Scaling Your Dental Practice: An Interview with Chelsea Myers, Dental Life Coach

Intro: [00:00:01] Broadcasting from the studios of Business RadioX, it’s time for Advisory Insights, brought to you by Oberman Law Firm, serving clients nationwide with tailored service and exceptional results. Now, here’s your host.

Stuart Oberman: [00:00:20] Welcome everyone to Advisory Insights. Stuart Oberman, Oberman Law Firm here. Amazing guest in the, I’ll use the word studio today, and the amazing and distinguished Chelsea Meyers. And I was looking — Chelsea, I was looking through your bio and I don’t have enough time to introduce what you have done with your dental consulting, your business, your branding.

I know that you have an extraordinary reputation within the industry. I know that you’re the Founder and CEO of Dental Life Coach. The podcast host of dental brain crops. I know your career started at Wells Fargo and you have done so many things regarding wellness and dentistry. And I love the retreats that you do in the workshops, the team building, trust, and accountability, and feeling good. You know, we have so many doctors that are just — they hate their job, and they look to someone to bring them around, and then all of a sudden, they’re back in the game and working and doing great.

And actually, I want to know, I want you to take me through some of the things you’ve seen at dentistry and where things are going. I know you do, obviously, corporate, you know, corporate transaction work and consulting side and individual side. But I really want to know really since Covid, what did our doctors learn and where do they need to go from here with what they need to do to get to the next phase, to enjoy what they do to their wellness side? I just — I’m looking for so much information that you want to provide, and it is truly an honor to have you on the studio today and on the air. And welcome aboard. Nice to see you.

Chelsea Myers: [00:02:07] Hey. thank you, Stuart. It’s nice to be here. And thank you for having me. You know, you bring up an interesting question. I think that Covid gave us all an opportunity to take our temperature on our stress level, on our flexibility, adaptability. And a lot of us were able to make choices about where we wanted to be.

And I think that fortunately, unfortunately, particularly when we talk about supporting staff and team members, a lot of doors were open and options were made available or at least made more aware that there are options out there if you don’t like where you’re at, that there are other places and ways to provide for your needs and be of service and expand yourself as a professional.

And so, when you talk about Covid and what that has opened our eyes to and meant for us as an industry, I think that we’ve become a lot more aware that the people aspect is really, really important. When I’m looking at organizations and we’re talking about mergers and acquisitions and change management, a significant portion of the individuals that are leaving or considering leaving, they’re not leaving for a more convenient location. They’re not leaving for a pay raise. They’re leaving because of their perception of their experience within our organizations. And so, I think we’ve become really clear on the importance that this needs to be in our minds and the priority level it needs to have when we’re growing our organizations.

Stuart Oberman: [00:03:44] And one of the questions I have is, you know, we have clients that in one practice, ten practices, fifty practices, and I know you got some very, very, very high-level contacts with a lot of people in the DSO world, if you will. What do they do different culturally that our guys who own one, to five to ten practices don’t do culturally? It’s, you know, because our guys are always asking, how do we scale? How do we scale? And I’m thinking, first of all, your internal operations a mess. Second, you’ve got resignations coming out every other week. And, you know, so I’m curious what you see from the big guys to the little guys. And I don’t know, there’s that much of a difference is just the economies of scale.

Chelsea Myers: [00:04:30] Yeah. Well, you know, the thing is, is that whatever you are when you go to scale, you become more of that. So, if you’re dysfunctional and you’re disorganized, that scales with you. And I would say it’s perhaps more easily scaled than organization and unity.

Stuart Oberman: [00:04:49] That’s true. It’s easier to do what you did yesterday, even though it’s not right. You still do it.

Chelsea Myers: [00:04:55] Right, right.

Stuart Oberman: [00:04:55] It’s easier.

Chelsea Myers: [00:04:55] Yeah. But I would say, you know, there’s not one cookie cutter or right way to implement change, especially big transitions. But one thing is certain, and that’s that everyone needs to be aligned and engaged in the movement. And we need to be ensuring that that human aspect of the organization is being addressed.

So, I think one of the biggest oversights — you mentioned operations, I think one of the biggest oversights that we see at Dental Life Coach is that an organization will go to expand and either acquire a new practice or merge with another organization and neglect to put the right supports in place to facilitate that people component of those acquisitions.

Stuart Oberman: [00:05:34] What kind of — that just opened up a whole different door. What kind of support don’t they have or what don’t they do right?

Chelsea Myers: [00:05:43] Yeah. Good question. And so, you know, I recently began working with a client who fractionally, and they’d acquired a few smaller groups. And what they did have in place was great operational consultants and programs in place that they were implementing as they were making these changes. But they didn’t have the buy in, and they weren’t able to create that electric culture that they’ve envisioned. Luckily for them, they had the awareness that this was lacking, and so we’ve already begun making some incredible gains.

But what’s got to be there, you’ve got to understand what is the perception of the people in the organization, and if you’ve just acquired new practices or you’ve grown and scaled, what is the collective opinion and now what are those individual opinions? Another thing that’s really important is and probably even prior to making those changes is having the executive team and the stakeholders on the same page. That’s going to be crucial for a growing organization.

But we need to know, you know, what are the changes? What are the key positions within those changes? What are the responsibilities of the people carrying them out? How does this change happen and what are the details of that? Are we going to be implementing new tech? Are we going to be outsourcing some things that we were previously doing? Do we have different vendors? Is that a life coach now or a resource? You know, what does this look like for us as an organization and how does that feel? What is the perspective of each person that it’s impacting?

Stuart Oberman: [00:07:12] You know, I want you to talk about two things that are on your workshop and retreats. And I love this because I think that there’s a big void during Covid, and I think we’re seeing a change a little bit. But talk to me about accountability, the culture of accountability, and then communication and how that has changed since Covid.

Chelsea Myers: [00:07:36] You know, it’s really interesting. So, the brain is just such a fascinating tool that we all have, right.

Stuart Oberman: [00:07:42] Well, for some of our clients, lack of that, right?

Chelsea Myers: [00:07:46] Right. Right. But, you know, when you when you really dive in, and you understand how we work as humans, and you talk about a communication and accountability, there are definitely strategic and effective ways to implement anything and there are ineffective ways. And so, when we look at the brain and our learning centers in the brain, they are deactivated or shut down when we feel threatened, when we feel attacked, when we feel unsafe.

And so, it’s really, really important that we have environments and that our culture is one that cultivates safe and trusted learning amongst our teams and that we’re able to be vulnerable and know that that’s okay within our organization. Because otherwise what you get is temporarily compliant people who eventually leave, eventually blow up, eventually kick back. And that’s not ever going to be something that you can grow, something that you can expand upon.

Stuart Oberman: [00:08:46] So how do you — so, when you got the dysfunctional office, right, and you know, and they always say there’s a 20 percent of the practices are A games and the rest of them are trying to figure out how to be the A games, right. So how do you get that office that’s a C-plus game and want to be an A game? How do you personally get them there?

And I know that’s a seven-hour conversation, but how do you — you walk in there and you look around and you can see the atmosphere. You know, the doctor is not in tune and he’s like, you know, I want to be a player. I want I want a quality of life. How do you analyze that, the brain that that doctor has, or partners have and get them to a different level? I’m fascinated because our doctors don’t really understand that culture yet of how powerful that mind can be mindset and clarity. And I’m just curious how you get them there.

Chelsea Myers: [00:09:49] Yeah. So, assuming that we’ve got our people, our executives and our stakeholders on the same page, I’m going to start from there and just say that we do.

Stuart Oberman: [00:09:57] That’s a big assumption right there. That’s a big assumption.

Chelsea Myers: [00:10:00] Right. If we don’t, that’s where we’ve got to start, right?

Stuart Oberman: [00:10:03] Yeah, yeah.

Chelsea Myers: [00:10:03] And so, because we all — you know, we’re being led in an organization, and we’ve got to want to be led by the people leading it. Otherwise, we’re going to beat our drum to our own tune. And again, not efficient, not scalable, right. So, let’s assume that we have our executives on the same page.

Then what we need to do is we need to figure out what does that doctor want? What is really driving that person? Why are they doing this every day? Why are they doing dentistry and not law, not finance, not anything else? Why are they here? And how do we align what they want and what’s important to them with what’s important to the organization? Or does it not align? Because that is an unfortunate and inconvenient but really important truth to understand as well.

Stuart Oberman: [00:10:49] How important is that first conversation you have with the doctor? And I know you’re in the professional arena, professional services. How do you know like, you know what, I’m just not going to work with that client. They are so far gone that there’s just there’s nothing I can do for him. What are those flags that you see of like, you know what, I’m just not going to get there with this guy and he’s just not a good fit for me?

Chelsea Myers: [00:11:14] Yeah, that’s a really good question because I think that — and, you know, I think anybody who owns a business —

Stuart Oberman: [00:11:19] I’m asking questions that I want to know. I don’t care what our listeners want to know, right? I just want to know what I want to know.

Chelsea Myers: [00:11:25] Yeah. So candidly, I think anybody who owns a business has been in the spot where, you know, at the very beginning you take on as many clients as you can, and you try and be really super flexible about that because you’re trying to grow your business. And I — and then we all, you know, the longer you go, you learn what you’re really good at and who are ideal clients for you and who are not ideal clients for you.

So, at this point, I feel fortunate to be selective about who I’m going to work with. For that reason, I want to be able to provide the transformation and the results that our clients are looking for. And at the same time, if it’s not a good fit, if it’s not a client, you know, red flags you mentioned, if they’re not willing, if they’re not honest, living in integrity, if they aren’t in a place where they’re willing or able to be coached, they’re not coachable individuals, then the results that they’re asking me for aren’t going to happen because, you know, I can’t patch a roof from the ceiling. You know, we’ve got to work from the top.

Stuart Oberman: [00:12:26] You’ve got to climb that ladder. That’s a big ladder sometimes.

Chelsea Myers: [00:12:29] Right? And so, you know, I’ve got to have a strong canvas for that leader to develop within. And from there, we can work, you know, with the team members. But I had someone come to me recently. It was a, you know, mid-sized organization. And they said, we just really want you just to work with our teams. And I said, well, what access am I going to have to the executives and the doctors? And they said, well, no access to the executives and doctors, just the team members. And I was like, well, who then is working with the executives and doctors? Because, you know, we’ve all — it’s fine if it’s not me, but if that support is not in place, it won’t be withheld.

Stuart Oberman: [00:13:04] Right.

Chelsea Myers: [00:13:04] And ultimately, our team members are our most transient, right? And so, we’ve got to have strong people in those leadership positions.

Stuart Oberman: [00:13:13] It’s amazing is that I think that was one of the things that our doctors learned, you know, Covid and post-Covid is you got to have leadership. If you don’t have leadership, you can’t start from the bottom up. You’ve got to work top down. So, you have a fascinating workshop. And I love this title. It’s The Pillars of Entrepreneurial Intelligence.

One, pillar says to me, look, you’ve got to have a strong foundation holding something up, which to me is the doctor’s entrepreneurial is I got to try different things, something’s got to work. And then intelligence is like, how am I going to do this? Explain to me what — explain how you take these pillars and what exactly is that particular workshop and how do our doctors utilize that? Or even parts of it, how do you implement parts of that? I just love that title. I love that title.

Chelsea Myers: [00:14:05] Thank you. Good question. So, this was where Dental Life Coach really was born back in its infancy. I started to see trends and similarities with the — at that time, I was working with individual doctors, you know. And took copious notes and tried to find how can I make a curriculum that is applicable to all of these people that I’m trying to work with?

And these 13 pillars were really the things that just kept showing up time and time again, which then triggered me to create the podcast because with each new client, they’d come to me and talk to me almost as if they were an anomaly. And it was a secret that they were struggling with their thoughts and beliefs about money or how to create success or how to actually manage their time. They had a clinical schedule they were following, but in their personal life they’re very scattered, which of course then translates to our professional experiences, right.

Organization and communication, is another huge one. And so, these were things that we were working on with each doctor that I’d work with. And as I bring them up in future conversations with new clients, they’d be like, oh yeah, that too. Yes, let’s work on that. And so, these are the 13 pillars and how they show up, they can show up in forms of workshops. But if we take on a new client, we end up going through each area because even if you’ve got a high proficiency, a lot of us still have room to create mastery within them.

Stuart Oberman: [00:15:33] Oh, gosh, yeah. Oh gosh, yeah. So, what do you — we get this all the time and I want your opinion on this, is that we get clients to say, you know, I hired a consultant and this particular person, this coach, and they, you know, they didn’t — they just didn’t do anything for me.

And then I start asking them questions. Well, did you do this? Well, did you do that? How often did you talk to them? Did you implement the plans? So how do you keep your guys on track? Because we hear that a lot. Like, you know, it just didn’t work. And come to find out, they didn’t do 90 percent of the things they were supposed to do. So, you know, I don’t know how they ask you to start from the bottom up when the leadership has to go top down on these projects and build that — for that culture.

Chelsea Myers: [00:16:17] That’s a valid concern. And so, you know, leadership development is a billion-dollar industry and less than 10 percent of the companies offering these types of services attach what they’re doing to any sort of bottom line. So, when I take on a new client, I want to know certain things.

You know, what is — how involved are your doctors in their case presentation? What is your case acceptance rate? What are your monthly, quarterly, annual goals? What are we working toward? Because as I’m doing my work, if I’ve taken a good client and I’ve done my job to choose the right client, as I’m doing my work, that we should start to see a trend in the positive direction.

And then there’s really no disputing, because, you know, you’re right. How do you quantify? I just feel better. That’s very subjective. So, we want to do both. We want to have the visual and emotional indicators that our teams that we’re working with are improving, but we also want to see that translate because ultimately, we are a business and an industry that’s trying to grow and do amazing things.

Stuart Oberman: [00:17:18] Now, you said the list, list those topics out for me that when you go into an office, you want some KPIs, you know, you want some indexes, you want to know where they start. Run through that list because I just — that was so important what you said. That was so important.

Chelsea Myers: [00:17:35] Yeah. So, here are the things that are important. We want to know we should be impacting revenue and retention. We should be impacting their culture, their case acceptance rates, and ultimately, the doctors take home should be improving as we’re doing this work.

Stuart Oberman: [00:17:50] That’s — yeah, I was going to ask, how can a doctor expect to get, you know, an increase of 25 percent per year on an ongoing basis if he has no idea what he’s what he’s doing. So, I mean how important are those initial metrics? And my next question is how many actually know their numbers?

Chelsea Myers: [00:18:12] That is such a good question. So, I sat down —

Stuart Oberman: [00:18:15] Again, I’m going to ask questions because I want to know. I don’t care about the listeners, you know.

Chelsea Myers: [00:18:19] No, I sat down with —

Stuart Oberman: [00:18:21] I got a free therapy session here. Are you kidding me?

Chelsea Myers: [00:18:26] You know, it varies. It really does. I sat down with a prospective client recently and I said, okay, you know, I asked the same questions. I, you know, for the metrics I was just asking you. And it was such a relief. He goes, Oh, let me share my screen with you. And just had this beautiful way of showing me weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually. He could show any question that I had.

Stuart Oberman: [00:18:48] Did they help you off the ground when you fell down?

Chelsea Myers: [00:18:52] Yeah, exactly. And I had to share them. I’m like, gosh, this makes our communication, you and I so much more fluid because I’m not probing. You know, when I get an answer like, oh, we’ve got, you know, 85% case acceptance and things are just falling apart. And I’m going, what is not matching here?

Stuart Oberman: [00:19:10] Yeah,

Stuart Oberman: [00:19:11] How are things falling apart with 85 percent case acceptance and where are you getting that number from exactly. And I don’t ever like the word about I’d rather wait for a more concrete answer because I don’t want my results with my clients to be about. Well, they’re sort of happier, or the retention might be going up. That doesn’t mean anything to me. I want to know by what and how much.

Stuart Oberman: [00:19:33] How much? So do you ever talk to the office managers who our doctors rely on? I’m going to say almost too much. Do you do do you get pushback from the office managers for change?

Chelsea Myers: [00:19:46] Well, no, I would say that there are times where I facilitate conversations between a doctor and an office manager because really there’s got to be unity there. Almost like within a home, you’ve got to have the parents on the same page. And so, within an office environment, regardless of how they actually feel about each other, or the things being communicated, we need everyone –.

Stuart Oberman: [00:20:12] Whether or not they like each other or their relationship is a little too close is what you’re saying, right?

Chelsea Myers: [00:20:16] I’m saying the team needs to know that that is one head, one unit. And that whichever one they go to, they’re going to get the same type of direction because, you know, our teams, they want to be a part of something that’s moving and growing. And like we talked earlier about having that environment of trust and growth, they can’t have that if there’s an inconsistency and a lack of clarity about who’s really in charge and where are we going and how are we getting there, that’s never going to fly.

And so, yeah, there are times where we’ll facilitate or coach on conversations or coach toward a change because there needs to be an understanding. And so sometimes, it’s really easy. You know, there’s just a communication error which sometimes doctors struggle to communicate effectively, right, or sometimes managers struggle to communicate effectively.

So, when we can clarify why we’re changing something, what it looks like, and what is the support in place as this is going forward, it’s usually a much more comfortable and seamless experience for everyone. Of course, there’s going to be questions and opinions and there’s going to be the process of getting there. But when we can create that clarity, it really does help the process a lot.

Stuart Oberman: [00:21:36] So, in the great world that we’re in, we’re seeing a little bit of a switch, but when doctors are moving, moving, moving up, up, up, up, up, and all of a sudden, they got the great resignation, and they lose half their staff, or we saw our doctors within the last year have had over a 200 percent turnover. How do you guide those doctors into the real world?

Again, this is, you know, this is — I would say when our clients that we have, even in the best practices, they’re not mentioned — they’re not matched pay scales. They’re way under on their scale, everyone’s leaving, and now we’re seeing a boomerang. They want to come back. So, I mean, how do you deal with when you have — because I love this. This is real life stuff our doctors are facing, you know.

Chelsea Myers: [00:22:23] Right.

Stuart Oberman: [00:22:23] How do you — they’re on a great track and all of a sudden, they got a turnover of 200 percent a year. How do you handle that with the doctors?

Chelsea Myers: [00:22:32] Well, first of all, you know, the more we understand about ourselves as leaders, the better equipped we are to lead. So, one of the most important things we need to understand is our brain, how they operate, our unique individual strengths, our default responses to things like stressful environments, like people leaving. And most importantly, we need to understand how to program or reprogram our brains.

So, we’re concerned with optimal efficiency and real-world functions. In these fast paced and multifaceted environments, our brains are constantly observing and concluding and suggesting action based on our perceptions and our programming. And to increase that flexibility, we need to figure out what is our ultimate goal and align all of our responses to that. Even when we’re stressed out, even when we’re upset, even when the third team member just called in sick on the same day, we’ve got to make sure that we are always that same strong leader.

And whatever those gaps are between that ultimate ideal we have of ourselves and where we’re currently operating from, we need to figure out how to fill that gap because research regarding neuroplasticity continues to clarify that brain and behavior are shapable by interaction and conscious programming, we just have to be responsible and willing to do that work.

Stuart Oberman: [00:23:54] I take it your job in some days is like bending metal. It’s just sometimes it works, sometimes it does not, you know. And that’s why I love The Pillars of Entrepreneurial Intelligence. I was looking through this and you sent me a lot of information. And this has stuck me that if our guys can even have remote possibility on how this stuff works before they even get to talk to you, they’re in such better position to have you take them forward on a successful rate. Because I think a lot of times, correct me if I’m wrong, these guys when they call you have no idea where to start. So, getting one and actually started is actually rare. Am I correct?

Chelsea Myers: [00:24:41] Yeah. I mean, you know, people come to us with all different levels of understanding and experience with or none — no experience in coaching in some cases. And really just it’s really just the willingness and the readiness that’s going to make the difference between a doctor or an organization that flies or one that it’s more like pulling teeth.

Stuart Oberman: [00:25:03] You know, one — now, you have some pretty important conversations with some pretty big guys in this industry, the masters and the founders of this industry, and the scalability and where they’re at, hundreds of practices. What do they talk to you about? I mean, what is their niche that they talk to you about?

Chelsea Myers: [00:25:28] You know, when you talk about scalability and culture, in a conversation I had with Pat Bauer, the CEO of Heartland Dental, when he says, you know, the doctor is our customer, it’s not just words that he’s saying. There is so much that goes into that. There is so much effort and resources and awareness and constantly putting fillers out there to see what more could be needed, how — what more might our customers benefit from and want to be a part of this organization. And the writings on the wall, you can ask anybody who is affiliated with Heartland Dental and they’re very happy. You know, they’re there.

Stuart Oberman: [00:26:12] Can you imagine if that one sentence our doctor said, whether or not they got once associated for, I wonder what I can do better for my associates? Can you imagine that? If the CEO of Heartland is saying that, why aren’t our doctors on a much lower level taking that same advice and scenario? That’s amazing to me that you just said that. That’s — I mean that’s amazing.

Chelsea Myers: [00:26:43] Yeah. You know, it’s a really — I think that people get shortsighted. I think that it’s, you know, once we just need to put a lot of focus on operations. We just need to put a lot of focus on systems and processes. And those are incredibly important. You just can’t leave out the people aspect because it is a human driven industry. Until robots are doing all the jobs, you’ve got to care about how people feel about the place of employment that they’re coming to every day as a volunteer because they have options. We all do.

Stuart Oberman: [00:27:13] Yeah. Wow. Well, we are — I got five hours of questions. And I mean, again, I’m being a little selfish, I want to know myself. Yeah, it’s like a therapy session, right. But no, we are really — the information that you have given has been absolutely amazing. And I really hope that our listeners really take a hard look of what you’ve said and how it affects their practices and what the big guys are doing that really is no different than what practice owners with one practice, 2.5 billion practice in making.

So, are there any closing words that you want to say to our listeners? And I think that no matter — you know, your industry specific. But I will tell you what, I don’t care what industry you’re in, whether you’re in a gas station ownership business or you’re in a dental business or whether you’re in machinery industry, what you said really can resonate across all platforms. So, I think it’s great advice. And do you have anything that you like to add or touch on that we haven’t touched on in closing?

Chelsea Myers: [00:28:30] Yeah. You know, I think the one thing I’d say is that in my experience, the most remarkable thing that I’ve observed about the future of dentistry is its flexibility. And it’s going to be the choices of those people leading that cause the future to shape. And so, we really need to ask ourselves as we are building and scaling our organizations, not what is the cost of prioritizing our people and the human aspect of the way we’re managing those acquisitions, but what is the cost of not prioritizing those things?

Stuart Oberman: [00:29:03] Wow. Well, so it’s a total opposite mentality. Total opposite. Wow. Just smart. You’ve been amazing, amazing guest. And I just again, I’m making notes. I mean, I’m writing down all this stuff. And I mean it sincerely that what you said resonates across all platforms.

And so, thank you so much for joining us. I know you are very busy and you’re very good at what you do. Your reputation far precedes you in the industry and it truly is an honor to be on the same podcast with you. So, without further ado, thank you again. And I want our listeners to find out how to get in touch with you. Please tell them.

Chelsea Myers: [00:29:49] Yeah, absolutely. I’m on LinkedIn, Chelsea Myers, M-Y-E-R-S, Dental Life Coach or our website at www.dentallife.coach. My email is Chelsea,C-H-E-L-S-E-A,@dentallife.coach.

Stuart Oberman: [00:30:06] Perfect. Perfect. Chelsea, thank you very much. Have a fantastic weekend. And listeners, thank you very much. Hope you’ve had a great experience with this. Take nuggets as you find them. So, thank you again, listeners. We will see you on the radio soon and thanks a lot. Have a great day.

Chelsea Myers: [00:30:23] Thank you.

Outro: [00:30:25] Thank you for joining us on Advisory Insights. This show is brought to you by Oberman Law Firm, a business centric law firm representing local, regional, and national clients in a wide range of practice areas, including healthcare, mergers and acquisitions, corporate transactions, and regulatory compliance.