90 Days to Fast-Track Your Dental Team’s Performance

Intro: This is The Thriving Dentist Show with Gary Takacs, where we help you develop your ideal dental practice—one that provides personal, professional, and financial satisfaction.

Gary Takacs: Welcome to another episode of The Thriving Dentist Show. I’m Gary Takacs, your podcast co-host. Um, we have a really fun episode for you today. It’s titled 90 Days to Fast Track Your Dental Team’s Performance. Um, I’m really excited about this episode, uh, and you’ll see why in just a minute. But before we get into that episode, I have a couple of quick announcements to make. Uh, you may know, as a regular listener to The Thriving Dentist Show, that we frequently, uh, put on virtual events—virtual webinars, panel discussions, and other formats of virtual events. They’re virtual. You can attend from the comfort of your home, uh, or your office, and no travel inconvenience or no travel cost. Uh, they’re typically about an hour long. Um, and, uh, if you wanna see what our, uh, latest, uh, event is, or the next upcoming event, go to thrivingdentist.com/events. 

Gary Takacs: Uh, all of those virtual events, uh, are at no tuition. It’s our gift to you for being a listener to The Thriving Dentist Show. Uh, so, hey, if you’re looking to, uh, get some, uh, great information that you can apply in your practice, come join us on one of these events. Again, go to thrivingdentist.com/events.  The second announcement that I have, uh, is our, uh, resident marketing expert, Naren Arulrajah. Uh, he’s gonna share a tip with you, and the tip is all around this question: Why do dentists sign up for PPO plans and stay with them? Well, I think you’d appreciate what Naren has to say about that and maybe give you a different perspective, uh, as you look at, uh, marketing. Um, before we get to the episode today, um, I’ll just share with you that, uh, we’re gonna mix things up a little bit today.

Gary Takacs: Uh, we have asked our listeners, uh, for input on things you are interested in learning more about, and we have come up with a number of episodes, um, where, uh, Naren and I are simply gonna go back and forth, uh, with some of the questions, uh, that you have submitted and some of the topics that you’ve submitted, um, and, uh, share, uh, our thoughts, uh, with you. And this is one of those. Um, again, I think you’re gonna really enjoy, uh, this episode—90 Days to Fast Track Your Dental Team’s Performance. No further ado, here’s Naren with his marketing tip.

Naren Arulrajah: Hello everyone. This is Naren, the co-host of the Thriving Dentist Podcast. And in today’s marketing tip, I’ll be talking about why doctors sign up and stay on PPO plans. This is a great question, and this is one of those questions you might want to think about and reflect on, perhaps over the weekend. Um, if you haven’t done so already.

Now, doctors sign up for a very simple reason. Um, there are two primary reasons. The first one is, you know, as soon as you start your business—whether you buy one or you start one—you need new patients. And PPO plans say, "I’ll give you unlimited new patients. Sign on this dotted line." It’s like a hundred-page document, but you know, you are so excited about being busy, you sign on the dotted line.

What happens is, over time, PPO plans continue to pay the same amount they paid you 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago. Your cost of living goes up. So the amount that is what it’s costing you to provide that service—which is, let’s call it, usual and customary fees—versus what you get paid after the PPO plan sets your fees, after they reject your claims, and after they keep what they want to keep as part of their write-off, is typically, you know, 50 cents on the dollar.

So, if you’re producing a thousand dollars’ worth of dentistry, you are only collecting $500. And when you do this, you know, day in and day out on the same patient—let’s say the patient signed up 10 years ago—and you are doing a thousand dollars’ worth of dentistry for that patient for the last 10 years, but you’re doing, you are producing $2,000 worth of dentistry—in other words, you’re getting paid a thousand dollars, but you’re doing $2,000 worth of dentistry.

So your write-off is approximately two—10 years times a thousand dollars—$10,000. Now, the only thing the PPO plan did is once upon a time, 10 years ago, brought that patient to you. Now, in exchange, this invisible write-off adjustment—right, PPO adjustment—which I call a marketing fee, has been hurting your business.

Now, when you are producing twice and only making half, it gets really, really, really hard. Your income doesn’t grow. You have to see more and more new patients. Your team has to work harder. So the question—the second question is—even in these circumstances, where doctors are making less and less and less and getting health issues, and they are not able to do ideal dentistry, because remember, one of the questions people on PPO ask is, "Is it covered by PPO?" If it’s not covered, they don’t want it.

So all the training you have—the dental implant training, sedation training—doesn’t really help you, because the PPO patients don’t want to pay for it if it’s not covered. So it’s really like one of those doom-and-gloom loops as opposed to a prosperity loop, where every day is better than yesterday and every quarter is better than last quarter.

So why do people stay? I think the reason people stay is they’re afraid. And because the PPO plan is taking up so much in terms of PPO adjustments—typically, you know, if you are 80% PPO dependent and you are collecting a million dollars—your write-offs could be as much as $400,000–$500,000 in a single year. That’s $40,000 a month in write-offs.

Now, those write-offs are marketing fees. So when you’re spending $40,000 a month in, quote-unquote, this invisible write-off slash marketing fee, you don’t have any money to invest in your own marketing. So the best way to do that is to get out of that trap. Start small. I would recommend SEO because SEO—you know, we can do an excellent job for $1,250 a month—and get you an unfair advantage.

5% of practice owners rank for 100 or more keywords and get 95% of the free traffic from Google. Now, it’s not easy to get there. You have to put a lot of effort in the first year—600 hours’ worth of effort. But if you do that systematically month after month after month, and you know what you’re doing, by the end of the 12 months, you will rank for 100 keywords. You will dominate Google, and you will have this unfair advantage.

Now, if you were to compare apples to apples—in the prior example, that single patient cost this particular doctor $10,000, because every year he has to take a write-off on that patient for 10 years with PPO. Let’s say you get 20 new patients and you’re spending, you know, $1,200—that’s $60 a new patient. Would you rather spend $60 a new patient or $10,000 a new patient?

You know, pick your choice. So you have to start thinking strategically. And as your own marketing is SEO-driven—even ads. Now, ads are more expensive, so I would only do it once I have dominated Google, because ads are typically six times more expensive. You know, because ads—people don’t trust you. So you need a lot more bodies to call you and, you know, book appointments for you to get the same amount of, you know, benefit.

So what I would recommend is, you know, go ahead and—instead of signing up for the PPO plan—strengthen your marketing with SEO and/or ads. And then, as this marketing starts producing new patients, drop the worst PPO plan, then the next worst PPO plan, and so forth.

If you want to learn more about, you know, how do you develop your own marketing plan—where you are, where’s your competition, all of those things—book a marketing strategy meeting. It’s ekwa.com/msm.  It’s our gift to you, and it’s a 60-minute call. We put six hours’ worth of work into it. We’ll provide all kinds of insights on how you are doing, how do you, you know, dominate marketing within a 12-month period, and obviously, you know, what your competition is doing.

So take advantage of this. Figure out where you are. If you are stuck in this rut of, you know, PPO dominance, and you’re making less and less every year, at least find out what kind of a plan can you create and then go from there.

Naren Arulrajah: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Thriving Dentist conversation featuring Gary. And the topic we’ll be covering today is 90 Days to Fast Track Your Dental Team’s Performance. Many of you know, I’m the co-host, and I’m the founder and CEO of Ekwa Marketing.

Hope you enjoyed that tip that I shared as to why many practice owners stay with PPO plans, even though every year they’re making less and less. If you need help, if you want to take a different approach, book a marketing strategy meeting—and that’s complimentary—ekwa.com/msm. 

Naren Arulrajah: I really like this topic today, Gary, and I know we—I’m really excited about the questions that were sent in and the new format, where it’s gonna be a conversation based on everything our audience wants to know on this topic: How do they fast track dental team performance? 

The very first, um, thing I want to dive into, Gary, is, you know, going back to your experience. You have coached, I would say, hundreds and hundreds—if not more than a thousand—practice owners over the last 45 years.And you have helped, um, build the best teams in dentistry. And many of your clients have stayed with you literally for decades. And you have, you know, a thing or two about, you know, how these teams that are doing extremely well continue to do extremely well. And more importantly, how do the teams that perhaps are struggling turn things around?

So, I’m gonna focus on, uh, this idea of a 90-day framework. I know you have used this in your past with clients, uh, to, you know, create a, a team—lay the foundation for a team that is not only successful in the short term, but also can succeed in the long term.

So let me start by asking the first thing that comes to my mind. Gary, why do you recommend that 90-day framework instead of, let’s say, one year or even perhaps a multi-year plan?

Gary Takacs: Yeah, Naren, there’s something that you don’t know about my background, Naren, uh, nor do our listeners. But a very good friend of mine—his name is Brian Moran—Brian Moran wrote a book called The 12 Week Plan. The 12 Week Plan. And this book, uh, New York Times bestseller. Uh, so I’d highly recommend any of our listeners that you go to Amazon and purchase this book. It’s a New York Times bestseller. It’s literally called The 12 Week Plan by Brian Moran.

He’s a great friend of mine, and he introduced me to this concept. I’ve been using it with my clients ever since. And the subtitle of the book is titled Get More Done in 12 Weeks Than Others Do in 12 Months. Well, that kind of summarizes why I like this plan, but let me amplify that a little bit, Naren.

You know, our attention span—the human attention span today—is very different than it was even a generation ago. Would you agree with me on that?

Naren Arulrajah: I agree, Gary. I mean, today, you are lucky to get somebody to focus for two minutes.

Gary Takacs: Exactly. Uh, you know, the attention—and it’s, it’s—I’m, you know, we’re all part of that. I, I will raise my hand and say, I’m part of that. You’re part of that. Um, and every one of our listeners is part of that.

And when we talk about long-term planning, um, I find that people lose the plot. Naren, do you know that term—lose the plot?

Naren Arulrajah: Yes.

Gary Takacs: Yeah, they lose the plot. They lose track of what we’re trying to accomplish. It was funny, a number of years ago, a client of mine wanted to experiment with the idea of having a bonus plan in their practice, but she wanted to do it differently. She wanted to do a bonus where it was an end-of-the-year bonus, like people did in, um, you know, in the corporate world, in the business world, in the financial world. You know, in the financial world, if you’re a broker or you’re in financial services, most of those people have an end-of-the-year bonus. You know, you work hard all year, and you get to the end of the year, and hopefully there’s gonna be a bonus coming. You’ve heard of that, Naren, correct?

Naren Arulrajah: Yes.

Gary Takacs: So my client had this great idea. She said, “I think this idea of a monthly bonus is baloney. Let’s do an annual bonus like they do in the business world.” And I said, “Well, you know, I can see your point for that. But I’m afraid that attention is gonna literally wane, and I think we’re not going to achieve the goal, because people forget even what the goal was.”

And she said, “No, no, my team—I think we can do this. I think we can do this.”

So I said, “Well, let’s give it a try.” And we started on January 1st.

By Valentine’s Day—Naren, what date is Valentine’s Day?

Naren Arulrajah: February 14th.

Gary Takacs: February 14th, yes. That’s six weeks. There wasn’t a single team member that had any idea what the bonus was about. And this was in a strong team. This is a strong team. But six weeks later, they had no idea.

And my client—fortunately, she has a wonderful sense of humor—she said, “Boy, was I ever wrong!”

So that’s part of it. I think if we maintain focus and we break things down into bite-sized pieces, it’s much more likely that we’re gonna get fantastic results.

So, in a nutshell, that’s why I like the idea of a 90-day fast track.

Naren Arulrajah: Gary, you have me sold on a 90-day plan—the 90-day sprint. And remember, listeners, our goal today is to fast track your dental team’s performance within this 90 days.

So I guess something that I’m wondering, Gary, is there’s so much to do, right? I’m sure you have worked with, again, hundreds of practices, Gary, and, you know, there’s a to-do list of things they wanna accomplish that’s a mile long. So how do they decide what is going to fit within that 90-day sprint and what’s not going to fit within that 90-day sprint?

Again, our goal is to top-grade our team and, you know, take them to the next level. So from that perspective, how do you think about this, Gary?

Gary Takacs: Well, uh, you know, you’re absolutely right, Naren. And that’s where many practice owners get stuck. And the key, I think, evolves around three different concepts: energy, clarity, and progress. Energy, clarity, and progress.

And so we have to look at—and this has to be individualized to the office because this is not a generic one-size-fits-all game plan—because it really depends on the practice. Like, you know, for example, part of an office goal may be to increase a particular high-value service, you know, like, let’s say, Invisalign or aligners. You know, they want to really grow that component.

And so part of that 90-day plan can be very specific, actionable strategies that relate to that specific goal. That specific goal. And again, this has to be individualized to your practice.

So I think what we need to do is tie that 90-day plan to the bigger vision. Come back to—what is the purpose of the practice? What’s the vision of the practice? Tie it back to that so that we have compass points. You know, we have the compass always pointing true north—where we’re going.

But then we have very specific things that we’re working on, you know, within that plan that meet that vision. But always keeping that vision front and center for our team.

So, for example, if the vision has a lot to do with, you know, providing more connection with our patients than being transactional—that might be part of the big vision. We want to be more connected to our patients rather than transactional, or what I like to call—we want to be more relationship-driven. Then that can be part of our overall teamwork.

But when we look at that, we can break that down as: what are we gonna do in the next 90 days to be more relational than we are transactional? To get it down into very specifics. Does that make sense?

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. So what you’re saying is, you need to have the big picture—i.e., the vision—but it has to be something that they can, you know, get excited about, put their hands around, and accomplish in the 90 days.

Yeah.

Gary Takacs: And, you know, a vision—it has to be personally defined, for sure. But I think one thing that can help any of our listeners to have some true north direction for vision is to think about our Seven Goals for a Thriving Practice. Think about those seven goals. Let me rattle through those really quick.

Number one: keep overhead at 60% or less. Number two: have enough income from your practice to be able to achieve financial independence, so you can go to work because you want to—not because you have to. Number three: have a state-of-the-art office with modern technology, with all the technology that you love that makes dentistry more fun for you and more enjoyable for your patients. Number four: build a high-performance team that you truly love and enjoy working with. Number five: take care of patients that you enjoy taking care of. You don’t have to love your patients, but create a practice that attracts patients you enjoy taking care of. Number six: maintain a treatment mix that gives you satisfaction. Dentistry comes in a lot of different flavors. Pick the stuff you like to do—do more of that. That may fit very nicely in a 90-day framework within your vision. And finally, number seven—we should never let off on this one—create an effective work-life balance through your practice.

Now, we don’t have to focus on all seven of those at once. In fact, I would highly suggest don’t try to accomplish all seven at once, because I’ve had that ambition myself, and I’ve discovered that the wheels fall off when you’re trying to do too much.

So it’s a recipe for burnout—not only for you but for your team members. So which one or two of these would you like to focus on improving over the next 90 days? What would make the biggest difference for your practice right now?

And, you know, for some, the difference might be building a stronger team culture—where everyone’s in the same boat, rowing in the same direction. Naren, you’ve heard me use that analogy before about the boat, right?

Naren Arulrajah: Yes, yes.

Gary Takacs: Recently, one of our Thriving Dentists—he was just starting to work with us in Thriving Dentist—we were on a Zoom call, and he looked at me and just kind of snickered. He said, “Gary, I gotta be honest with you. My team is not in the same boat. We’re not. Some of them are in a different boat, and some of them are just, you know, treading water over there—not in a boat at all.”

And we laugh, right? So, well, that’s where we should start. Because if you’re trying to do this yourself, Doc, it’s literally like trying to pull a lead weight up a hill, right? You know, that—that is really hard to do.

But when we’ve got team members that are pulling their weight, and we break it down into microscopic, manageable components—like, let me give you an example, Naren. Let’s say one of our goals is to have better case acceptance, right? How many times have we seen that? You’ve heard me talk about that.

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. We have mutual clients, and, uh, you know, that is a problem for a lot of people when they start with you, and they want to improve their case acceptance.

Gary Takacs: I would, uh, I would politely suggest that every dentist in the U.S. would like to improve case acceptance.

Gary Takacs: If it’s not 100%, we want to improve it. And yes, I don’t know a single dentist that has 100% case acceptance.

Naren Arulrajah: Maybe for emergencies. And you’re talking about not emergency dentistry—you’re talking about that optional dentistry, right? So, stuff that doesn’t hurt.

Gary Takacs: Well, let’s benchmark it. I break down case acceptance into three categories, right? So now we’re really getting granular here, but let’s get granular.

One category would be emergency dentistry. You know, the patient has a toothache, their cheek is swollen out, they haven’t slept for three nights. If you provide a service that can relieve them of pain, your case acceptance should be 100%. Can we agree on that?

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it’s really the other way around—they want you to get them in ASAP. You do that, they are—

Gary Takacs: —by the way, one of the ways you can do that is make sure every day in the morning huddle you define a morning emergency slot and an afternoon emergency slot, right?

Some days you and your team are gonna be looking at the schedule and saying, “I hope we don’t get any today.” But you know how Murphy’s Law works, right? The day you have no time for them is the day you’re gonna get the emergency call.

The other nice thing about planning it out—the team can be involved in that, right? When it’s the team’s idea, things go better. So you can say, “Hey guys, look at the schedule. When would you suggest as an emergency slot?”

Naren Arulrajah: Right.

Gary Takacs: “When do you suggest for the afternoon?” And so now, if that call comes in, a team member doesn’t have to put the caller on hold, try to find you to see if it’s okay to bring that person in.

And then what happens? You can’t talk—because you’ve got your hands in the patient’s mouth. You can’t switch gears and start thinking about that. We already decided this at the morning huddle.

And she can say, “I’m so glad you called. I’m sorry you’re experiencing pain—doctor would be concerned. We’ll work you into our schedule at 10:30 this morning. Do you need directions?”

Naren Arulrajah: Perfect. So what you’re saying is, perhaps the goal could be, you know, “We are not very good at accommodating emergency patients,” and the goal could be: we want to have a morning slot and an afternoon slot, and we want to get good at offering it to the clients who are in pain.

So that could be a goal.

Gary Takacs: And Naren, you know a little bit about marketing around that, right? Do people in pain, uh, ever—without a dentist—do they ever search for a dentist?

Naren Arulrajah: A hundred percent. There are so many different keywords they search for. Like, for example, sometimes it’s hilarious—not for them—but, you know, like, “dentist who will see me now.” I mean, literally, like, you know, they will type anything to find someone who is willing to accept patients immediately.

Gary Takacs: That’s a motivated patient.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, extremely motivated patient. You just have to answer the phone, pretty much. A, you have to rank, and then B, you just have to answer the phone.

Gary Takacs: Now, let me go back to—I was talking about case acceptance. You know, case acceptance—improving case acceptance—is a huge global goal. You know, it’s big, right?

Naren Arulrajah: Right, right.

Gary Takacs: Let’s break it down into something very granular. Maybe the first thing that we do is we start taking our six photos for patient education. Take those six photos—

Naren Arulrajah: And by the way, we should put a link to that episode you have done in the past, Gary, about how to do that well—the six photos.

Gary Takacs: And I want to give credit to my dear friend, Frank Spear, for teaching me those six photos. So these are Frank’s six photos for patient education. Take the photos, load ’em on a tablet. Now patients will see their teeth in a way they’ve never seen before, and they’ll start asking you, “What about this? What about that? What about this?” And guess what happens to case acceptance?

Naren Arulrajah: It goes—it goes up. It goes up, yeah. There’s—it’s almost automatic. Right now, you are helping them get what they want versus trying to sell them anything.

Gary Takacs: But, you know, in the context of this episode—the 90-day fast track—let’s say the big goal is to “improve the practice.” So we talk about, “We’re gonna improve the practice.” Does that give us any direction at all? I mean, that’s vague and abstract.

Now, we broke it down and said, one of the things we know we can improve on is increasing case acceptance, right? Now, what do we do with case acceptance? We talked about two things today:

1. Let’s make sure we can accommodate new patients that have an emergency.
2. Let’s integrate the six photos for patient education so that now patients will see their teeth in a way they’ve never seen.

So now, instead of traveling around the world, we’re taking a short journey—and we can get to a destination. We get to an end point. That’s the idea of the 90-day fast track.

And if it builds momentum, once you have your first 90 days under your belt, then the next 90—we can—sometimes it’s an extension of what you did in the first 90 to take it to the next level.

Naren Arulrajah: Take it to the next level, exactly.

Gary Takacs: And other times, we’re gonna roll out something new that represents another area of improvement in your practice.

Naren Arulrajah: Brilliant. Gary, this is amazing.

Now, I need to ask this question, Gary, because it’s bugging me—and I bet a lot of people who are listening have the same question. That is, you know, they have heard this before, right?

I’m talking about the team. Doctor gets excited about a new idea and he’s, you know, he wants to do something—and they’re wondering, “Is it gonna last for two weeks or two days?” So that’s one, right? Like, this is a one-more-thing project versus a real 90-day sprint.

The second thing is, perhaps they’ll be like, “I’m drowning here, and you want me to do more?” Right? And they feel that overwhelm.

So how do you deal with that as the leader of the practice, Gary?

Gary Takacs: Naren, I have very personal experience with this. You know, for 40 years in my career, I was an in-office consultant, right? I traveled 46 weeks of the year—leaving Monday morning, coming home late Friday night—traveling to practices around the country. I’d get home Friday night. If I wasn’t lecturing at a conference—30 weeks of the year—I’d be lecturing on Saturday, then I’d get home Saturday night. That was my life, right? For 40 years. Forty-six weeks, in-office.

And I can’t tell you how many times I’d be in a dental office, and the team meeting that day would be… excitement. Doctor came back from a CE course that he or she took the last weekend and was super excited to share it with the team. Couldn’t wait.

I remember one time—this’ll be etched in my memory forever—the office manager, I knew very, very well. I knew her really well, so she was maybe a little bit more open to communicate with me because I had gotten to know her. She trusted me, I trusted her. And she told the team, “Listen, guys, doctor’s gonna come into the team meeting, he’s gonna be really excited about what he went to. Just nod your head… nod your head and say yes.”

Because then she said, “Trust me. In about two weeks, he’ll forget anything about it, and we can go back to the way we were.” She told me that—the consultant, right?

Anyway, I pulled her aside and I said, “You know, you’re absolutely right about that… but can I please make a suggestion? I want you to be helping the doctor apply these things—not driving a wedge between the team.” And we laughed. And she said, “You know, you’re absolutely right, Gary. I will work on my attitude.”

Gary Takacs: But she said, “I’ve seen this a zillion times. Doctor’s excited, so nod your head, say yes… and in two weeks, he or she will completely forget what the CE course was about.”

And I know there are some listeners right now snickering—

Naren Arulrajah: Or nodding their head.

Gary Takacs: Nodding their head. And they’re saying, “Oh my God… at least now I know I’m not the only one that ever experienced that.” Right?

So I think we have to be careful. I think how we introduce it to the team—it’s on you, Doc. It’s on you.

Naren Arulrajah: I know one of the advantages of having a coach like you is, Gary, you help them navigate this, right? Because like you said, the trust is gone. They have seen this ten times before—where the doctor’s excited, and nothing happens. So they’re like, “Okay, whatever… eleventh time.” Yeah. So you have to break that cycle.

Gary Takacs: But you know, it really does start with you. And I would suggest, whenever we’re talking about anything we want to do to improve the practice—anything at all—when we talk to our team, make sure at least one component of this is how it benefits the patients. Right? How it benefits the patients.

What’s in it for them—meaning the patients.

I find that there are definitely team members in dentistry that are highly motivated by numbers. And they’re very familiar with numbers and money, and they’re very motivated by that. However, there’s a larger group of people in dentistry that are much more altruistic in nature. They’re much more motivated by: how does this help our patients?

So, for example, if you want to grow—hypothetically, let’s say a big goal is to grow in collections by 10% in 2026. You know, at the time this is airing, some of our listeners are starting to think about 2026, and maybe your goal is to collect 10% more in 2026 than you collected in 2025. That’s a great goal, by the way. That’s a goal that I ask our clients to subscribe to—at least 10%.

But now, how I can frame it to the team is say, “Hey guys, by doing that, we’re gonna help more of our existing patients enjoy the benefits of great oral health. And we can help more people in our community experience the amazing service and the amazing clinical care we provide—and help them achieve better oral health.”

So we’re framing it in a very altruistic, humanistic way. By the way, the numbers follow—for sure. But that’s a tip I would offer: whenever we’re trying to frame something, be sure to frame it as what is the patient benefit? Don’t leave that part out. That part is really, really important.

Naren Arulrajah: So I think you—you’re hitting on something that is very, very true: what really motivates people. I mean, there’s a great book called Drive, and it talks about three things. One is purpose, second is autonomy, and third is mastery. And purpose means something bigger than yourself, right?

And like you said, Gary—you’ve said this multiple times—those who have gone into dentistry, they’ve gone into it to make a difference in the lives of others, right? Change people’s lives, bring better health to them.

So linking it back to that purpose seems to work. So you’re saying the way to get out of this trap is to not make it about yourself, not make it about anything else, but rather bring it about, you know, what’s in it for the patients, right?

That’s the way to overcome this. Because then now we are all aligned on doing the right thing for the patients.

Gary Takacs: You know, you and I have talked about a couple of books in this session. I’ll add another. We talked about my friend Brian Moran’s 12 Week Year, and you just introduced another book.

But arguably one of the most successful books—not only in business, but in life—was written by Simon Sinek, right? The title is Start With Why.

Naren Arulrajah: Yes.

Gary Takacs: Yes. So just take that simple phrase and incorporate it into your 90-day plan. Whenever you do anything, start with why. Start with why.

Don’t just go into the nuts and bolts of doing it, but begin with why. Because then your team members will have a purpose—they’ll know why we’re doing something. And that can often sustain you when you hit speed bumps, right?

Naren Arulrajah: Right.

Gary Takacs: I remember when I started running, Naren—early on in my running journey—there were some hard runs in the beginning. But what sustained me was why I was doing this. Why I wanted to do this.

And it got me through those early speed bumps. And very quickly, it developed into a passion and something that I craved.

And I think we can have the same thing happen with our team—if we start with why.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you, Gary. Now I want to get tactical. Gary, I want to kind of get into the nuts and bolts of this. Let’s say you have decided on some of these goals.

A question that perhaps is in the minds of many of our listeners is: What is a right goal that I can set within 90 days?

I know you gave two examples around emergency patients and case acceptance. Can you get a bit granular and help me define a goal that is realistic—that I should work towards—in that 90 days?

Gary Takacs: Sure. And again, I can pull these out of my hat all day long. But let’s get very granular.

You know, recently—we measure KPIs, key performance indicators, for our clients, right? And recently a client—we have ten KPIs, ten specific things we measure in the practice that we’re always working toward. And a client pressed me in a Zoom call and said, “Gary, which of your KPIs is most important?”

I said, “Doctor, they’re all important.” He said, “No, no, I’m not letting you off that easy. If you had to pick one, which one would you consider most important?”

I said, “Well, that’s like making me pick my favorite kid—my favorite child.”

Gary Takacs: He said, “I won’t make you do that. But—” we were laughing about it, he was good-natured—“if you had to pick one, which one would be your favorite?”

I said, “Well, I’m gonna have a hard time arguing anything’s more important than collections.” You know, it’s the ultimate measurement, right? Because collections is real money. It’s money we can use to pay our bills, money we can use to pay our team members, to pay our obligations.

So let’s get granular. One of the things we measure is your accounts receivable ratio.

Of all the different ways we can measure payment success in your practice—or failure—I think the accounts receivable ratio is the most useful. Because it gives—it’s like a physician taking a pulse, right?

Sure, there are other things we can know about how the patient’s doing, but taking a pulse for your primary care physician gives a lot of information, doesn’t it?

Naren Arulrajah: You bet. Absolutely.

Gary Takacs: So this is a way to take your practice’s pulse. So we take your total accounts receivable—everything that’s owed to the practice, dentistry you’ve done but haven’t gotten paid for by either insurance companies or patients—and we divide that by your average monthly production.

And we want that number to be 1.0 or less, which means that you’re not carrying more than one month’s production in your accounts receivable.

So if you’re averaging $100,000 a month in production—I’m just picking a round number there—and your average monthly production is $100,000, then $100,000 divided by $100,000 is 1.0.

We want that number to be equal to or less than one month’s average production.

So if you look at yours and your accounts receivable ratio is 1.25, then our very specific goal for the next 90 days would be: lower that accounts receivable ratio from 1.25 to a lower number. And here’s how we’re going to do it: X, Y, Z.

Now, I’d have trouble giving you the exact prescription for X, Y, Z because it depends on the practice.

Is it a logjam with the insurance companies? Do we have sloppy financial arrangements and people are walking out without paying at the time of service? What is it?

But we can now solve that in a granular way—instead of an abstract way.

Naren Arulrajah: Got it. So you’re saying once you know, okay, we’re currently at 1.25, we want to get it to 1.0, and we have three months to do it—I assume you would work on it, right?

Like you said, you have to troubleshoot. So maybe your weekly check-in with the person responsible is: where is the problem? Where is the money stuck? And then help them untangle that problem. Is that how you go about it?

Gary Takacs: If this client happens to be a coaching client of ours—yeah, we then prescribe a specific system from our 24 systems that relates to solving that. So it’s not just, “Go for it, good luck!”

Naren Arulrajah: Right. So that tells you—it’s like a cheat sheet: “Here are the seven ways to solve it, depending on which applies to you. Let’s figure out how to apply that over the 90 days to solve it.”

Gary Takacs: It’s very process-oriented. You know?

“Hey, it isn’t working? Here are the systems that will produce improvement.” And now they have an action plan. Now they go to work.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you, Gary. Really, this helps kind of bring it alive.

Now I know: how to set a goal, how to work on the goal, how to make it something that you actually can accomplish. How to get people motivated so they want to do this—versus, “Well, one more thing,” or, “I’ve heard this before.”

Now, let’s assume that 90 days is up, Gary. How should the owner of the practice—who we are talking to here—evaluate results and think about perhaps what’s next?

Gary Takacs: Yeah. Uh, really good point. And I want to make an observation that I’ve had.

I don’t think there’s a dentist listening to The Thriving Dentist Show that hasn’t heard of the importance of doing annual team member reviews, right? That can’t be news to any of our listeners. Right?

And yet—how many actually do them?

Recently, I was talking to one of my clients about this, and he said, “Gary, I’m embarrassed to tell you this, but… you know, I used to do annual reviews and then I stopped doing it because the reviews just turned into opportunities to ask for a raise.”

And he said, “I just got tired of that… so I stopped. And it’s been 10 years since I’ve done a review.”

So rather than fall into that trap of annual reviews, how about regular check-ins? How about short check-in meetings?

Can you imagine, Naren—you can remember when your girls were in elementary school, right?

Naren Arulrajah: Yes, yes. I remember.

Gary Takacs: Can you imagine—they’re in elementary school—and the plan was, “We’ll do a review when they finish sixth grade and let you know how they’re doing”?

Naren Arulrajah: That’s not gonna work out.

Gary Takacs: That would never work.

Naren Arulrajah: Right. I won’t have kids—I’ll have something else if I did that.

Gary Takacs: Yeah, exactly. So we need regular check-ins—and short ones. That aren’t tied to a raise. That aren’t tied to compensation.

Naren Arulrajah: Right.

Gary Takacs: Now, they might still ask for a raise… but have regular, short check-in meetings.

Now, I kind of diverted from your question a little bit, but—

Naren Arulrajah: I do have a quick follow-up question, just to clarify what you just said. So what you’re saying is: every person needs to know what “amazing” looks like, and these check-ins are a conversation to see if we’re moving toward that.

Am I right?

For example, I know one of the things you teach your clients is: one of the roles is a doctor scheduling coordinator, right? So their “amazing” is, “Doctor is scheduled to goal.”

That’s the amazing. So they know, this is my North Star. I’m the master of this universe. This is something I own. This is my domain.

And you have these check-ins to say: Are we getting better? How can I help?

So it’s not a beat-you-up thing. It’s: “Let’s work together. Let me help you get where you want to go.” And that way, you’re more valuable to the practice, and you get your bonuses, you get your increments, everybody’s happy.

Is that the way to think about it?

Gary Takacs: Yeah. And I’m going to ask you to do one specific thing as part of that check-in—that short check-in meeting:

Ask this question to your team member: “What resources can I provide to help you achieve your goal?”

What resources can I provide?

And it might be as simple as, “I need 15 uninterrupted minutes during the day when I can put my head down and work on this.”

And then go solve it.

It might be something technical. It might relate to a piece of equipment or something else you can supply to them.

You know, recently, a client of ours was getting better results with whitening—but not where they wanted to be.

When doctor asked the whitening champion, “What resources can I help you with?” she said, “We’re using these old paper shade guides.”

She said, “You know what would be really, really useful for me? If you would buy the really nice porcelain Vita Shade Guides—because then it looks so much more real. Right now I’m holding up a piece of paper. I’d rather be holding up a Vita Shade Guide. It’d just be more meaningful to them.”

And doctor said, “Oh my gosh. How many do you need?”

She said, “I want one in each room.”

He said, “Done.”

And look at the difference right there. He didn’t know—he wasn’t experiencing what she was experiencing, asking patients to look at their shade.

And now he got that information, and his answer was: “How many do you need?”

And he went out and got them. And today, we have next-day delivery on everything. Those shade guides were there the next day.

And it won’t be a surprise to you, Naren—or any of our listeners—to realize that they doubled their whitening after implementing those Vita Shade Guides.

Naren Arulrajah: Wow. So these really can make a big difference.

Naren Arulrajah: So you talked about how to evaluate results and how to stay focused. Now this is my last question, Gary, as we bring this to a close:

How do we maintain momentum?

Let’s say you’re successful in the first three months. You did the review. You’re happy. You exceeded your expectations.

How do you now not let this be a one-time, three-month initiative… but rather something that is the beginning of something greater?

A totally different practice. A practice where it’s no longer the doctor pulling everyone and carrying all the weight—but rather all the team members are carrying some of the weight.

And I know this is how you transform your clients.

By the way, I do have one other question—but I’ll get to it once you answer this, Gary.

Gary Takacs: Well, you know, let’s take a chapter from athletics.

I’ve been an athlete my entire life, and I’ve been very involved in high-performance athletics—and I love it. Today, I’m a distance runner, a triathlete, training for my first Ironman.

But, you know, if you’re a college football coach, college football season typically has 12 games. And this kind of helps us look at our 90-day plan.

Let’s say you start the season and you win your first game. You’re 1–0. Woohoo!

Naren Arulrajah: Yes!

Gary Takacs: We’re 1–0! Well, then we can just sit back on the couch and rest on our laurels, right?

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, right.

Gary Takacs: Yeah, not quite.

So take a minute and celebrate. When you’re at the end of the 90 days, take a minute and celebrate. But remind your team—in football, it’s a 12-game season, not one game. It’s twelve.

So yes, we’re 1–0, but we’ve got to keep going.

If you don’t do this, well… after the initial excitement, it fades. And then things go back to the way they were.

That’s why the 90-day plan becomes so powerful—because it literally is continuous. It gives you a chance to reset.

Now, you could reset for the next 90 days and just consider the next advances in the same goals you were working on in the first 90…

Naren Arulrajah: Right.

Gary Takacs: Or, if some goals are actually to the point of being “buffed out,” achieved, then we can move on to other things.

And so, you win consistently, as opposed to winning sporadically.

But I would encourage you to always take time and celebrate the successes. Celebrate.

It can be kind words. It can be praise. It can be recognition. It can be financial—but it doesn’t have to be financial. The point is, recognize the progress.

And that’s what a thriving practice looks like. It’s not “one and done.” It’s a series of leaps. And it’s continuous.

And this really shouldn’t be foreign to any of our listeners—at least those who listen to The Thriving Dentist Show. Because they’re always improving how they deliver dental care. Right?

I can say that confidently. Or they wouldn’t be listening to this podcast.

They’re always interested in improvement.

So model that to your team. You say:

"Just like I go out and take courses all the time… I take 10 times the amount of CE that’s required to keep my license in this state. And I do it because I always want to be better. It’s just continuous improvement. And I hope that my interest in continuous improvement reflects to you—and that you embrace that same concept."

Because that’s what makes our jobs interesting. That’s what makes our jobs worthwhile. That’s what makes us more effective.

So praise… but then think of the 90 days as a regular reset, where we get a chance to reset, celebrate our successes, and move on.

So in the football season, maybe we won the first three games—that’s our 90 days. Now we’re going to work on the next game… and the next… and the next.

And it really does help prevent this from becoming overwhelming.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you. Thank you, Gary.

Last question, and let’s bring this to a close.

Someone’s listening to this podcast, and this really resonates. They have a team that’s not necessarily pulling their weight. They feel like they’re going to the salt mine every day. And they’re starting to see some hope because of this 90-day plan.

And they feel like perhaps they could do it.

I know there are a lot of other nuances we can’t cover in a one-hour podcast—like bonuses, and everything else. And they want your help, Gary, because you’ve done this for 45 years.

What do you think is a good next step if they’re interested in talking to you?

Gary Takacs: Yeah, I’ll give it in bullet points, because I think that really is the right way to do this: Think short-term focused goals.

What does that look like? Let’s go back to whitening, because we used that example earlier.

Let’s say the office has never really been serious about whitening. And at the end of the year, they’ve done six whitening procedures.

I’m just making up a number—although that isn’t some abstract number… I’ve actually seen that, right?

If you do the math, that means they’re doing one whitening procedure every two months. Woohoo.

Did anyone pick up the sarcasm in my voice there?

Let’s say you want to get to a point where you do one whitening procedure a week. Think about that, Naren. That would mean going from 1 every 8 weeks to 12 every 3 months. That would be improvement, wouldn’t it?

Naren Arulrajah: Yes, that would be a big improvement.

Gary Takacs: So, short-term, focused goals — because they create momentum, and we can measure success clearly.

Next, make sure you have clear communication of your expectations. And if you want the bonus tip: Assign a team member as a “champion” of each goal you’re working on during that 90-day plan.

So in this case, we’d have a whitening champion.

No one wants more work — but everyone wants to be a champion, right?

So now we have accountability. That person’s job isn’t to do all the whitening — but to make sure whitening is always front and center in the practice.

For example: “We love to help patients have the whitest, brightest smile in Nebraska, and whitening is one of the ways we do that.”

Have regular check-ins so that you can:

• Give feedback
• Make corrections when needed
• Give compliments when things are going well

Always remember: Positive reinforcement boosts engagement. It nurtures accountability — because people want the pats on the back, they want the recognition.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you, Gary. So if anyone is interested in talking to you, can I ask them to book a Coaching Strategy Meeting?

Go to: thrivingdentist.com/csm That way, you can get into the nuances and help them troubleshoot this.

And I know — one of the things you do better than anybody else is you transform practices from where the doctor feels like they’re going to the salt mine every day… …to where they can’t wait to get out of bed and go work with a team that is:

• Sailing in the same direction
• In the same boat
• All contributing
• All carrying their weight

Versus being the doctor who’s just pushing a huge rock up the hill.

And it takes time — it’s not easy — but I’ve seen practices that always have their best year, every year.

So all of a sudden, it’s no longer about luck or short-term spikes. It just becomes who they are. They become a different practice.

Gary Takacs: Well, I’ll close with something I learned from my late grandmother—my mother’s mother.

My grandmother had a big role in raising me, and I’m eternally grateful for that.

I’ve met some really, really, really smart people in my life, Naren. But I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone as smart as my grandmother.

She had an eighth-grade formal education—that’s it. But she knew more about people and more about human motivation than anybody I know.

She once said to me—I think I was in my late teens, and I was struggling trying to find the right direction—she said:

“Gary, don’t go for easy. Go for worthwhile.”

And now, many, many years later—50 years later—that still sticks with me.

So I’ll leave you with that thought: Don’t go for easy. Go for worthwhile.

I also want to bring it back to the opening.

If one of your goals—now and in the future—is to attract better patients, I’d recommend you schedule a Marketing Strategy Meeting with Naren’s team at Ekwa.

They’ve been our marketing resource at LifeSmiles for now eight years. Fantastic results. I’m happy to recommend them to our coaching clients.

So go ahead—visit: www.ekwa.com/msm  

On that note, thank you all for the privilege of your time.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this format. We’ll stick with this format for a little while, mixing up the topics. But I hope you enjoyed this and I look forward to sharing the next Thriving Dentist Show with you.