"Courageous Conversations" - Aligning Your Dental Team for Success (feat. Katherine Eitel Belt)

In Episode 24 of "The Dental Domination Podcast," DentalScapes co-founder Dan Brian interviews Katherine Eitel Belt, founder of LionSpeak, a communications coaching company focused on helping dental practices thrive. They discuss the importance of communication for dental practice owners and dentists, focusing on "courageous conversations." Katherine explains that courageous conversations create clarity and inspiration, which are essential for successful communication. They also discuss the common pain points in dental practices, such as the difficulty of holding high standards without damaging relationships, and the misconception that younger generations have lower work ethics. Katherine provides insights on how to improve communication with team members and patients, emphasizing the need for clarity, authenticity, and asking the right questions.

For more information and to review the show notes, visit our website: https://www.dentalscapes.com/aligning-your-dental-team-for-success/

Transcript

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All right. All right. All right. Welcome back to the Dental Domination Podcast My name is Dan Brian. I am the co -founder over at Dental Scapes We're an online advertising agency for dental practices specifically, but I'm not here to talk about any of that. And I hope if you listened before, you'll, you'll know that's true. This is not about dental scapes. This is all about, all kinds of topics that are pertinent to private practice owners, dental associates even, but, those involved in the dental space. And today we want to talk about something that's really important and kind of near and dear to my heart as an English major and later a master's communication student, but that's communication for dental practice owners and for dentists. so so critical in terms of leading a team and, you know, running a practice. And so I'm really excited today to be joined by Katherine Eitel Belt. She is the founder of LionSpeak. They are a communications coaching company. and often works with dentists and dental practices. And so I'm so excited to have you here today, Katherine Thank you so much for joining the show. What can you tell listeners about yourself, your background? How did you bring yourself into this field? Yeah, Dan, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. I got into the field as a chair side dental assistant when I was going to school part time. You didn't even tell me that up front, no way. Okay, well I just have a whole new intro for you now. Yeah, no, and I've worked my way up to the front office and managed to practice for a number of years. so, yeah, and my career took me eventually into training and coaching. So I worked for a dental consulting company for a while and then broke away at one point and wrote my own program. So for several decades, I was a full practice management consultant. But about 15 years ago, I think something happens when you get in your 50s. You kind of want to spend the rest of whatever time you've got doing the things you most enjoy and the things with the people you most enjoy it with. So I narrowed my focus to communications skills coaching only. So while we understand dental insurance billing and we understand block scheduling and all those things, what we focus on is how to communicate. at a really high level with patients, with team members, and I do have some programs that are geared for those that want to communicate well with an audience. Awesome. And I want to break, want to get into those programs closer to the end, but I'm so glad that you brought up your experience in the dental office. I actually did not know that you got your start as a DA and that's really cool. Just starting out though, you your program really focuses on something that you call courageous conversations, which I love. What though, what, is a courageous conversation in your mind and why is it so critical that Let's focus on dentists here. Why is it so critical that they master that art? Well, everything happens through communication. Nothing happens without it, nothing. And so a courageous conversation, if I had to define it for us, would be a conversation that creates two things. It creates clarity and it creates inspiration. Because the combo of those... two elements in a communication is what, in my opinion, creates a full and successful communication. I think there is a great fallacy right now in dentistry. And it's a big pain point for lot of owners and managers and team leads that we can't hold high, given the employment environment that we currently find ourselves in, which is very stressful for many practices, finding and retaining good talent. that there is this fallacy that or this misconception that we can't hold high standards with our people, with our team. And you're sure we can't raise those standards and have a conversation about them without destroying the relationship. And right now they can't afford to destroy a real, you know, if a hygienist quits because they didn't like how the conversation went or the standard you're trying to hold them to, then often they can't replace them. And so there's a lot of trepidation out there about, and I believe they are wrong. I believe that there is absolutely a simple way. If you know how, if you've been trained, if you know how, you can absolutely maintain, if not raise your standards, have that conversation and uplift the other person at the same time. Yeah. Now I'm going to ask you something kind of kind of put you on the hot seat here. So the practices that you work with, when you first come in and you, kind of get a lay of the land and, and try to understand what the communications, looks like within that particular practice, what are some of the common pain points that you see upfront that, that are, are pretty common throughout, throughout the industry. Well, if I were starting at the top, think owners are just what I described. They feel a little stuck in the ability to hold people to values and standards and move them forward toward a vision without alienating them or ruining those relationships. I also think there's a lot of pain around a belief that I think is a very limiting belief that the younger generations that are currently the bulk of the workforce somehow have lower work ethics, have different values that don't align with owners values or managers values. again, what we have discovered is that once leaders learn how to be much more clear with expectations in a way that inspires and elevates and uplifts their employees, then we don't have trouble with work ethic anymore. We don't have trouble with it. So I think we've bought into this idea. And I mean, of course there are lazy people, but there were also lazy boomers. Burn them. Just saying like you still have to have there. mean, you know, there are people that aren't going to be a good fit. A lot of times we we point fingers outwards at those damn millennials or those darn blanexers or the you know, mean, you know, hygienists or associate doctors or, know, we we point fingers rather than really taking a look at how is it we're communicating? What are we how are we engaging with these with these work? people in the workforce and what is it we can, I mean, ultimately we're the only person we have any control over. And so if it is all just happening to us, then we're kind of stuck. I mean, really that would be a terrible way to, so the good news is that it, don't believe it is. I do believe it starts with us and that's really where, you know, we have some control, right? So let's get into the hard work here. So you mentioned clarity and inspiration. And so let's tackle the first one first. Clarity, I think I have a sense of where you're going with this, but what does that mean? And what are some of the ways in which dentists can put into practice some communications techniques and skills to get to that? I'll give you a couple of classic examples. So recently, I asked a team, what time does work start? What time does on time at your practice? And the first person that spoke up said, well, we, every day we see patients at eight. And I said, so if I'm here at eight, I'm on time. She said, well, no, I mean, we have to be here earlier, you know, five or 10 minutes earlier. And someone looked at her and said, no, we have a morning meeting. she looked at me and said, you have a morning meeting. You have to be here. at for the morning meeting. said what time is that? And she said 10 till and someone said no it isn't it's quarter till. And then so and so no one said well that's not the time we get to the practice that's the time the meeting starts. We're supposed to be here at 20 till so we're prepared and ready to go at the meeting. Do you see? Clear as mud. And but or we do a lot of have in the past done a lot of missed we teach a lot of telephone skills and sometimes we're hired to do a series of mystery shopper calls and So, you know, we'll ask a doctor or a manager ahead a lot of questions about what their policies are Do they quote fees on the phone? Do they you know, are they what plans do they participate in? We have to know all of that to do an adequate mystery shopper And they'll say often, no, no, no, we never quote fees. It's the policy. don't, we don't quote fees. And then we do mystery shopper calls and we get every single one of them to quote a fee within the first 10 seconds of the call. And so, you know, so there's so many different places where people think they have been clear and they likely were, once when they said it, but you know, I, I contend you can't check the box until the person you are trying to be clear with can resnite that back to you and you go, yes, they have it. And I'll tell you where this really comes into play is owners abdicating who should be deciding, excuse me, where the direction or the future we're trying to pull in and create for this business. And the values that would be important to them along the way and the cultural standards to which they want the team held accountable. They think they have been clear and rarely do we ever canvas a team. We always survey a team before we go in and do any onsite work. And rarely do we ever send out that query and get back really solidly clear answers about what is it we're building? you know, yeah. get those surveys back though, and it does reveal in most cases, you know, this sort of mishmash of, you know, definitions for things or expectations, where do you start then? I mean, what's the first step that a dentist can take or what are the first things that you advise a dentist to take a look at in terms of clarifying their own communication and setting the right standard? First of all, I think it's only the prerogative and responsibility of an owner to set the vision, the values, and the standards. It's not the managers, it's not they're the conduit for creating alignment of the team with that owner's vision and values and standards. But it is the owner's prerogative and I think their responsibility to get clear first for themselves and then secondly to a minimum of a leadership team or at maximum the entire company. And so I've had dentists say to me, know, vision, transmission, like, you know, I'm a dentist. I want to have a successful dental practice and do dentistry. And I get that. mean, I get like, are we trying to like make something, you know, my husband kind of sometimes calls it the woo -woo part of my. work, know, like can we get down to the brass tacks and it certainly is important to have a strategic business plan and strategies mapped out, but those are outgrowths of a future that you're trying to create. So what I say to dentists who say that to me is you do know what your vision is. Let's just don't, let's forget what word we give it. Let me just ask you, if you could paint the picture five years from now, And it could be the practice, the business of your dreams that makes you the happiest. What are you doing more of? What are you doing less of? Who are you doing, you know, who do you have more of in your practice as a customer? Who do you have less of type of person? Who do you have on your team surrounding you and what do they do better? And what do they do less of? You know, what's gone away? What has become easier? That's your vision. More of that, less of that. It's not, we over complicate it. And when I say vision, I'm not talking about some poetic, flowery, gorgeous little thing that you put in a frame on the wall. That's a marketing effort to communicate to the public, this is who we are. And I think it's valuable, but that's a marketing effort. That is not a communication to your team that says, if you decide and the choice is yours, If you decide Monday morning to walk across the threshold of this business, I want, and it's my job, to make sure there is no fuzziness, that you are immensely clear what you are raising your hand and signing up for. What work ethic, what standards, what we are passionately excited about creating together. I want you to have no fuzziness around what you are signing up for when you walk across the threshold. So my job is not to tell you you should do it. I tell new leaders and managers, get the word demand, get the idea of demanding anything out of your mind. What you wanna do is get really good at inviting people into a very clear picture of the future. and a very clear picture of the expectations and the benefit to them and to all of us if we accomplish this. So what does it look like in practice and once you write once a once a practice owner identifies what the vision and the mission and the values are and the expectations are you know that that dream practice in their mind like you said five years ten years out whatever that might look like What's next? How do you go about actually communicating that to the team or how do you advise that they communicate that to the team? And then how do you really stick with it? How do you keep folks in line? I mean so to speak well, we recommend something that we call an annual team calibration retreat. It's a full day. In some cases, it's too late. Exactly. Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, we laugh about that, but I really by the way, I'm not sure you could tell. I really, really do believe these should be fun and exciting and something the team looks forward to. They're serious business, but we always recommend they be offsite at some really creative look. We've done them at wineries, we've done them at climbing gyms, we've done them at the wild animal park. mean, anywhere, need a place to have the meeting, when we can put them, you know, people get very... sort of proprietary about where they sit at the team table, you know, and we want to plug this team up and get them sort of mixed up and get them into a situation where we're all in this new environment to think differently. But the purpose of it, and we coat, do a lot of coaching ahead of time, making sure that the owner is prepared to do this. But I usually kick the retreat off. What's this about? Why are we here? You don't need to have a facilitator. You can do it yourself. but a lot of people reach out for some, professional facilitator to help facilitate the retreat. So if we do it, we kick it off. I talked about what the retreat is. I also talk about why the vision and values is only the owners to do. And then we do some exercises with them to really drive home the point of why businesses do much better when they have clarity around this. Once we're done with that, then we get the owner up or owners. And we've practiced with them ahead of time to conversationally but very clearly articulate here is where we're headed. This is what we want more of, this is what we want less of, this is what we are intending, we're gonna add locations, sometimes it's we're never gonna add a location, sometimes it's we want to do more, you know, certain types of dentistry or whatever the thing is. And then they talk about the expectations and the cultural values that are important to them. Then once they're done, I come back in to facilitate a conversation. What landed? What's clearer? What's still confusing? Where do they have questions? Where are they excited? And I generate that conversation. From there, then we decide, all right, now let's talk about strategic planning. Now let's talk about the how are we gonna get this done? We see where we are. We see clearly now where we're headed. If we stay on this team, that's where we're headed. This is where you're starting to pivot from the clarity to the inspiration. Yeah. Yep. And well, I would say clarity is I'm not asking. I'm an owner. Like I own Lion's Peak. I'm not asking my employees what we're going to create. I tell them, if you decide to work for Lion's, this is what I'm building. This is what I'm passionate about. This is what I want. This is what I dream about. This is where I'm going with or without you. I don't say it quite like that, but that's the, you know, that's the idea. Now, where you're really important to me is I've got some really smart people working for me. And when they go, I love that. I want to help build that. They've got ideas. They have ideas. They have strategies. They have things that have worked or not worked. And so I count on my team to contribute to that strategic plan and for us to make some decisions together about the best way to accomplish it. But where we're going, not up to them. that I'm the one taking the risk for the business and I'm the one who gets to try, I may or may not do it, but I get to attempt to build the thing I want to build. And I'm looking for people who are aligned with that and excited about that and that we can grow together. And that's what I'm, so that's the clarity piece. The inspiration piece is however we say, I want you, I hope you say yes to my invitation. I mean, I've had owners say, everyone here today, I'm hoping your answer is yes. But I want you to think about it. Because if your answer is yes, if you come to work on Monday morning, you're essentially saying yes. And that's right. That's right. If you do that, then you shouldn't be surprised by the push. You shouldn't be surprised that you will be coached by a manager. you shouldn't be surprised that we hire a coach to come in and teach us some new ways of communicating, new systems, some new whatever, that should be understood that that's what you're signing up for. And so that's the answer, like I believe in you, I want you, if you're on board, come join us. If you're not, do us both a favor and let's get you somewhere where you can be successful. Yeah, no, we've talked a lot about I love this. We've talked a lot about, you know, team communication and building the right culture within the practice and that sort of thing, setting the expectation, setting the vision, getting clear on those things and then inspiring action and inspiring buy -in and that sort of thing. Do you deal with practices too in terms of providers communicating with patients? Is that something that you also advise on? Because, you know, obviously A lot of folks, like you say, they get into dentistry because they're clinical. They love the art and the science and all that's involved in that. But, you know, a lot of dentists get out of dental school. My husband, for instance, is a professor at a dental school. And, you know, a lot of these students get out and they realize it's a lot more involved than just, you know, fillings and cleanings. It's a lot more involved. And you have to have difficult conversations with patients. So do you advise on that as well? couple of things. We are known as the unscripted communication coaching company, unscripted. So what I mean by that now, I don't believe that everybody can just go willy nilly, say whatever the heck they want, and, you know, do it their own way. That's not what we're suggesting. But but the reality for me has been over decades of training, that people don't follow scripts. They will nod their head if they think their job depends on it and say they will. But when nobody's looking and we do a mystery shop recall or we do, excuse me, we do something to, know, observation or something like that, we discovered that they're actually not using the script. So. and patients can also see right through it happen. Yeah. Yeah. or, or mem I have a memorized something. It feels disconnected. It feels just because it is. And so what I'm the kind of girl that says, why do I have to choose between consistency of message and branding and results and authenticity and connectivity in a conversation? I don't want to choose. want all of that. And so how we have developed our training is around the ideas of frameworks, communication frameworks, super simple. And the reason they need to be simple is somebody cannot remember a 17 step framework when the phone rings or when they're presenting treatment to patient or they're having a financial conversation with patients. So we give them no more than five steps, usually less in the framework. But we say within the framework, you get to be who you are. We encourage you to be, if you're funny, mean, Dan, you're funny. Like if you try not to be funny, if you try not to, we don't get the full Dan. But I tell people, if you're funny, show up funny. As long as you're sticking with the framework, you're going to have consistency of message and of results, and you're going to be perceived and experienced as authentic. If you came out of the womb gentle and gracious and kind and that's how you are, then show up big like that. We teasingly say, if you're direct, just be careful in the framework, but you get to be who you are. And I think it then frees up employees to learn these frameworks and commit to these frameworks and to managers to hold them accountable to the frameworks. What's the? And when I teach, I teach the framework, let's say whatever we're working on, let's say it's courageous conversation. So I teach a framework and then I demonstrate. So I will put the framework up on my PowerPoint or put it up on the board or something. And I will say, okay, somebody come up. Somebody come up and be a patient, a patient you would get tomorrow. Ask the questions they would ask, say the things they would say. I want to show you, and I want the rest of you that are observing this demonstration, I want you to follow and watch and check off, there she checked that part of the framework. And notice that when I do two or three of these, I don't sound like a robot, but each time I guarantee you I'm gonna follow this framework and you're gonna. and then I put them into practice, but I find they go into the practice much quicker when I have taught it, they get to ask all their questions, I have demonstrated it where they get to be the patient or they get to be the other employee they're in conflict with or whatever. And I kind of prove it, I prove it. And then I put them into practice, well, now they go. And so I think it's important. for dental team members, you know, beyond authenticity and, you know, adhering to the framework, but not necessarily a script. What is the, what is maybe one or two of the biggest challenges that you see with communication by team members with patients or potential patients, whether it be over the phone or, you know, even a DA talking with a patient after the dentist leaves the room, what are some of the the common issues that you often encounter in practices these days. Two, two common issues. One is we talk too much and we listen too little. We don't know how to take control of a conversation via questions. If I left you with nothing else today and you got this next statement, you'd be better off than most communicators. The statement is the person asking the most questions is controlling the direction of the conversation. So Dan, I haven't asked any questions today. Because my role is to answer questions in this podcast. Your job is to control the direction of this podcast and you've done that beautifully. But you're doing it not by talking, you're doing it by asking questions. And when we have a patient on the phone, they call and say, Hi, I was calling to ask the price of crowns or implants or whatever, whatever the thing is, or they say, you know, I was calling to get my teeth cleaned. Or I have a toothache or you know, whatever the thing is, they say, so They'll say, can I be seen today for my toothache? Can I get my teeth cleaned? How much do you charge for an implant? Those are all questions. They literally are holding the baton of control from the moment we answered the phone. So our job isn't to answer their question. The number one job is to reach through the phone line and gently grab the baton of control and bring it over to our side so we can steer the conversation in the direction we know will be most helpful. And we do that not by answering that question, but by asking another. So part of our framework is to say, well, I'd love to help you with your questions about implants. I would love to do that. And welcome to our practice. My name's Katherine. And what was your name? So we have all these little things. But then we say, I want to make sure I give you accurate information. Would you mind if I ask you a few more questions? The patient will do six. Now I'm controlling. you know, you want your teeth cleaned? I'd love to schedule an appointment for you. I just want to make sure I scheduled the right appointment. Would you mind if I ask you a few questions? I think we just, number one mistake is we don't get control. We don't ask enough questions. And then it's easy to turn the conversation back around to then selling or promoting the practice through the filter of what we've learned. So that's mistake number one. Mistake number two is we think patients are motivated by all the reasons we're good at what we do and that they love it as much as we do. And so they'll love all the details and the reality just doesn't bear that out. And so one of the things we often have to correct or teach is how to ask the right questions and find out what patients are really driven by. and then only promote the treatment plan, only promote the practice back through the filter of what they care about. That's it. It's a classic sales technique, but we don't, and I don't think that means a dentist has to be, or a treatment coordinator has to be somebody they're not. They don't. They don't have to be me or you. They have to be who they are, just understanding a few principles that... will make their message land with patience the way they intended. That's it. Yeah. awesome. Well, I'd love to have you back on again, Katherine, to talk about some of these common pitfalls and the solutions to them in more detail, because I think we could spend quite a bit of time going down that rabbit hole. You know that way better than I do. But Katherine, thank you so much for being on the show today. I've really enjoyed our conversation, and I would like to have you back in the future if I have my way about it. Katherine, tell us where folks can find out more about LionSpeak. where they can seek out these communications coaching services that you offer. What's the best way for folks to get in touch with you? Well, for sure going to our website would be the best way, which is lionspeak .net and you can learn a lot about us. If you'd like to talk to a real human being, you can call us at 800 -595 -7060 or shoot us an email at info at lionspeak .net. I would love to offer your listeners a free resource. If you go to lionspeak .net You can just enter your email address and then you can download some free communication resources. We have some templates for the framework we use for courageous conversations within a practice and some other articles and things in there that might just give you a better idea of who we are and what we teach and if it's a good fit for your team if you'd like to up level their training. Well, thank you so much, Katherine. lionspeak .net slash courageous. We'll have that link in the show notes as well in another couple of ways that you can get in touch with Katherine and her team as well. Katherine, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you all for listening as well. I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. If you did and you are so kind, please go to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a five star review. It is the best and easiest way for us to reach more dentists. More listeners to help so really appreciate it. Thanks all for listening and thank you so much again Katherine for joining us today. I really appreciate it All right, take care