5 Specific Scheduling Recommendations for a Thriving Practice!

Gary Takacs: Welcome to another episode of The Thriving Dentist Show. I'm Gary Takacs, the Thriving Dentist Show podcast founder and co-host. We have a great episode for you today. This is an episode that we haven't covered, or at least we haven't covered in this way. The title of today's episode is Five Specific Scheduling Recommendations for a Thriving Practice. We're gonna get in the weeds with you today about scheduling, and all of this can be adapted to your practice. So looking forward to sharing that information with you. Before I do, I have two quick announcements to make. First announcement is those of you that are regular listeners at the Thriving Dentist Show know that we put on a regular schedule of virtual events. They could be webinars, they could be panel discussions, they could be conversations with people that we think will share useful information with you. 

Gary Takacs: If you're interested in those, go to thrivingdentist.com/events, and you'll see a schedule of those. We do those at no cost. There's no tuition for those events. It's our way of saying thanks to you for being a listener of the Thriving Dentist Show. If we're able to provide CE, you'll get CE for those. Some topics don't allow us to provide CE, by the CE providers, but many do. And if we're able to provide CE, you'll get CE and it's no cost. And the virtual — you can attend from the comfort and convenience of your home or office. Come join us, thrivingdentist.com/events . You do have to register, but there's no tuition. The second announcement I have is we have a returning guest. You'll recognize him. It's my podcast co-host, Naren. And he's got a marketing tip, a Thriving Dentist marketing tip. This marketing tip is titled The Three Marketing Metrics Every Dentist Should Check Monthly. No further ado. Here's Naren with the three marketing metrics every dentist should check monthly.

Naren Arulrajah: The three marketing metrics every dentist should track on a monthly basis. The three marketing metrics every dentist should track on a monthly basis. This is Naren, the co-host of The Thriving Dentist Show, and CEO of Ekwa Marketing. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to share this marketing tip. And let me go through them one by one. Please take notes, write them down, and follow through. Number one, how many new patient calls are you getting? Most marketing companies, unfortunately, don't provide this information, so make sure you pick a company that does. And the way to do that is A, you need a tracking number. So all the marketing calls generated from that marketing company come through that. Number B, you need AI or some kind of a technology to listen to those calls and categorize the new patient calls from the ones who are not new patient calls, meaning existing patients, so forth. 

Naren Arulrajah: So you wanna know every month how many new patient calls are coming from that marketing company. Two, you want to know your conversion rate. The average dental practice today is only booking one out of three new patients. So if you're only booking one out of three new patients, let's say you spend a thousand dollars on marketing, then $333 are working for you, and the other 600 or $700 is not. So a good place to look is what's my conversion rate. Could be two reasons. Maybe the phone is not even getting answered, or maybe it's getting answered, but the team is not trained on how to build rapport, how to get the patient to book an appointment. So second number you want to track is what's your conversion rate? Meaning the percentage of new patient callers who are booking appointments, and make sure this is a number. 

Naren Arulrajah: Your marketing company can tell you. If they don't have the AI or the technology tracking to do that, then you have a problem. You could be spending a lot of money on marketing and not seeing a return. Last, but not least, especially if you are working with multiple different marketing approaches, you want to be able to compare apples to apples. So, for example, you have three different ways of generating new patients. Perhaps you're running some magazine ads, you're running some SEO campaigns, and you are doing some Google ads and social media ads, four different methods. Now, you wanna know the cost of a new patient in each method. So let's say in our experience, SEO might cost $60 a new patient. Google Ads might cost $250 a new patient. Social media might cost $350 a new patient. 

Naren Arulrajah: And that magazine might cost $600 a new patient. You wanna know this. Why? Because the minute you know that SEO is only costing you $60, and that ad is costing you $600 for the same new patient, you can now stop wasting money on things that are least effective and spend more money on the things that are most. So you really, really want to figure out the cost of that new patient by channel. So those are the three marketing metrics. If you want us to take a look at your marketing and provide you some insights — what are you doing right? What are you doing wrong? What can you do better? — book that marketing strategy meeting. It's our gift to you, ekwa.com/td . And that's because you are listening to the Thriving Dentist podcast, ekwa.com/td. And in this one hour meeting — prior to the one hour meeting, our team will spend six hours researching. They'll give you a report card and a plan if you have any weak areas on what you can do about them. Take advantage of it. If you have any questions about this or other topics, always reach out to us through the website, and we would love to help.

Naren Arulrajah: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Thriving Dentist podcast show. This is Naren, your co-host. Hope you enjoyed my tip, the three marketing metrics every dentist need to know. We have been doing a lot of education lately, and one of the things I notice is sometimes people work too hard for too little, and that's true even in marketing. So they're doing a lot of things, but they're not doing the important things. So, if you have any questions, hey, book that marketing strategy meeting, it's ekwa.com/td , and we would love to help. ekwa.com/td . Now, let's jump into today's episode, Five Specific Scheduling Recommendations for a Thriving Practice. Gary, I hear from dentists that sometimes it's not about being busy, it's about being productive. And the funny thing is most people don't even realize that they are really busy, but not productive. What I mean is you could be busy producing $2,000 worth of dentistry. 

Naren Arulrajah: Somebody else could be productive, producing $7,000 worth of dentistry, right? In the same eight hours. So you're feeling really tired, but by the time you finish working, you haven't even paid the bills yet. Leave alone making it a successful, profitable practice. And when this happens day after day, month after month, and the doctor owner looks at his paycheck at the end of the month, and profits at the end of the year, they get disheartened. They're like, why? What am I doing? Why am I working so hard? I know we know some of the culprits, PPO plans and so forth, but there is a solution that you have taught your clients, just using scheduling, how they can change things around, and it doesn't take a year to change it around. You have shown results in a month. So I'm really excited to get into this conversation, Gary. So let's take a deep dive. What are your five specific scheduling recommendations for a thriving practice?

Gary Takacs: Let me kind of set this up a little bit first before I get into those recommendations. First of all, there's a difference between being busy and being productive. There's a difference. They're not the same. Yes. Not at all. And so that's one thing I'd like any of our listeners to recognize. There's a tremendous difference. Second thing I'd like you to recognize, that if you get your schedule right, a whole bunch of positive things follow. You get your scheduling wrong, which is much more common, then you will be affected by the byproduct of that. You'll be exhausted. You'll get frustrated. You will literally feel like you're chasing your tail. And there's a tremendous difference between being busy and being productive. They are not the same things. Recently, Naren, as you know, when we do our work coaching with clients, most of that work we do via Zoom calls.

Gary Takacs: And I had a Zoom call with a newer client. We had just started recently. He was on a Zoom call. It was the end of his day, and we were on a Zoom call together. And I said — I won't use his name, but I used his name to say — Hey, I don't mean anything offensive by this, but you look like you got beat up. And he smiled at me and he goes, I did figuratively today. He said, you know how many patients — a solo dentist practice, big strong solo dentist practice, two hygienists. He said, you know how many patients I saw today? I said, no. How many patients do you see today? He said, 41. He saw 41 patients. Naren, that was a busy day, not a productive day. And he said, I feel like I got ran over by a Mack truck. I said, well, let's work on this, because there's a tremendous difference. Now, Naren, how do you think most dental team members that haven't had scheduling training, how do they fill the schedule? 

Naren Arulrajah: Well, Gary Takacs: They don't have training. 

Naren Arulrajah: They don't have any training. They just put in anybody, whoever's on the phone or on their list. They just put them in. They don't think they 

Gary Takacs: Put a name in the schedule. Yes. Yeah, that's it. And then it's filled. Then I did it. I did it. So I want to recognize that there's a better way. And if it takes a jump in faith, stick with me on this. You can engineer a schedule. You can engineer your schedule. It's not chance. And I'm sure anybody to this will know this. You've had days where you literally worked your tail off. You get to the end of the day and you look at the day sheet and you say, oh my gosh, I don't think we even paid the electric bill today. And you feel exhausted. And there's other days where you were very productive during the day. And you look at the day sheet at the end of the day, and you say, oh my gosh, this was amazing.

Gary Takacs: And I'm not even that tired. I mean, it felt like I had a good workout, but it's not like the debilitating kind of tiredness. So you can engineer a schedule. So let's get to those five specific scheduling recommendations. I'm gonna number these, and then I'm gonna come back and talk about each one a little bit more, and then we'll go on to the other questions, right? So, number one, you have defined a specific daily production goal. Remember, we're talking about five specific scheduling recommendations for a thriving practice. So number one, okay, you have a specific daily production goal, and your scheduling coordinator knows what that is. Lemme go to number two. You have a dedicated scheduling coordinator. You have one person responsible for your schedule. Mm-hmm. Lemme go to number three. You're using specific rock — 

Gary Takacs: I'm using rock in quotation marks — rock production blocks. Each day you're using specific rock production blocks each day. Number four, you also have new patient blocks each day. Number five, your scheduling coordinator has a system in place where they can step away from the front desk, go to a dedicated workplace to work on filling the schedule to goal each day. Okay? Those are the five. Let's go back and unpack each one. First one, you have defined a specific daily production goal. I am blown away how many times that I ask an office manager or lead admin team member, do you guys have a production goal? And oftentimes the conversation goes like this, 

Naren: Uh, yeah. I think so. Well, what is it? Oh, let's see. It's, I don't know. Right? And Naren, if a team member doesn't have a goal, how can that team member schedule you to goal?

Gary Takacs: They cannot get it. They cannot. So, and I'm talking about specific doctor production goal. Mm-hmm. Naren, how can they schedule that if they don't know what that is? And I want to — maybe it is appropriate place to bring this up. I don't want your practice necessarily to be all about numbers. Yes. I want really the tone of your practice to be taking care of your patients in the way you'd like to be taken care of clinically and behaviorally. That's what I'd like the overall purpose of the practice to be. Mm-hmm. But once we have that established that we wanna take care of patients the way we'd like to be taken care of clinically and behaviorally, then it's okay to talk about numbers. The numbers are a byproduct of doing the right things, right, not the reason to do 'em.

Gary Takacs: Right. They're a byproduct, but your scheduling coordinator can't help you achieve that if your scheduling coordinator doesn't know what the daily goal is. What is yours, doctor, for the day? Mm-hmm. So we need that. Number two, we have a dedicated scheduling coordinator. Most practices have multiple team members in an administrative position. And when I look at division of duties, let's say we have two admin team members for a solo dentist practice, and maybe if it's a doctor and associate, maybe we have three admin team members. They all sort of do the scheduling, right? Naren, what happens when everyone does it? Nobody's doing it, Gary. Nobody's doing it. Yes, nobody's doing it. So we need someone. They can have other duties that they have to do, but they need to be your scheduling coordinator, and they need to be responsible and accountable for it, and maybe even bonused for it. 

Gary Takacs: Mm-hmm. So now it's in their best interest to help you achieve your goal. That can make all the difference in the world. Having a person — I've shared with our clients, and I've done this in my training with our clients — let's say your scheduling coordinator's name is Susan. You know, Susan, you have many responsibilities. There's many things that you do, but I want you to know the highest priority is the schedule at all times. Mm-hmm. If you focus on that, then you're gonna be successful. You have to focus on that. I know you still have other things you have to do, but if your priority is on the schedule, then that's — you're aligned with the goals of the practice.

Gary Takacs: Number three, you're using specific rock production blocks each day. Rock is a terminology that defines more significant treatment that allows you to hit your dollar production per hour. 

Gary Takacs: And part of that daily goal should be, you should have a goal of production per hour. And not every procedure can meet that. But we have a certain number of rock production blocks. These are blocked in your schedule. A format, say for a doctor, might be that in the main column, you've got three rock blocks, maybe one is an hour and a half in length. Mm-hmm. Maybe the two are one hour in length. And that's where the more significant treatment — you have to define what your rocks are. What are examples of rock production? A crown is rock production. Can fillings be a rock production? The answer is yes. If you're doing enough of that, if we're doing a quadrant of fillings, they could be a rock. But if we're doing one tooth, two surface filling, that's not a rock. 

Gary Takacs: Oral surgery can be a rock. Endo can be a rock. It just depends on your mix of treatment. But we've got three of those a day. Maybe one's a little bit longer, an hour and a half, and the other two are shorter at an hour. Now, the way we work those rocks is your scheduling coordinator puts the appropriate procedures in those rocks, or she holds that appointment open until two days before with the goal of filling it to a rock. If it's open two days before, then she can release it and schedule as productive an appointment as she could. Did I describe that in a way that makes sense to you? Yes, Gary, you did. That's how the rock works.

Gary Takacs: And it starts to put some discipline in the schedule. So, number four, if we're still in the context of rocks, we have new patient blocks each day. We've got blocks for new patients. Whatever your appetite for new patients is. For example, if you're a solo dentist who works four days a week, and your goal is 30 new patients a month, then you'll typically have two new patient blocks a day. Do the math on that. You'll typically have two new patient blocks a day. And that allows to kind of keep things regulated and keep it paced. And we use the same release mechanism with those new patient blocks, that if it's open, it's either scheduled with a new patient or held open until two days before, and then if it's open, we fill it with something most productive.

Gary Takacs: And then finally, this fifth tip might be the fine tuning that makes the difference in your practice. Your scheduling coordinator has set up a system in place where that person can step away from the front desk, go to a dedicated workspace somewhere away from the front desk, away from checking people in, checking 'em out and on the phone, and work on filling your schedule tomorrow to goal, or the next day to goal. Naren, if the schedule tomorrow isn't scheduled to goal, let's say it's midday today, it's noon, and tomorrow's not scheduled to goal, and she sees that — if she's at the front desk, checking people in, checking 'em out, answering the phones, what's the likelihood that she's gonna have some dedicated time to work on filling tomorrow to goal? 

Naren Arulrajah: She doesn't have too much time, Gary. She doesn't have any dedicated time. 

Gary Takacs: Zero. Zero. Yeah. Likelihood not gonna happen. Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. 

Gary Takacs: Then, oh, well, we didn't get there. Where instead she looks ahead and says, oh my gosh, I need to work on tomorrow afternoon. And goes to a workstation where she's not distracted by checking people in, checking 'em out or answering the phones. And we work on filling the schedule to goal. Now, we're gonna talk more about these as we go through the other questions, but those are the five specific scheduling recommendations for a thriving practice. Let me recount 'em right now. Number one, you have a specific defined daily goal. Number two, you have a dedicated doctor scheduling coordinator. Number three, you're using rock production blocks each day. Number four, you're using new patient blocks each day. And number five, your scheduling coordinator has a system set up where she can step away from the front desk and put dedicated time on filling your schedule today to goal and the future days coming up.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you, Gary. Let me jump right into my second question, Gary. And that is, you have talked about the concept of adding high value services to the practice treatment mix. How does adding high value services fit into this template you just taught us, Gary? 

Gary Takacs: Well, they fit in very well. The more high value services you can do, the more likely you are to hit your goals because you're most productive when you're doing those high value services. What I just shared in those five specific scheduling tips have to do with your every day. Whenever you can add high value dentistry, those are your super rocks. Those are boulders, Naren. Imagine that one of your high value services is cosmetic dentistry, right? And cosmetic dentistry can be a lot of things, but I tend to think of cosmetic dentistry as an eight or 10 unit upper anterior porcelain mine case. Now that could be lower arch, but typically upper arch. Those are very productive appointments. That's a boulder in your schedule. But those are not something we are going to do every day. 

Gary Takacs: Now, with the right marketing, we can do more of those. So what I just described has to do with your every day. But whenever you can fit in high value services, think of those as your boulders, kind of a variation of those rocks. And you know, maybe you can get to a point where you have enough of that going on so that a certain morning of the week or afternoon of the week — doctors typically like to do the big production in the morning — maybe you get to a point where maybe two weeks a month, we could have Wednesday morning where we're putting a boulder in the schedule in the morning, we have one patient and we're doing a 10 unit prep and temporization. So that's how you can adapt that to fit. Does that make sense? 

Naren Arulrajah: Yes, Gary. I do love this idea of high value services because let's be honest, right? That's one of the best ways you can really increase your productivity, because it's the same unit of time, but the revenue is much, much, much higher. 

Gary Takacs: Yeah. And if you get to the point where you can do a ton of that, yeah, it's time to bring on an associate doctor that can do more of the general dentistry, right? That can free your time up. You could be way more productive working three days a week than you're currently working four or five, if more of your schedule is devoted to doing high value dentistry.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you, Gary. Yeah, let's jump into the next question that I have for you. Let's get specific about applying your five scheduling recommendations to a scheduling template. What does that scheduling template look like? 

Gary Takacs: Okay, let me get into the weeds about that. And again, your mileage may vary. You may have to adapt this, but I literally did this this morning, Naren, as we're recording this podcast. I literally had this very conversation with one of our coaching clients. And he's a younger dentist, about five years out of school, very, very productive, nice mix of services, mostly general dentistry, and he's adding some high value services. That kind of describes the situation, Naren. Yes. And he wanted me to get specific with him. And he's got two hygienists. He's grown to the point where he has two. He has a wonderful team. He's a solo dentist currently. And he has plans to bring on an associate doctor at some point. And we're getting close to that. 

Gary Takacs: So I had suggested that he works out of two rooms. So he's got two treatment rooms and he has two assistants, right? Okay. Now, we can't be in two places at once, so this has to be done by design. That's how we engineer it. So I said, think of column one as your main column. And this is an office that followed our schedule that we use at my practice. And he works seven to four. So his patient hours is seven to four. So from seven to four, and he's chosen to work straight through without lunch. His team gets lunch, and they stagger it. So they always have coverage, but he chooses to work straight through. That's not for everybody, but that's his choice. So imagine column one, and remember we've got three rock blocks. 

Gary Takacs: Now in column one, he's got an hour and a half rock. He's got two one hour rocks at different times. So his production goes into column one, column two. And he also has — this is a practice that he sees two new patients a day. So we also have the doctor part of the new patient appointment also blocked in column one. And he puts them in the schedule. And in his case, it's 30 minutes for the doctor part of the new patient appointment. So add those up there. And I had three and a half hours of rocks, right? And because these two new patients today at 30 minutes, it's another hour. So he's got four and a half hours that are pre-blocked in his schedule out of nine, because he is working straight through seven to four. It's a nine hour day.

Gary Takacs: Yeah. So that means he's got four and a half hours. If he hits those rocks, it doesn't matter what he puts in the other four and a half hours, he's gonna already be on goal, right? So think about column two. Now, column two is — think of it more as an overflow column, because you can't be in two places at once, right? So what goes in column two are things like auxiliary dentistry, auxiliary driven dentistry. So whitening, that goes in column two. Taking impressions to make mouth guards or night guards goes in column two. Delivering — this office does Invisalign. So having the assistant, the orthodontic assistant, deliver Invisalign trays. Now part of that has to be doctor time delivering the Invisalign trays, but that's a very short appointment. So it goes in column two. The other thing that can go in column two is, is there things that team members can do at the beginning or the end of a restorative appointment? 

Gary Takacs: For example, this is an office that doesn't have CAD/CAM, doesn't have a mill, and his assistants make all of the temporary crowns. They make them, not him. Now he makes the temporaries for a cosmetic case. That's a different technique. But so that can go — the making of the crowns can go in column two because that doesn't involve the doctor time. So it's instead of double scheduling, which is frustrating 'cause you can't be in two places at once. It's more of a dovetail schedule where you only have to be in one room at a time. It's a little bit difficult for me to describe that in an audio format here. It's easier for me to describe it if I've got video. But it's just having to be in one place at once. So at all times you only have to be in one place. 

Gary Takacs: So one of the things you can do to train yourself for that is start to recognize in any given appointment, what is doctor time and what is assistant time. Some things only the doctor can do. And that has to be on the doctor's side. Other things the assistant can do. So it's a matter of coordinating that. And he's starting to do this now, and his column two, I said, is typically only gonna be filled maybe 30% of the time based on what you have in column one. If you're doing oral surgery, taking out a tooth, you can't have anything in column two, 'cause that's all doctor. If you're doing endo, nothing in column two, 'cause again, that's all you. The doctor part of the new patient appointment, nothing goes in column two because you can't be in two places at once. So that's what the template looks like. It looks like just a carefully orchestrated plan where you only have to ever be in one place at one time. Now, it can go to heck in a hand cart if things start to go sideways. However, it can also run really, really, really smooth once we get some training around it and a little bit of flexibility built into the schedule. It can be very smooth.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you, Gary. That was really, really helpful. Thank you for that. In your coaching, I have observed this firsthand, Gary, how getting the scheduling right can make a massive difference. This, to me, is like working smart versus working hard. It sounds like such a simple idea, but it makes a difference, right? I've seen practices producing — the doctor producing 2000, going to 4,000, or 3000 going to 5,000. And, 

Gary Takacs: And this is counterintuitive, Naren. Yeah. The $4,000 day felt easier than the 2000. It doesn't make sense. I mean, if you're thinking about it, well, didn't you mix that up here? No, I didn't. Yeah. Because it's not a matter — I mean, the day my client told me he saw that number of patients, man, my heart went out to him. He was like, holy cow, you just got ran over by a truck. Yeah. Yeah. 

Naren Arulrajah: It's kind of like the way I like to visualize it. And I try to think of how would I explain this to a 10-year-old. Let's say I'm walking down the road, there are gold coins, silver coins, and bronze coins. And yes, there aren't too many gold coins, but they are there. And there are some silver coins and there are a lot of bronze coins, right? Now, like you said, people just put any name in a slot. That's like picking up the bronze coins and filling it up and you're tired. It's so heavy and you're carrying it. Versus, you know what, start putting those gold coins first. And a gold coin is worth 10 bronze coins, right? Same one hour, but it's literally like 10 times better. So yes, you can't be full of gold coins because you still have to do the other things you do. And so —

Gary Takacs: Well, if you're a solo dentist, you can push things downhill. Yes. So you have to have time for that. But again, it's all about engineering your schedule. Another good exercise that I like to suggest for my clients is give yourself permission to design your ideal day. Hmm. Now, and when I say ideal, I don't mean something crazy. I don't mean one patient doing a 20 unit prep right now. Yes. That can be part of your ideal, but design an ideal day for your every day. For what your every day is, design that, and literally work it through column one, column two. What is it? Put in procedures in your ideal. And then what we're gonna do with that, once you've looked at it and said, yeah, this checks out, we're gonna share that with your scheduling coordinator. And we're gonna say, do this. Yeah. How can a person schedule you to an ideal day if they don't know what an ideal day is? An ideal day to them might be a name in the appointment book. Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, exactly, Gary. 

Gary Takacs: So now they're gonna know. And design it realistically, knowing your mix, knowing your treatment mix, knowing your practice, knowing the amount of time. That's another thing. Use time integrity. What I mean by that — sometimes the doctor thinks a particular procedure takes X amount of time, and in reality, he or she has never done that procedure in that amount of time ever, on their best day. So you're setting yourself up for failure because it's not scheduled to what you actually need. And Dr. Reed taught me this years ago. He actually did stopwatch timing. He'd stopwatch time doctors, and say to the doctor, how long does it take to prep a tooth? And they would say this, and he'd say, well, let's put a stopwatch on it. Let's see. And he discovered that it was never true. So if you think something takes 30 minutes, but on your best day, you can't do it in an hour, you're setting yourself up for failure. So, nuance it. But so —

Naren Arulrajah: Gary, just to go ahead, finish my thought there. So we talked about how this can make a massive difference. Now, how do you make this change, right? Scheduling the doctor correctly — this change, to stick. 

Gary Takacs: Oh, well, that's easy, Naren. Because people love change, and all you have to do is — Naren Arulrajah: 

Gary Takacs: Did anyone hear the sarcasm in my voice? Naren Arulrajah: Yes, I did. 

Gary Takacs: Yeah. That was sarcastic. People don't like change. And so when they try something new, what happens? 

Naren Arulrajah: For two days, they'll do it. Doctor forgets about it, then they go back to square one. 

Gary Takacs: So here's how you do it. You manage it. Here's what you do. Let's say your scheduling coordinator's name is Maria, and you say, Maria, we're gonna roll out this new thing. And I know it's different and we're gonna have to learn as we go. So here's what I would like to do. Here's the template. Here's the rocks. Here's what fits in rocks. Here's the new patient time. And let's say it's an office that works Monday through Thursday. Right at the end of the day on Thursday: Maria, I'd like you to print out what actually happened on the schedule Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And you and I will sit down and I'll review each day, 'cause it's still kind of fresh in my mind, 'cause it was just this week. 

Gary Takacs: And I'll talk about what went really well, where I needed more time in the schedule, where I needed less time on the schedule, where we could have put something in a side column, where we shouldn't have put something in a side column, where we thought something was a rock, but it wasn't. We'll go through all of that and we'll do it in close to real time, and we'll do it every week at the end of the week. That way you'll have my feedback and my input on how we can keep getting better and better and better. You know, Naren, I happen to enjoy playing golf. If I go out and take one golf lesson, is it likely that I'm gonna have a radical change in my golf scoring moving forward? 

Naren Arulrajah: Okay. I mean, I run a company of 300 people, and what I have learned is it's about improvement every day. You just stick with it, stick with it. Continuous 

Gary Takacs: Improvement. Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. 1% improvement. Just tiny bit, tiny bit till it gets to an ideal and then you maintain it. Yeah. 

Gary Takacs: And so that's what this is, you're doing, but you're doing it in close to real time. Do it at the end, and make it a short meeting. Don't make it heavy. Oh, if you wanna be more successful with this, yeah, find some things to compliment your scheduling coordinator on. Give some praise as part of this meeting, because then when you have to make correction, they're gonna have deposits in the bank already. But that's how you do it. So you go through it, and maybe you end up doing that for a period of time, until it becomes the new routine. Now, Naren, I'm gonna pivot here and I'm gonna ask you a question. Okay? So the right marketing plays a critical role in scheduling success. Marketing is part of this. Now, it's not mechanical, it's not marketing that is putting appointments in the schedule. However, I want you to share how a well-designed marketing plan supports the scheduling goals of the practice.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you, Gary. So I'm gonna answer this question in two ways, right? Why is a well-designed marketing plan important? That's the first part. The second part is what is a well-designed marketing plan? You kind of alluded to this. It's all about putting the right kind of work, i.e. treatment, in the right blocks. And of course, you want more rocks, the bigger ones, right? The high value cases as well as you want the other stuff. But without the high value cases, you can't have a productive day. So that's starting to answer the question why you need a marketing plan. Imagine you don't have a lot of high value cases to treat. How do you put those in? Well, 

Gary Takacs: Yeah, this applies, remember, in everyday general dentistry, because the things that go in your rocks, Naren — yes — are everyday general dentistry. 

Naren Arulrajah: Yes. 

Gary Takacs: Crowns. 

Naren Arulrajah: Crowns, yes. 

Gary Takacs: Crowns, quadrants of fillings. So it's not just high value, true, but those rocks on the everyday schedule, the hour and a half block and the two one hour blocks, are more productive everyday general dentistry. You know, not all everyday general dentistry is the same value. Naren Arulrajah: Exactly. 

Gary Takacs: The crown prep is a different value than a single two surface filling. Naren Arulrajah: Yes. 

Gary Takacs: Yes. So that's where, again, marketing comes in place to produce the patients to fill those rocks. 

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. So once you know the kind of rocks you want, now you need to create them. Of course, you have existing patients, but at some point, you're gonna finish up all those rocks and you have nothing to put in those rocks, right? So you need a steady stream of those patients who are looking for those rock services, whether it's crowns or sedation, a lot of work to be done, or Invisalign, or veneers, full mouth reconstruction, implants, dentures — any of those rocks, you want them to keep coming in. So now that you know what kind of high value services and or everyday general dentistry rocks you want, you want those patients continuing to be attracted to you, right? What is marketing? I've said this before: helping the right people with the right needs find you.

Naren Arulrajah: So the rocks are part of those needs that you want to target. Then helping those people like you, and then helping those people choose you. Find you — you know, the haves and the have nots. The 5% get 95% of free traffic from Google, which today is the most valuable company on the planet outside of Nvidia. So it's huge. It's $250 billion on ads. You don't wanna spend money on ads, nor do you want to get those PPO patients, because you only keep a little bit of the money because ads are very expensive. So are PPO write-offs. So you wanna organically show up. You wanna be in that 5% that are dominating those rock services you are interested in. Meaning when I Google those types of services, or when I go to ChatGPT, you better be the one I keep finding consistently. 

Naren Arulrajah: And the metric I use is a hundred keywords or phrases, of course, a lot of them being rock services, that you are ranking for any given day in the page one or top 10 results of Google. So that's step number one. Step number two is take them to the landing page. Gary's a huge fan of this. Make sure they love what they see. So welcoming video if it's relevant. Some cases, ideally with full face after pictures, so they feel like you have done that work, you have helped them with that particular need. And there are no more than one example. Last but not least, trust. Today, nobody chooses you, especially those patients, cash paying patients for those bigger cases, without checking out your reviews. So the goal there is 10 plus five star paragraph reviews a month. That's the minimum standard. 10 plus five star paragraph reviews. So dominate Google for your rock services, have wonderful landing pages, and then continue to get 10 plus five star paragraph reviews. Hey, book that marketing strategy meeting at ekwa.com/td  if you want to see how you are doing in these three things, especially for your rock services. And we would love to help.

Gary Takacs: Yeah. On the scheduling side, if this is something that you can see customized and adapted to your practice and you'd like some help with that, we'd love to work with you. Thriving Dentist coaching. If that's your interest, go to thrivingdentist.com/csm . It stands for a coaching strategy meeting. You'll meet with me on Zoom. I'll share with you how we work and we'll determine if there's a good fit for us to work together. This is an example of one of the many things we do to support our clients. And I'll bring it back full circle, Naren, for any of our listeners: you get scheduling right, and a whole bunch of positive things happen. We stub our toe with scheduling, and that's something that can lead to very, very, very mixed results. 

Gary Takacs: In any case, if you'd like some help with that, we are accepting new clients. We don't always accept new clients. Sometimes we have a wait list. However, today we are accepting new clients. We've had a number of our clients hit the finish line this year by design, and it's opened up some months. So come join us, thrivingdentist.com/csm  on that. And I'll reinforce what Naren said. If you really need more of the right kind of patients, set up that meeting with Ekwa. I would do that pronto. Again, ekwa.com/td . On that note, Naren and I thank you for the privilege of your time, and we look forward to connecting with you on the next Thriving Dentist Show.