ll give you two blocks in the morning on each day,” which means you can complete up to a double arch in the morning. Okay? So, your goal would be like 12. That would be full for you for that month. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, double arch every day in the morning. Makes sense?

Now, you’re not going to put anything else in that slot. You’re going to fill it, right? You’re going to- you’re going to close the arches to make sure that spot’s full with an arch, which means you have to be all over how many consultations you guys are getting. Because if you look at the schedule for this week and you do not have the number of consultations that you need, what did your job just turn into, ladies? Treatment coordinator. I’m sorry, patient advocate. You’re working with the patient advocate to get the consults full. What are you going to do, sit around? If you’re not full with consultations, the very next thing that you do is help get consultations. You’re calling through the leads. You’re texting through the leads. You’re filling the schedule with the patient advocate, because if you don’t have enough opportunities, you’re not going to hit the goal. You’re not going to do it.

So, it makes it real simple. Look at the schedule. What do we have full? Okay. How many consults do I have? Whoop, there’s a problem. That’s the problem that you go fix right now. Go fix that problem. Okay. We got plenty of people on the schedule and now the patient advocate is working on the next week and you’re working on closing the cases and scheduling the doctor in the most efficient manner possible. I- I was just looking at one of these with a client and, um, this doctor would have a surgical spot in the morning and one in the afternoon on most days, okay?

Um, but what would happen is they were really just filling the one- they would do one in the morning, one in the afternoon if it was a single arch, but if they did a double arch, they were kind of just doing the one in the morning. And then because they were delivering it same day, it was taking too long, so they were really only, like, to max out a day was basically two arches for them. So I’m like, “Hey, how do we get to three? Why can’t we do another arch? If we do a full arch or full mouth in the morning, why can’t we do an additional arch in the afternoons?” He said, “Well, because it gets really tough to deliver it same day in the afternoon. We’re here till like seven o’clock at night doing that.” I said, “Okay, then the double arch in the morning, we deliver the teeth same day. The one in the afternoon, get it- get an arch in the afternoon and deliver that next day. We’ll just deliver it next day.” When it comes in, stay and glaze, deliver it the next day. That way, your daily production goes up from two arches, which might be, you know, 46- 48,000 bucks in a day to now it’s 70,000 in the day.

So, you’re always looking for ways to maximize more efficiency out of every single day in the month, right? And what’s going to prompt you to do that? You guys are going to see that you’re outselling what the doctor can do. So, your deferred revenue is climbing really high. This document, you guys got to know like the back of your hand. If you don’t, you’re just showing up, whatever consults you have, you have. Whatever you close, you close. And then you’re just going to turn the page. You’re going to go to the next month. Whatever I have, I have. Whatever I close, I close. Oh, yeah, I got a couple. Oh, yeah, I didn’t. La di da di da. It’s not- you’re not really running a business at that point.

If you’re running a business, make a target. It’s like, hey, this is our target. We’re going to, this is- we’re going to take it serious and we’re going to do things very deliberately to make sure that we hit that target and that we have a system that, that is going to work. Cause most of the time, guys, when I get a goal, I get the goal from the doctor, they didn’t think about it. They just go, “Oh, yeah, you know, I’d like to hit- I’d like to do 20 a month.” It’s completely arbitrary. And then when you look at- when you actually put it down on paper, they can’t even do 20 a month. It’s not even possible. They don’t even have- have enough time on their schedule to do 20 a month.

So, it’s just kind of a- it’s just kind of a ridiculous number for all- for the treatment coordinator, patient advocate, and the doctor. You know what I mean? So, whatever the number is, put it on the schedule, put how many surgical blocks it is, put how many new patient consultations you can do, and then track the dollars closed. This number goes up, this number goes up. This number- the deferred revenue will decline with every single production dollar that you guys schedule. Once it gets on the schedule, deferred revenue is going to go down. So you want to keep it, if your goal for the month is 300 grand, you want your deferred revenue, um, ideally not to exceed 300 grand, which means you’re booked out four weeks solid.

If it starts exceeding four weeks, you’re having a conversation with the doctor. We got to open up another day, right? Or we have to figure out a way to do the cases more efficiently. We need- we need to upgrade our workflow, whatever it is, you know, um, you don’t want to have a business where you’re outselling what you can do every single month. That’s going to lead to, um, you know, that’s going to lead to a disaster. That’ll lead to wasting marketing dollars. That’ll lead to a ton of wasted time, bad, uh, bad customer service, bad patient experience, everything. Okay, what questions do y’all have on this?

You know, I don’t even take questions at the conferences ’cause there’s like a thousand people in the room. There’s like 50 of you guys right here. You can ask what- you can ask whatever you want. That’s what these- that’s what these calls are for. You know what I mean? So, if you’re not clear on something, you know, get clear. Um, we’ll send it out, but it’s your responsibility. It is 100 percent the responsibility of the treatment coordinator, right, to make sure that this is accurate and up to date, and that the doctor’s informed of what the situation is, and that the patient advocate’s informed of what the situation is. You can run the entire practice based on this one document, but it is 100 percent the treatment coordinator’s responsibility to quarterback it.

If you- if you don’t do it, then, you know, you’re just, you’re, you’re not, you’re not serious about it. You’re not serious about it. Okay. You can’t expect the doctor to do all this stuff. Doctors, you know, preparing for the cases. Doctors, they got other stuff on their mind. Patient advocate, that’s not the closer, you’re the closer. They, they, they work and report to you, right? And you’re managing the whole team. If, if those analytics are off, right? You don’t have enough consults, then don’t just get on the patient advocate about it, help that patient advocate, do it and show them and teach them, you know, bring them along. If the doctor has unrealistic goals, then sometimes you have to have a, a frank conversation with the doctor, you know what I mean?

They’re like, “Ah, how do I work it? I can’t work any harder. You’re working me like a slave.” Yeah, well, you’re the one that said you want to do a million a month. You know what I mean? Fine. Then make my bonus off 700, whatever you want to do. But it’s got to be realistic.

Woman 5: Hey, Bart, I have a question for you.

Bart: Shoot.

Woman 5: So, right now, we’re having- we’re not having an issue with patients saying no to treatment. They’re completely hyped up and sold and- but we’re having an issue where they can’t get funded. Um, so I guess, for us, is it- how would you- what would be the verbiage or do you have scripting to pre-qualify these guys over the phone? Do you recommend that? Just like, to get better quality when they leave on the books. That way, we’re not wasting time going through the whole consult and then they have no money, you know? I mean, we- we’re trying to do even pre-qualifications at the beginning of first 10 and trying to triage them out, but it ends up being still a waste of a consult day. So, is it better to do it on the phone call?

Bart: I wouldn’t force the issue. I mean, the rule of thumb is if they don’t bring up money, you don’t bring it up. Right? But if they bring up money, you got to put them in one of two buckets. You got to put them either in the price shopper bucket, or you got to put them in the pre-qualified bucket, right? So if they bring up money in a way that shows any kind of desperation, or they use any language to suggest that they don’t have the money, like, “Hey, I need to find out how much this is. I don’t have a whole lot of money. I haven’t been able to get it done in any other practice, blah, blah, blah.” They go in the pre-qualified bucket. Right? And you’re going to get a number from them and then you’re going to run them through.

But if they’re- if they’re just shopping price, that doesn’t necessarily scream that they’re unqualified. Uh, but under no circumstances, what I just try to financially qualify somebody that didn’t bring it up. You know what I mean? Especially over the phone. If they don’t bring it up and you bring it up, um, well, you know, what’s that say about you? You know, it says that you’re all about money. You know what I mean? They haven’t even had their consultation yet.

I’m actually the- um, I’m looking at a call right now to play for Vegas that, um, it was just that. Someone called in and they’re like, “Hey, I saw your advertisement online. I want to schedule an appointment for, um, for all on four. Uh, I think I’m going to be a good candidate. Just want to get some information and, and, you know, see if it’s something that’s going to be right for me.” And she goes, okay, well, and I can do that for you. I took all the information, and says now, just so you know, all on four, it starts about 25 to 30,000 an arch. And the guy goes, okay, she goes, “Now, is that- is that okay with you? Do you have credit?” And the guy’s like, “Did I say something to lead you to believe that I don’t have any money. Like, I don’t even know if this is the right treatment for me yet. What are you talking about?” And the guy was just kind of like super confused. And, um, and the call didn’t, it didn’t go well, you know what I mean? It didn’t go well.

So, I wouldn’t- I don’t- I don’t- I’m not going to bring up money before it’s appropriate to bring up money, because it’s not about money, it’s about figuring out where they are and where they want to be, and then letting the doctor create the treatment plan, and then whatever the price is, the price is. But if they bring up money, right, and you’ve got, you know, you’re seeing red flags that, hey, this person probably doesn’t have the money, then go ahead and prequalify them. It’s no big deal. If they bring it up, and then we talk about it, it’s no big deal. But if you bring it up and you get over aggressive over the phone, um, you know, that can come off bad and it can- it can actually kind of come off very presumptuous and discriminatory if you do it in the wrong way. You know what I’m saying? Okay. Anybody have any other questions related to the forecast?

Man 1: Yeah, I- I have a question, Bart. Um-

Bart: Yes, sir.

Man 1: So, in- in, in our situation, uh, we’re still not really at the, uh, at the- at the stage where we’re doing more than, uh, uh, you know, every week or every other week a case, just because simply we’re not qualifying enough people or have, uh, uh, you know, same, same problem with the other practice. Uh, but we’re working, uh, together with Stephanie to try and resolve that. So, we’re shooting for a goal, um, that eventually is going to get us anywhere between eight to 10 cases a month, uh, a month to begin with. You know, once we get our, our, uh, you know, feet wet and we, we’re all, uh, comfortable, then we can definitely crank it up a bit. So what do you, what do you suggest in our case? Uh, uh, to, or, or, you know, to, to, um, uh, scheduling-wise, you know, what blocks should we be looking for? We typically have two, two days that we can definitely get anybody in, uh, anytime. Uh, usually the Fridays, sometimes even Saturdays.

Bart: Okay. Well… so, the first thing is, depending on what the goal is, you got to start with the production goal and the arch goal. So if your goal is to be at 10, you know, for- is to be at 10 arches, you know, within the next six months, say, something like that, then you might start off, like, with the goal next month is, you know, hey, you want to do 4 arches. You know what I mean? So you want to do 4 arches. So, in order to do 4 arches, when you’re first getting started, let’s say that you guys need 15 consultations, right? At least. So if you need 15 consultations, you got to have 15 consultations booked for the month, how many leads do you need to get 15 consultations? So you have to make sure that you’re getting the right number of leads. I have some doctors go, hey, you know, we want to get to 10, you know, and then, but some of them are advertising with like $1,500 a month, you know, and it’s just not going to happen. Um, so you have to have enough- enough gasoline behind the marketing to get enough leads for the patient advocate to actually get the 10, 15, 20 consultations you’re going to need to show up.

So, before you go ahead and block everything, you, you have to know that, hey, we are getting enough leads to do it, and if you’re getting enough leads to do it, then it’s just setting the goal for the patient advocate and make sure that patient advocate is financially incentivized to hit the number. You’ll, you’ll be amazed at what they do different, um, you know, when they’re getting a little, a little bonus to hit that 15, that 15 number mark for you, or that 20 number mark for you. Um, it’s, it’s a hard- it’s a difficult thing to dip your toe in the water. You know what I mean? Because you can set the goals all you want, right? And you can block the surgical days all you want, but if you don’t have the leads from the advertisement coming in in enough volume, then none of it is really possible. So, you have to kind of start with how much do I have to spend to get X amount of leads so the patient advocate can realistically hit 15 or 20 consults in a month, and everything kind of flows downhill from there. So, I don’t know if your- if your ads had started running, uh, already. But the real question is, are you getting enough leads?

If you’re getting enough leads, build a patient advocate’s comp program to give them a bonus when they hit the number. Um, block the surgical days, and, um, make the- the treatment coordinator needs to be managing this forecast and meeting with you on it very quickly as a huddle, daily. And then guess what? If you don’t have enough consults, that treatment coordinator turns into a patient advocate. And if there’s not enough leads to go around, the patient advocate is on the phone with PD saying, hey, we need more leads. And then PD says, okay, we’re going to make these changes, or you’re not spending enough money. And that’s it.

It’s like, once you start following- going down the rabbit hole, it’s super simple. Right? It’s extremely logical, but if one fundamental, um, element is- is out of whack, then there’s a ripple effect, a negative ripple effect from all of it, right? Like setting a goal that’s not consistent with the- the advertising budget. Okay, we got a goal to do 10 a month, we’re spending 3, 000 a month. That right there, the whole thing is messed up. 10 a month, you’re spending 15 grand a month. Okay. All right. We’re going to have enough- we’re going to have enough leads, right? To set this up to where this thing can go. So, the average practice is going to be running at anywhere from, uh, I don’t know, 1500, probably on average, 1500 bucks an arch to acquire an arch.

Some of our best practices, they’re at a thousand bucks. Some of our best practices are running at like 7- 800 to produce one. But those are- those are the best. They’ve been doing it for a long time. They’ve got an awesome patient advocate. They’ve got a fabulous treatment coordinator. Um, and they just close at a very high percentage. When you’re new, you’re not going to close at a high percentage. You’re going to close at a lower percentage, right, on all fronts. So you need the volume to compensate for that learning curve. Um, as you do it more and more, your closing percentage should go up with the cases and your booking percentage with the leads and how the PA handles the leads should also increase in efficiency. So, I would just make sure, um, just starting off that, hey, you know, we’ve got enough gasoline on the marketing to hit the number of leads that we need to realistically get 20 consultations a month. Makes sense?

Woman 7: What is the case?

Bart: What’s that? I’m sorry. Did someone just say something? I missed it if you did. I think you muted yourself.

Man 1: It makes sense. Uh, again, our problem is just being the, the, the qualified leads. We have, uh, uh, we, we have, uh, and our treatment plan coordinator is probably on the line listening. She can chime in and tell you exactly the challenges we had and, you know, trying to tweak it to- to get the right people from within our area, as opposed to really outside of our area. And when I say outside from every state you could think of, so, and in the West Coast. So, so we’ve had, we’ve had issues with that and hopefully we’ll get all that figured out.

Bart: Well, look, anytime there’s an issue, that’s why you guys keep up with this every single day. Because if there’s an issue and you go, hey, we are getting leads, but we’re not able to book them. Why? And then you dig, and you go, hey, we’re- maybe the- maybe the marketing is focused on too wide of an area here, right? Maybe we need to tighten it up because we’re getting out of state. You give the- that information to us, we make a change, boom. And when you’re doing it proactively, guys, you make those changes so fast. Right? Nothing- it doesn’t go in the radar for six months and nothing’s said for six months, then it’s like, all of a sudden, it’s code red. It should be like month one, hey, here’s exactly where the issue is. The issue is not with our closing percentage, it’s not with the doctor’s time, it’s not with anything. The- the issue here is that we don’t have enough leads, or the issue is here that we have enough leads, but we’re not getting enough through the door.

Why is that? Where do we work? And then you just- you don’t change the strategy, you just work on the execution there. So, there’s execution on the marketing end that can be done and changed. There’s execution on your end that can be done and changed but when the treatment coordinator has a good handle on this form, they’re seeing this stuff in real-time because they’re trying to make changes right now because we’ve got openings next week. As opposed to just floating through life until you get three months down the road and people get frustrated. And we’re like, “Man, you know, we’re spending this money, we’re doing this, we’re putting in all this effort, but we’re not- we’re not hitting our goal. And Bart, it’s been six months,” and I’m like, “How the hell did it go six months?” Right? You want to- you guys want that information going back and forth in real-time so that you see changes in real-time. You don’t want to let anything, any inefficiencies- you don’t want to let any inefficiency slide, right? Because the point is hit the goal every month.

We’ve got to help you guys with the marketing. We’ve got to help you guys with the execution. You guys have to help us with the feedback and the communication back and forth in terms of knowing exactly where the area of attrition is and where you can use the most help from an execution standpoint, you know. And that’s another thing guys, make sure, like, yeah, you’re filling this out, but make sure that that patient advocate, that you guys are training them in the CRM to go back. When you have a case closed and it’s scheduled, they have got to go back in the CRM and update the lead with the dollar amount that you closed.

Like, you have to do it. I was literally last week, I was sitting there with our PPC Department, and I was going through, I don’t know. I was just doing a quick, you know, a quick QC on the- the progress of like our top 20 billers and I’m going through and there’s, there’s, there’s times where, you know, we run different campaigns, different style campaigns, different CTAs and we’re testing and they’re looking at going, all right, this one’s working and this one’s- this one’s working better here than this one. And I’ll look at it. I’ll go, okay, that one’s definitely producing a lot more leads. But my question is – even though it’s producing double the leads as this campaign, are these leads actually closing? So, pull it up, pull up in high level and let me see. And then they go to high level and it’s like nothing has been- nothing has been updated.

So, let me explain. When you don’t update it, let me explain the position that the marketing team is in. So, if you guys don’t update it with what happened to the lead from a production standpoint, the only data the marketing team has to go off of to determine success or failure is their conversion rate. So, it’s your cost to acquire every lead, cost per lead. So, in their mind, hey, they’re not updating it, we’re going to assume all this stuff is basically equal with the number of patients that are closing. They’re probably closing the same percentage from this campaign as they are this one. So we’ll just go with the campaign that gets the most amount of leads. And that’s not always the best campaign. But there’s- it’s impossible for us to know if someone doesn’t go back in and update the system. Because what if we have a campaign that you’re spending the money on and we’re- we’ve got one campaign here getting you 500 leads a month and you close five arches. We’ve got another campaign that you got 100 leads a month and you close 12 arches.

We would not continue with that 500-lead campaign. There’s no point, right? This one is much more efficient. It requires less work. It’s a higher close ratio. Let’s maximize that first, then we’ll scale out. But if they don’t get the information from you, if there’s no communication back and forth in terms of what happens with the leads and how many of them actually move forward with treatment, then, then how do you know what to do on the marketing? How do we know? I didn’t even know what to do because you’ve got the conversion rates. My question is, okay, yeah, this one’s yielding double the leads, but are they closing at the same percentage? Are these guys actually coming in, right, and accepting treatment? So, and we’re never going to know that. We- we only know it if you guys go into the system and update it.

So, as long as the patient advocate is trained, and they’re using high level, they’re moving the leads the way they need to move them, and then every day, you see it says dollars closed, they take the dollars closed, and they update the lead. That’s it. Because we’ve got all those leads tagged for different campaigns so we’re going to be able to see and filter through- by campaign, how much you spent, how many leads were generated, how many you closed. And now we can make decisions moving forward, not just based on traditional marketing KPIs, like click-throughs and conversion rates, you know, and cost per lead, but we can make decisions based on cost per arch.

So, you can’t just come into work, look at your schedule, and go- go to the consultations and go home. You got to come into work and look at the forecast, right? Manage the patient advocate and go, hey, this is the system that we use, here’s how this practice runs. And this right here, this is a practice within a practice. I don’t care how you do it outside of this, but like to grow in big multi-implant cases, this is how it’s done. Patient advocate, you got to work in this system, and here’s how this goes. You’re responsible for updating it every day, dollars closed from the full arch leads. You’re responsible to take this before you leave, you take that and you update the leads that closed, right? And then- and then you’re out of here. It’s the last thing you do every day, but it’s got to be done.

Treatment coordinators updating this every day in the morning and going through it with a huddle. And then you guys are having your meetings to discuss anything, uh, anything on the forecast that’s not right. Okay? Whether your deferred revenue eclipses four weeks in production or whether the doctor has a weird month where they’re out. Whatever it is, you’re getting straight on – here’s the goal, here’s exactly what it’s going to look like when we hit it, and here’s, here’s what we need to do to hit it. And there’s communication back and forth with us.

But if you do that, if you stay on top of it, it’s super simple. If you don’t, it’s just kind of a bunch of speculation and it can get- it can get frustrating. It can get really frustrating for the doctor. It can get frustrating for everybody involved because you start making decisions that are not based in fact, right? You start making decisions that are based on what you think – wild speculations coming from everywhere when it shouldn’t be that way. It’s very simple data and very simple management systems to- to hit your goals. And if you do it, you’re going to hit it. And if you don’t, maybe you do and maybe you don’t, but you won’t know why you did or why you didn’t, which is just as bad. Does that make sense?

Okay. Any questions related to the forecast here? Can you guys do it? Do you think it’ll- will it help you guys? You guys are so lucky we’re not in a conference right now. You guys are like looking at me like you’re miserable. I wish you could see what I see right now. At least you guys get to look at me all day when we’re on the phone, right? I’m doing something here, you know. Uh, in the audience, see, I can go get you. I can’t go get you here. Um, but we’ll have this ready. We’ll send it out. If you guys have any issues with it, that’s what your TCI trainer is for, call the TCI trainer, ask him about it. If you want to schedule a meeting between you, the patient advocate, and the doctor, right? If you want us to help you with that, to roll it out to everybody at the same time, we’ll do it. Whatever needs to be done, let’s do it. But we got to- you have to have some kind of a management system built around a goal to consistently hit it, or predictably hit it. Make sense?

I went, uh, I went a lot longer on that than I was going to, but I just saw a bunch of blank stares coming back at me from everybody. So, I figured that meant you didn’t know what I was talking about. So, on the next call, we’ll go through what happens when the primary treatment plan isn’t going to happen from a financial point of view and how we roll it back to a secondary close, right? But we still close on the first visit. Cool? All right. If you guys don’t have any other questions, uh, those of you that are going to be in Las Vegas, I’ll see you in Vegas. And, uh, those of you that are not, I will see you on the, uh, the next mentorship call, okay? All right, guys. All right, take it easy. Bye-bye.

[END]

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