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VIDEO - HSP #225 - Claudia Lovato
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Claudia Lovato shares some red flags that indicate your team isn't happy, and how to hire the right people.
Claudia started her career as a dental assistant in 1995. She founded her consulting and training business, Morado Innovative Solutions in 2005. In 2009, Claudia took a position teaching dental assisting to college age students. Claudia found it very challenging to manage, motivate and lead millennials and spent 6 years mastering the task. Her student outcomes, which include student retention, 100% pass rate, best attendance, compliance and
most importantly, job placement, are her proudest career achievements.
Her passion for all things dental and collaboration with some of the brightest stars in dentistry are what led Claudia to create the Morado Dental Academy-a soft landing place for dental professionals. Here, you will find encouragement, support and valuable learning programs and systems to help you reach and exceed your goals for your practice.
Claudia’s personal mission is to help you get to that happy place where you love your job, and enjoy working with your team. That place where the magic happens!
www.moradodentalacademy.com
claudia@moradodentalacademy.com
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AUDIO - HSP #225 - Claudia Lovato
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Howard Farran: It is a huge honor today for me to be interviewing my buddy Claudia Lovato, who I think I’ve known for 10 or 20 years. The bottom line is the reason I want Claudia on here is because being a dentist, I know how dentists think. Dentists are always thinking about how to do a root canal, buildup and crown. Our hygienists were formally trained for four years. My dental assistant Jan went to a year of Apollo College.
The most important person on the football team is the quarterback. The hockey team, it’s the goalie and in the dental office is who’s answering that phone, who’s seeing the patient when they come in, who’s talking money, who’s the last person they say goodbye. There’s just no formalized training. You were telling me before we started that McDonald's will spend more time training a new employee than a dental office will when they hire a new front desk person.
Claudia Lovato: Absolutely. Just about any fast food franchise is putting a lot of energy and effort into recruiting, hiring and training employees so that they can have a consistent customer experience. At McDonald's, it’s the same way every time or maybe that’s Burger King. It’s a customer experience that’s important to a fast food franchise. However in the dental industry, we hire someone who’s experienced and it’s like, “Okay, you know what you’re doing,” and you throw him to the wolves with your patients and hope that it just works out. It’s a bad plan.
Howard Farran: A lot of dentists, they tell me when I say, "What keeps you up at night?" It’s almost always a staff issue. I always think it takes two to tango. I see the dentist after they done doing a root canal, they just go in their backroom and close the door and the staff’s always outside their door trying to … I don’t see them, him or her, I don’t see the dentist engaging the staff. The whole thing’s weird.
Why don’t you start in the beginning? If HR, like on my new book “Uncomplicated Business: All It Takes is People, Time and Money,” I say in my book that if you get the people right, the time and money … 80% of the game is people, whether you’re on the Arizona Cardinals, if you got the right quarterback. If you got the right people, that’s 80% of the game. What would you tell dentists when people is their stress and how would you help educate the front desk?
Claudia Lovato: First of all, what I would tell dentists is that they need to put some energy, effort and time into developing leadership skills, as much if not more than developing their new dental techniques, procedures and technology because like you said, it’s the people that keep them up at night. With leadership training, it’s starting to get outdated. The reason why is because we have new younger generations coming in the workplace, the millennials.
You mix the baby boomers and the gen-X-ers and the millennials and then all of the sudden nobody gets along and nobody can figure out why. ‘It’s my way or the highway’ doesn’t work anymore. It would work for me, because I’m an older … Gen-X-er, what am I? I don’t want to say what generation I am.
Howard Farran: I think baby boomer …
Claudia Lovato: I’m 21, so makes me a millennial.
Howard Farran: I think baby boomers cut off at 64. I’m two years away from the bottom of the baby boomer … Yeah, they think they’re right. I read all the time. Our generation 25 years ago in the business, people are trying to see if there are any nuances and markets and deciding differences between white people or Hispanic or Asian and now, that’s all, all those nuances are pretty much … Now, it’s the you have to [realize 00:04:16] there’s four different ways people think. Senior citizens, baby boomers, Generation X and millennials, they are thinking differently.
I think it’s interesting where so many people think dentistry’s going to change, because it went to all male to half female. I think it’s going to change more because of the difference in how millennials actually think. I don’t think their genitalia is half the issue. I think how they think. Educate these people, do you know how millennials think differently than old folks like me?
Claudia Lovato: I do. Actually one of the biggest challenges with managing or leading millennials is they learn differently and I learn that through teaching, but also they have a different … Their work ethics. Some of us older folks think that they don’t have a strong work ethic. However, if we just try to understand where they’re coming from, they’re the generation that was raised with bribes and incentives. You have … Our leaders, our dental HR people leading this age group saying, “Why should I have to pay my employees more than when I’m already paying them just to do their jobs? It sounds ludicrous.”
However, this is a generation that was raised on bribes or incentives. If you do your homework, you get to play your Xbox. Everything is based on incentives for that age group. They have different motivators. You have to learn that now we got younger … We have that generation of dentists coming out at [inaudible 00:05:57]. They’re leading that way and then they’re inheriting it, let’s say you start a practice right out of dental school and you have all these different age groups and the millennial is going to lead as if he’s leading millennials, he or she.
Then you got these baby boomers and gen-x-ers, the office manager of the practice you’ve brought and all of the sudden, that doesn’t work, because you have the older groups that value seniority and experience and then you hire a bunch of millennials that are raised to be equals. They see themselves as equals even with zero experience.
Unless the leader of that practice makes it a point to tell the new hire, “Here’s the staff and they have this much experience, they’re going to help train you,” and establish that differentiation, they’re not going to recognize that. That’s where you have conflict between the millennials and the non-millennials when you hire this age group. Everybody is going why can’t you guys just get along? Is not that simple.
Howard Farran: The hardest thing, the world is getting seven billion people trapped on a flying rock to get along …
Claudia Lovato: To get along.
Howard Farran: Religion tries to manage people, government tries to manage, families try to manage. It’s the hardest thing. If people think … I can always tell if the dentist is a millionaire or not, because if I say what’s keeping you up at night, “Well, I still don’t know if I’m using the right sealer during a root canal.” Wow, if that’s what you think your biggest issue is, because if you do the perfect root canal and get three lateral canals and [put 00:07:38] a sealer in the end, none of your patients know that. They only measure you on how you made them feel.
Claudia Lovato: They don’t know about a good margin, a good restoration on a posterior tooth from a bad one unless it hurts.
Howard Farran: We’re in the … I’m going to be careful, because we’re both from the same town, but there are some million dollar practices out here that are notorious for horrible dentistry and they’re crushing it, because they got … The people is just nailed. Then there’s some of the best Quays graduate, saw every video Gordon Christian ever made and they’re puttering at $300,000 a year and working one day a week in another clinic because they never … You’re only graded on the people, so how you work …
Claudia Lovato: I'm your worst employee.
Howard Farran: You’re only graded on your [inaudible 00:08:27] way. Also, when I … You were talking about this, because I’m a big fan of all your stuff, it also applies to patients. The dentist listening this shouldn’t be thinking about is my assistant or hygienist a millennial or a senior citizen or … He should be thinking when you’re talking to a patient.
Claudia Lovato: Absolutely, because patients have different motivators based on their age group.
Howard Farran: I do want to say for the record though, millennials are lazy. They are lazy.
Claudia Lovato: Late, late, late. That’s not true. See, that’s the problem. You just nailed it. You just nailed one of the biggest problems that dental offices … No, I’m serious I’m glad you said that, because that is our opinion based on how we were raised. Here’s where it’s gets … It’s just aha. I was teaching dental assisting. You’ve met a lot of my students. You’ve come in and met with them. You see how my students just respect me and follow me and do whatever I say.
That did not happen, they weren’t actually like that. They were awful. I’m just throwing that out there. When I started teaching these kids, I was like, “What in the heck is going on?” I couldn’t get them to come to class on time. Lock the door. I’m going to throw a quiz. The minute class starts, doors locked. If you’re not here, you’re not getting in and you’re not taking the test.
Howard Farran: Did that work?
Claudia Lovato: It did and it didn’t. Worked, I got full compliance. One weekend, they’re all showing up on time. They’re not going to mess, they’re not going to be late because they’re not getting into my classroom. However, I taught them how to be on time through fear. I didn’t teach them how to value that. I thought why aren’t they getting this, because they can show up on time if I’ve put fear into them, but that’s not what I wanted. I had to figure out why they’re doing that. Why is this behavior so chronic in these 25 students … 23 out of 25?
We had a couple older people in this class. I looked back, when I was raised, my parents love me, they supported me, but they’re life and their schedule didn’t revolve around mine, it was the opposite, which is probably how you were raised. This younger generation, they got the helicopter parents. They were raised with the bribes and the incentives and the schedule. The parent’s lives revolved around entertaining them, running around here and there to their sports and their activities. My parents didn’t do that. Did yours?
Howard Farran: My mom went to one of my wrestling matches. I was a varsity wrestler for four years, she went to one match.
Claudia Lovato: You probably sucked. Were you a loser?
Howard Farran: No, I was a freshman, you’re a horrible freshman and you get better every year, but I made up for all that paid off sucking. You’re right, I started all four of my boys when they were five. By the time they got to first year high school, they were already …
Claudia Lovato: Very good.
Howard Farran: My dad … I don’t have any memories of throwing a football or a Frisbee or going to the park. If I wanted to see my dad, I had to go to the restaurant. My dad was there when I woke up in the morning and he was still there when I went to sleep seven days a week.
You see it in the birth rates at the end of World War II. They’re [inaudible 00:11:41] five kids. Now in the United States and Japan and all the advanced countries, almost 27% to a third don’t even have one kid. If they do have a kid, it’s coming out ten years later. I’ve read [news 00:11:56] where one of the fundamental reasons … Japan has the worst birth rate problem. When people say Nissan and Lexus, they used the most automation.
Yeah, not because it’s cheaper nor because they don’t have any people. It’s because they saw how their dad worked 12 hours a day until they dropped dead and they just said, “I’m not going to do that.” When I say they’re lazy, they’re just more functional modern people that they have no intent …
Claudia Lovato: I don’t agree though. Here’s what I figured out. Here’s the kicker. I figured out that because they were raised with parents that their main focus was to make the kid happy, it’s what’s in it for me, that’s their motivator. I had to figure out what their wants and needs were and what they valued and what they were there for. As far as my students, they wanted their own career. They wanted to be dental assistants.
Once I got them to come to class, I was able to let them know I’m here for you to help you reach your goals. What do you want to do? Is that what you want to do, oh great, because I’m the person that’s going to help you do that and we’re going to have fun. Also, that age group likes to be on teams and they like to win, very competitive. To say they’re lazy, they’re not being given the type of projects and motivation that revs them up and if you do it right, they’re unstoppable.
Howard Farran: I want to ask you. This show is called Dentistry Uncensored. I’m going to ask you a very uncensored, very politically incorrect question, but all the consultants will tell you about it off the record. That is when these kids got a school and they were not born in the United States of America, they will open up a practice and they will live in their practice and it will be open 7:00 to 7:00, seven days a week and three or four years later, they paid out their student loans. They got $ 200,000 in cash.
They were born in the United States, they’ll buy a $ 400,000 practice and a $ 400,000 on a home, they’ll eat out two out of three meals, they won’t work Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and when I go into your dental assisting class, a lot of those girls are first or second generation from our neighbor in Mexico. When you’re hiring a dental assistant and you’re hiring your receptionist, is it intelligent to think if I get a choice of seeing someone not born in the United States and someone born in the United States, that the one not born in the United States is going to work a lot harder nine times out of ten?
Because I really believe that. Look in this town we live in. The part of the town closest to Scottsdale, they seem to be the laziest and the part of the town close to the west side, they seem to work harder. Are we racist enough yet?
Claudia Lovato: Let’s get really racist here. Actually, I had it all. Because you’ve seen my students, I’ve have to have every color, every class of citizen. I had a group of students just magically, my group was from a border town in [Yuma 00:15:18] and these kids did not look poor or underprivileged. Every hair was in place, their scrubs were pressed and they looked like they should have been on a cover of magazine. These were also my students that when I said jump, they said how high.
They were just on a whole other level. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought they were little rich kids. They were Mexican and they were perfect, they’re beautiful, just perfect, respectful and they wanted it so bad. They trusted me, whenever I said they did and they just trusted me. I later took them on a field trip, unofficial field trip across …
Howard Farran: I remember that.
Claudia Lovato: Crossed over the border and on the way, we passed the lettuce fields. I said, “See guys.” I was trying to tell them, “See, that could be you, but you’re going to be have great careers.” They looked at me and said, “Our parents are right there. They’re picking right now in the cold.” One of them says, “My mom had a knee replacement. It’s metal. It’s cold. She complains that it hurts.” I just went, “Wow, I would have never known that about them, because they never stop for a minute in my classroom and told me their story, they were just there to learn and they’re good. Each and every one of them is working. One of them just messaged me. He’s the lead dental assistant. They’re just …
Howard Farran: You’d see in the United States right now. Right now in the United States and right by our ASU, nine out of ten of every students studying to get a PhD was not born in the United States. No kid born in Scottsdale is ever going to be hungry enough to get a PhD in chemistry or biology or math or physics.
Claudia Lovato: You just said the magic word and my grandma used to say in Spanish, my Spanish is awful, but she would say in Spanish they’re just not hungry enough. That’s a true statement, because if you’re hungry enough for something, you’re going to fight for and you’re going to put everything into it. Now, when you talk about millennials and Americans being lazy, I can join that bandwagon, but I’m more of a solution driven person and I’d rather motivate people not to be that way. Because I’ve been teaching and working so hard at this …
You know I’m stubborn. When I get students in this age group that is being lazy or I think they’re being lazy, I might, “That’s unacceptable.” I’m going to find out what’s their motivator and what are they hungry for? If it’s not money, if they’re never experienced hardship, what are they hungry for? What do they want? What are their wants and needs? I find that this younger generation, they want to be happy and they want to have fun and they want to make a difference. That’s a big thing. Like you’re talking about …
Howard Farran: Happy, fun and make a difference.
Claudia Lovato: They want to make a difference to their community, on this planet. If your dental office that is service centered, that’s a big part of what I do, what I teach in my consulting is having a service-driven practice with purpose-driven leadership. You got to lead with purpose and you have to be service centered and millennials love that. You get them going and get them to bite in.
Howard Farran: Give them a cause. Give them a purpose.
Claudia Lovato: Give them a cause. Give them a purpose. They’re unstoppable. I refuse to say they’re lazy. Granted, there are some lazy people, just lazy by nature and you’re going to find that. My mission was to stop dentists from hiring those people, to teach them how to weed those people out. I literally … I got tired of being the band aid person. I’m a consultant. I’d say I get calls, “I need a dental assistant,” or, “I need an office manager, I need this.” I’d send somebody and I get a call, “This is not working out. You send us a bad one.”
I didn’t send you a bad one. I’ve called the person I sent, “They didn’t even train me. They just expected me to know everything.” They call me to come and fire somebody or bring the band aids and I’m tired of bringing the band aids. I just broke it down start to finish and said we need to recruit the right people. We need to on board them corporate style, on a level that says … When you on board a new employee in a dental office with a corporate level of onboarding and orientation, you’re stating these are of importance, these things that we expect from you. These are expectations, these are the guidelines …
That’s another thing with millennials is they need structure. See, when you’re managing non-millennials, older employees, they have a different work ethic. They don’t like to be micro managed. They don’t need that structure. They need some structure, but to them, they want room to just do their jobs, because they’re just going to do it. The millennials, you try to lead them the same way and they’re just flailing in the wind with no direction. You can’t lead that way.
You got to know … You have to have structure. They will follow. No matter what it is, even if they don’t agree with it, if it’s the employee manual, that if you fail here, this is what’s going to happen. We expect you to do this, this is what’s going to happen. They’ll follow that to the letter. I learned that trial and error in the classroom.
Howard Farran: I always think it’s amazing how some of the most sports enthusiast dentists I know that know, like in the NFL which is my favorite sport, getting the right quarterback is everything, getting the best wide receiver, players. When it comes to … They have an opening in my office, I’ll secure it with a temp, just get it filled with a temp [inaudible 00:21:27] get secured. When I go find that person, Jan’s been there 20 years. I got dozens of girls that have been with me for 15 or 20 years.
I think the last three employees, I interviewed 30 to 45 people for each one. I take it as serious as a Cardinals … If I get her just right or him just right, they may be there 10, 20 or 30 years. I just think it’s everything. I just cannot believe that every … The dental convention you go to, they talk about filling and which bonding agent do you use? Which composite do you … They’ll just think about which glue to use for 40 years and 40 days and 40 nights. When it comes to dental assistants, yeah, we put an ad on craigslist on Saturday.
Claudia Lovato: Two years’ experience.
Howard Farran: We got two resumes on Monday and we hired the first one. It’s like, “Really, you hired the best of two? You put one ad on craigslist?” I just think it’s … I know in my dental office, the most value added person that’s ever worked there is Jan and you got her influence in half. I don’t even think I’d make him the top five. I’m getting five people who built that business more than me. How can you talk to these dentists and tell them that they should serious?
Claudia Lovato: It’s serious. It’s your livelihood.
Howard Farran: When I say … When they hire someone, they don’t even train them, but if you get a job at McDonald's, you’ll go sit in the trailer.
Claudia Lovato: Watch videos.
Howard Farran: Watch eight hours of videos.
Claudia Lovato: Of customer service. We’re in the service industry.
Howard Farran: They’re in a uniform and a name tag and they all have the same hats, the same … IBM, every salesman looks the same and they call them big blue. How would you train? How would you train anew, because most of them just greeted with a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks and say welcome aboard.
Claudia Lovato: That’s right. That’s [crosstalk 00:23:31]. Better lock it up, someone might sneak in and take it.
Howard Farran: How would you educate these people?
Claudia Lovato: Before you could start that, what I figured out is I treat hiring and recruiting like setting up an online dating profile. You got to know who you are. If you’re going to set up your online dating profile …
Howard Farran: I did. I set one up, on plenty of fish and denied it because they said I was a whale. They said lose 50 pounds where you’re [crosstalk 00:23:57].
Claudia Lovato: I’m sure they say you’re a barracuda. You got to treat it that way. What’s the personality of your practice? What are you looking for and who do you want to attract? What I did was I created a tool that allows the dentist to do a practice profile. It includes everybody filling out something.
Howard Farran: This is the dental office filling out a profile?
Claudia Lovato: Yeah.
Howard Farran: Just to be …
Claudia Lovato: It’s a tool that I created, so that they can …
Howard Farran: Is this on your website?
Claudia Lovato: Yeah.
Howard Farran: What is your website?
Claudia Lovato: It’s MoradoDentalAcademy.com
Howard Farran: What does Morado mean? Is that …
Claudia Lovato: It’s the color purple.
Howard Farran: In Spanish? Color purple in Spanish. Morado, M-O-R-A-D-O, and then Dental Academy.
Claudia Lovato: .com.
Howard Farran: Tell us about your website. Tell them what you do?
Claudia Lovato: The whole thing, what I did was got tired of bringing the band aids for my clients, so I just said I got to fix this, but I had to start from the ground up. Practice profile, figure out through the looking glass, no filters, what is our practice? Who are we? What is our mission? Are the employees happy here? Because before you recruit somebody, you better be straight. You better have everybody on the same page. If you got a bunch of disgruntled employees and you got some employees that shouldn’t even be working for you, you need to deal with that, because when you …
Howard Farran: [Crosstalk 00:25:31] They don’t deal with it. I mean, they [crosstalk 00:25:34] …
Claudia Lovato: They have to.
Howard Farran: They don’t … They go in their office and shut their door.
Claudia Lovato: What I did. Part of this system, because it’s so complicated, is I broke it down into modules. My leadership series helps that. It helps the dentist lead the team, figure out who shouldn’t be there, who should and I give you the tools to recruited and hire and train somebody, so that if you need to get rid of somebody, it’s not going to be a nightmare, because that’s the problem. Often times, dental offices, they keep employees that they know deep down shouldn’t be there. They get [crosstalk 00:26:11]
Howard Farran: They’re afraid of them.
Claudia Lovato: They’re afraid of them. They’re holding them hostage. It’s your dental practice. Don’t let your employees hold you hostage. Get rid of them. But you can’t get rid of them if you don’t have a good system in place to get somebody in, trained and get everybody on the same page and then the retention part of this system is you want your employees to stay. You want to be leading them correctly. I put a lot of time and energy into studying these different age groups and okay, how do we lead everybody effectively when you got these different age groups.
Howard Farran: If someone went to the color purple in Spanish, Morado, M-O-R-A-D-O, Dental Academy, what are they going to find? They’re going to find these modules?
Claudia Lovato: What would you do …
Howard Farran: Walk me through the website.
Claudia Lovato: The hiring system, it’s on the program page. It’s called the hiring system but really even if you’re not hiring, every dentist should do it, because the first tool that’s included in that system is that practice profile. What it’s going to do is the dentist is going to take a survey and it’s a series of questions that asks how does your staff … Does your staff follow your lead or you get your foot pushed back and it’s on a scale of one to five, five being the best. The dentist is going and practice owner is going to fill that out. The staff is going to fill it out, the team. It’s anonymous. It’s interesting to compare what the dentist thinks about his practice.
Howard Farran: This is all automated for the dentist or do you analyze it?
Claudia Lovato: The forms are automated and then they generate graphs. I can look at that and say, “You say that your team is happy, but 75% of your team hates your gut. I know that sounds really bad, but you have to do it. You have to take an up close look at your practice.
Howard Farran: I want to [crosstalk 00:28:10] … I’ve always knew is this phenomena, all the really successful dentists all have all kinds of consultants. You show me a practice doing one to four million a year for 20 or 30 years and they might not even remember all the consultants they used. Everybody miserable doing under 300. Not necessarily some money and finance, but they’re just miserable and they never use [it 00:28:32]. I think part of it is because you have to have high self-esteem to hire someone and they go, “Oh, by the way you suck.” You just run a report and you said … I think humans are very sensitive.
Claudia Lovato: It’s tough.
Howard Farran: Same thing on Dentaltown. If someone would post a case on Dentaltown, some of the most famous dentists in the world post at one case on Dentaltown and someone mildly critiqued it and I get this blistering long email and they just ran off and cry there and I’m thinking, “Wow, I would imagine your balls were a little bigger than that.” I mean …
Claudia Lovato: It’s human nature. The nice thing about this practice profile is it serves several different purposes. First of all, it gives you a close look of your practice and it lets you know where you’re at. Second of all, it lets you know who you have on your team, what’s your strength and weaknesses are and who you need to hire. Let’s say for the team survey, it asks are you a leader or do you want more responsibility. When they go to recruit a new employee with this profile, they will know …
I will tell you, “You got enough leaders. You need to hire someone who’s going to follow the lead,” or, “Your team is not full of leaders, so you need to hire someone that’s at a higher level that’s going to come in and help organize and create new systems,” and things like that. I just took that one piece and said, "I’m going to show you how to create a dating profile that’s going to not only attract your perfect match, but it’s going to repel the people that you don’t want."
That’s going to save time and money of course, because you don’t want 30 applicants. You don’t want to do 30 interviews. How about change quality?
Howard Farran: You mostly don't want staff turnover.
Claudia Lovato: How expensive is staff turnover?
Howard Farran: Claudia, this has never happened to me but in this town, and you know as well as I do, there’s a half dozen offices within five miles of where you’re sitting. The dentist walked in there and fired the whole damn [building 00:30:41]. Literally clean house, fired 100% and starting over. What are some red flags or intervention before you had to fire the entire staff? Because we get that …
Claudia Lovato: I have to do that.
Howard Farran: You’ve done that?
Claudia Lovato: I have to do that. Yes, it’s awful.
Howard Farran: I imagine firing the entire … Firing of all your boys and girls.
Claudia Lovato: You shut down. In two weeks, let me re staff you. You don’t want to …
Howard Farran: Why do you do … The cancer is too spread or …
Claudia Lovato: Yeah, sometimes it is. Sometimes you …
Howard Farran: I had a divorce. It’s too much.
Claudia Lovato: I had one client, we had to shut the office down for two weeks and re-staff and at the end …
Howard Farran: What do you think leads to that? I guess this lady’s driving to work, she’s 25, she’s got two hygienists or two receptionists, two assistants, a hygienist. When you’re just out of school the first five years, you're spending all your time just trying to learn how to make root canals, fillings, crowns and all that other stuff. What are some red flags to the younger dentists that you're not paying enough time on HR? What are some red flags that maybe that the employees aren’t as happy as they could be?
Claudia Lovato: Red flags, sick calls, people show calling in sick, people showing up to work late. Going to the break room doing lunch and if everybody shuts up and stops talking, that’s a sign. There are all kinds of red flags. One of them is your numbers, because if you’re not performing, and your case acceptance. Your patients feel that tension. They don’t like turnaround. They like to go do an office where everybody’s getting along and everybody’s smiling and everybody’s happy.
It’s a red flag when people are just getting through their day, just getting through it. If you … You should be having fun and enjoying your day, even when it’s hard, even when it’s a bad day. There should be moments where it’s good and it’s fun and everybody’s laughs and says, “Good job, high five.” If that’s not going on, it’s a red flag. It’s still hard to say, so unless you really anonymously survey your team, you’re not going to know in that [crosstalk00:33:10].
Howard Farran: You know, one of my pet peeve against all the practice management consultants are is that when you go into the NFL and they get the most rocking hot player, they pay that person bank. There is not enough millions of dollars to pay that person and then they have to install ceiling caps. In dental, dentists have four applicants and one of them is just rocking amazing. These three wanted $14 an hour and she asks for $60. It’s like, “Naa.”
It’s like my God. The Cardinals paid Lawrence Fitzgerald to come back and be their wide receiver and you have all these consultants saying, “Your labor should be 20% of cost and if it’s more than 24%, you’re paying 90% labor.” I look at the offices just crushing it and they’re paying 28% labor.
Some of them were paying 30% labor, but their overhead might be higher, but their net on two, three or four million dollars is maybe two or three times what the average dentist produces, yet according to every article I read in [inaudible 00:34:18] spending, their labor [inaudible 00:34:20]. Should you even be focusing on labor cost? Shouldn’t you be focusing on net income?
Claudia Lovato: Yes.
Howard Farran: I rather make $500,000 on sales of three million than have my overhead perfect and make only $400,000.
Claudia Lovato: I probably won’t make any friends if I agree with you on that in the consultant circle. I don’t even address that. I’m focused on the people and human nature and trying to get everybody to operate in a cohesive way, because I believe the numbers will follow. I don’t focus on that overhead number. I don’t know the guy’s name. You know the guy that give him the CEO of a company, owner of a company gave himself a pay cut to 70,000 a year and raised …
It’s like a collection, some kind of credit card processing company. He lowered his salary to $70,000 a year because he did a study and said $70,000, that’s any more, you’re not any happier and he raised his staff’s salary and everybody laughed at him and they’re crushing it. Happy employees are always going to perform better.
Howard Farran: I’ve been really proud of some of these chains. You know, McDonald’s headquarters and their R&D that they spend a lot of money, never R&D’ed a successful product. Half the stores are company owned and half are franchisees. It was their franchisees that invented the fillet sandwich and all that … All the products that are mainstays, it was always the franchisees. What I thought was interesting with your Outback’s and all that, they had employee turnover problems because they had lunch and they had dinner and they didn’t realize …
Lunch is all food and there’s not much profits and dinners, lot of drinks, that’s only your margin and stuff and so some of the franchises started saying, “You know what, we’re just going to get rid of lunch,” because everybody was saying, you should be on breakfast, lunch and dinner. It’s like how do you have staff around breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week and not everybody turn into depression and alcohol. It’s not … They dropped their lunch and said let’s just have a happy staff and they’ll come in here, one get ready for dinner.
We’ll crush [inaudible 00:36:32]. Now, those mean restaurants, McDonald's says, “Oh, we have lunch and we’ll have breakfast and we’re round the clock and all that.” Now, these killer restaurants are getting rid of that saying, “No, we now have ... Our average employees' have been with us now six years, they’re happy, we got a lot of repeat business. They’re drinking lots of beers, wines and mixed drinks, our net income’s high. We don’t want to have the lunch revenue, just …” That’s why a lot of dentists aren’t open on Fridays and Saturdays. They got such killer happy people Monday through Tuesday. I don’t want to burn them out on Friday and Saturday.
Claudia Lovato: If that works for them, that works. It just depends on your team, because you could have another team that’s working five days a week and some Saturdays or half days on Saturdays and they’re just floundering because they have staff that’s just miserable and they’re not leading properly. Nobody’s happy. Everybody’s cranky. As far as working four days a week versus five or five and a half, it just depends on your team. I really believe that taking a closer look at how to lead them. Another thing about millennials is they developed …
They like to be a part of a tribe. That’s a buzzword in corporate right now, this tribal mentality. It’s not something that you can force. People form tribes on their own naturally. What you don’t want in a dental practice is a toxic tribe. They’re already there. You said what’s a red flag? Well, go in the break room. The tribe is in there and they're bad mouthing the dentist and if everybody’s quiet when you walk in then ...
Howard Farran: I tried really hard to set up a cohesive tribe, but my assistant Janice is still a Pittsburg Steelers fan. That took a lot of forgiveness, how they stole their Superbowl victory in the last minute of the game and my assistant has to wear Steelers clothes. I want to hold your feet to the fire. Here’s a very common dilemma. If you go on Dentaltown, you always hear, what does a dentist do when he loves his hygienist and he loves his assistant and those two hate each other.
How do you short that out? How do you get to the bottom of … Do you fire them both? Do you take him on … I have a dentist who taken their staff to Vegas, maybe we all go to Vegas and we all get drunk, maybe we’ll all get along. What do you do in that scenario?
Claudia Lovato: I would sit down with each of them and figure out what the problem is, why do they hate each other? Sometimes, it’s just miscommunication, but oftentimes, I feel like a lot of problems within the dental practice, all the lack of leadership, where … Here’s what happens to the staff and when people don’t get along. If nobody’s held accountable for anything and they see their co-worker get held to different standards, then you have a problem or if they see their coworker not pulling their weight and everybody feels like they’re working harder than everybody.
That’s a problem. If the leadership’s there and everybody … There’s that structure. It sounds like a lot more work for your leader, whether it’s the dentist or the office manager, it’s just too bad, you just have to do it. You have to suck it up and you have to hold everybody to the same standard, hold everybody accountable, because oftentimes, the conflict between employees is the lack of direction and the lack of leadership and the lack of accountability.
Then they take on that burden and stress that the leader should be taking on, because when there’s no leadership, the employees start, rather than focusing on their jobs, they’re focusing on, “Oh, she’s late again and nobody even said anything. I had to turn on all the equipment,” or, “Oh, she’s dodging the charts, she’s dodging patients, now I got to take that pita.” When leadership isn’t there holding their feet to the fire, there’s a conflict.
Howard Farran: When you’re going to an office, what’s easier, to take a dentist who’s not a leader and develop him into a leader or you say let’s just have the dentist stand [inaudible 00:41:04] all day and go after office manager?
Claudia Lovato: I think both the office manager and the dentist need to take leadership.
Howard Farran: What percent of the offices do you mean say have an office manager?
Claudia Lovato: Ooh, that’s a good question. What do you think, 80%?
Howard Farran: Do have those …
Claudia Lovato: Do you think?
Howard Farran: I’d say 20%.
Claudia Lovato: What?
Howard Farran: See, you’re a consultant, so you’re going in the offices. The only people that call consultants are the ones going for it and everyone’s not going for it.
Claudia Lovato: They don’t have [crosstalk 00:41:37] great management. You’re right, because of the general practices …
Howard Farran: In your world, you probably see 80% of the [crosstalk 00:41:44] because you’re always in practice going for it. I've always thought that was the strangest thing.
Claudia Lovato: You’re right. You hit on something.
Howard Farran: Somebody who doesn't need you won't call. Somebody who doesn't need you gets you just for the return on investment.
Claudia Lovato: I think that dental practices, they don’t have an office manager, they’re struggling. The dentist is trying to do the dentistry and lead the people and do the books and everything. It’s a DIY nightmare. It can be …
Howard Farran: What’s a DIY?
Claudia Lovato: Do it yourself. Have to do that, you try to cut my own hair.
Howard Farran: It’s hard talking to millennials.
Claudia Lovato: I think dentists that try to lead and do all that themselves, it can be done, but it takes as much effort and energy as running the procedure. You want to do it well. Don’t you want to do it at least as well as talk about it not better?
Howard Farran: There’s people that drive to work … Podcast users are all multitasking. Every email started out saying, I have an hour commute to work, love your show. I believe some consultants, like coaches, would be a nightmare fit, some would be … I went through several personal trainers before I found a swim coach that I love and a bike coach and all that stuff. What’s your perfect dentist? You’re not going to go there and teach them how to do apicoectomy on failing root canals. What do you like to fix? Who’s your perfect dentist client?
Claudia Lovato: My perfect client is someone that recognizes that they need help and they’re solid enough to admit that because only fools avoid asking for help. Smart people always ask for help.
Howard Farran: But need help in what area?
Claudia Lovato: Managing the people, leading their people. I’m sorry to say it, but it all boils down to people no matter what’s your selling, no matter what’s your doing, no matter what service you’re providing, it always boils down to people. My ideal client is going to take that seriously and not be so sensitive to the fact that … That first step is the hardest, taking that close look at your practice and your people and saying what they really think about the practice and you and vice versa. My ideal client’s going to do that, take that first step and say let’s do this, because that means you’re all going to take it seriously and work on leading people, because the dentistry alone is not just …
Howard Farran: Someday, I swear to God, a droid from Star Wars named R2-D2 is going to do the dentistry. You know the CADCAM, how you put in a block and it blows up the crown and now it’s they’re printing a crown. They’re already writing a prototype of a device that goes in and preps the tooth. All your stuff about a crown prep … Right now, they’re testing automation. People are just so complex, Monday, I had a person who had …
An existing patient, wasn't even a new patient, had 30 minutes of talking and questions before I could even lay him back and look at his mouth. We ended up, his one hour appointment, all we did was talk. I didn’t even do anything. I’m just sitting there and when he left I was just like, "God, people are complex." I could have fixed all three of his teeth in that hour, but I didn’t bill anything. There’s nothing to bill. I spent an hour in his mind. I think dentists actually take their patient more serious in that scenario than trying to manage their team.
Claudia Lovato: Right. What you want is a winning team. You want to recruit, like a football team, you want the players to be the best of the best and you also want to give them everything they need to do that. You want to lead them properly. You can’t just hire a winning team and then just sit on a bench and put your head down and read the place.
Howard Farran: I’m going to all these places and they have the walkie-talkies, the Motorola’s. This one, I took a picture today and it was a Kenwood. I remember Kenwood stereo systems 30 years ago, so I thought they were all walkie-talkies but Kenwood. My office, we couldn’t live without our Motorola, our walkie-talkies, why do I think it’s so awesome [inaudible 00:46:05] dental. Why do you see it as so many restaurants? When I was little and I went to Disneyland …
When I took Ryan, my son there, to Disneyland the first time, you always saw Disneyland employees running as fast as they can across the park on who knows what they’re doing and everybody’s just calm went, “Yeah, we lost a kid, he’s in a red shirt, blue shoes.” What do you think of interoffice communication? Do you think … Because what I’ve been saying to their office, the first thing you’re going to say is there’s no way I want to hear all that talking in my ear and I just think do you want to really run around the office all day? Do you [crosstalk 00:46:40].
Claudia Lovato: No.
Howard Farran: It’s not very common.
Claudia Lovato: I think you guys are little into more into technology. You have loops for all your employees. I shot a video at your office. I was in there checking out all your techy stuff.
Howard Farran: I think if your assistant hygienist [inaudible 00:46:59] loops, then why don’t you just fire her and hire Stevie Wonder?
Claudia Lovato: Fire someone with cataracts.
Howard Farran: If your hygienist doesn’t need loops, just think in math, you check your math equation by inversing it, two times two. Just inverse that. If your hygienist doesn’t need loops, well, just think about it the other way, would you hire a blind hygienist?
Claudia Lovato: As far as the communication, yeah, I think it’s great. I like the walkies, but I think you can have effective communication without it too.
Howard Farran: What about morning huddles?
Claudia Lovato: Every office should be doing that. I’m shocked …
Howard Farran: What percent of offices do you think are doing it?
Claudia Lovato: Lately …
Howard Farran: Just the ones you see.
Claudia Lovato: Lately, I found half of it that don’t and those are my neediest clients, those are the ones that are banging their head up against the wall and can’t figure out why nobody’s doing your jobs and the right hand doesn’t know what the left one is doing and they’re not prepared and then everything’s catastrophe.
Howard Farran: If you’re not having a morning huddle, you’re just … You’re shooting yourself in your foot. That’s just literally bat shit crazy. Since the majority of my listeners, I’m sure all … I would mention that all my listeners everywhere now. Why don’t you go into the morning huddle, how long should it be? What should be discussed? What do you recommend in the morning huddle?
Claudia Lovato: In the morning huddle, you should be talking about the patients that are on the schedule and their needs, if you have anyone with special needs or you have a certain patient that prefers a certain hygienist or an assistant or if you have patients that need to … Should not be … This seems like this should go without saying, but sometimes the receptionist would send someone back that has balance that they didn’t pay. Of course, we don’t ever want to say that. Things like that. Of course, any special circumstance is … That’s your time, that’s your moment to address those things instead of doing it in front of the patient actually.
Howard Farran: Usually that irks me. This is the one that irks me. I'm biting my tongue, because I don't like to do the morning huddle. I like to have the office managers in the morning huddle and now I have to be an employee, because I think the dentist should be a good boy and go do what … He’s on the team. I think it’s weird because the dentist should be the good dentist, but being the owner, you technically be a brat.
I have to follow the office manager, but I just cringe with this and they’re saying … “Oh, your 10:00, that might be a good place for the emergency, because she missed the last two appointments.” I’m like, “Really?” I like to talk about where we’re going to put emergency [crosstalk 00:49:44].
Claudia Lovato: Absolutely.
Howard Farran: Break even point, bam number, what’s your bare ass minimum or your break even point for the day.
Claudia Lovato: I think from a consultant’s perspective, just like anybody else, we tend to … We live in a little bubble where we think everybody’s doing that and it’s not until we go into our practice where we see that some people aren’t doing that. I’ve been completely lucky most of my clients are getting it right.
Howard Farran: How can my Townies contact you?
Claudia Lovato: They can go to the website and contact us to there or …
Howard Farran: Morado Dental Academy.
Claudia Lovato: .com.
Howard Farran: Purple in Spanish. It means purple, that’s my favorite color too.
Claudia Lovato: Is it? It was my grandmother’s favorite color. Purple, I picked it for that reason and also it’s a balance of two colors, cool tones and hot and cold.
Howard Farran: You have that video of you when you’re dancing and was it in Guadalupe?
Claudia Lovato: It was in Guadalupe.
Howard Farran: Oh my god, that was … She has … She’s a classical dancer and she did this dance in front of the church, a Spanish …
Claudia Lovato: Not supposed to say that. You’re not supposed to find that. There’s a sign.
Howard Farran: This area is so poor. You know the Catholic Church is poor when they only have nuns, there’s not even a priest. There’s not even a priest there is there?
Claudia Lovato: I think there is. I was … Yeah. There was this sign, no photography.
Howard Farran: That was a Spanish dance, right?
Claudia Lovato: Flamenco.
Howard Farran: Flamingo?
Claudia Lovato: Flamenco.
Howard Farran: Say it again?
Claudia Lovato: Flamenco.
Howard Farran: Flamenco? That was very … Is that a video on your website?
Claudia Lovato: No.
Howard Farran: You should post that on there and all these people will [crosstalk 00:51:24].
Claudia Lovato: No, it’s just for fun.
Howard Farran: You should … Like the Go Daddy commercial. They say go to the website and see this ad or whatever. You should put that on there.
Claudia Lovato: That video was supposed to be a joke because basically it starts with me in the break room having a stressful day and ‘when I doubt, dance it out’. That was my motto. When things are getting tricky and sketchy and thick in the room, just dance it out.
Howard Farran: You should post that on Dentaltown. You should start a thread on Dentaltown saying, “I just did a podcast with Howard and he wanted me to post this video and call it a …”
Claudia Lovato: When in doubt, dance it out.
Howard Farran: Will you start a thread? It's on YouTube right?
Claudia Lovato: I don’t know if it’s on YouTube. I didn’t want everybody to see that.
Howard Farran: Oh gracious …
Claudia Lovato: It was just for fun.
Howard Farran: I know, but it’s one of the classiest dances I’ve ever seen in my life.
Claudia Lovato: Thank you. I just know …
Howard Farran: The setting was beautiful, your outfit was …
Claudia Lovato: That’s my video guy, he goes [crosstalk 00:52:18] for that.
Howard Farran: Really, that was …
Claudia Lovato: Really, the point was to just not … I’m known for not taking myself too serious.
Howard Farran: Are you going to post it or are you getting too shy.
Claudia Lovato: I don’t know.
Howard Farran: Because if you’re too shy, I’m going to post it myself. Somebody in Texas says I’ll post at the end. When in doubt, dance it out.
Claudia Lovato: When in doubt, dance it out. Really, just to break all this down …
Howard Farran: What about email? Can they contact email, you just …
Claudia Lovato: Claudia@MaradoDentalAcademy.com
Howard Farran: Claudia is CLAUDIA? MaradoDentalAcademy.com.
Claudia Lovato: Basically, in a nutshell, I just created this system to help with all these problems, the people problems. The hiring, the leading, the retention, the leadership series, whether you’re hiring or not, every office should take this program because the leadership series is hands down updated stuff with dealing with these different age groups within the practice, learning how to lead millennials, not thinking they’re lazy. Even though … It’s a big thing right now and I just broke into it. I’m also working with … I have a couple of ladies that are helping me with this, Suzanne Robinson from Practice with Honor.
Howard Farran: She’s in Prescott?
Claudia Lovato: Yes.
Howard Farran: Is it Prescott?
Claudia Lovato: Then Danielle Purcella with Evolution Dental Coaching. I have … I’m not doing this … I’m not a one man show.
Howard Farran: I would guest those two. They’re … She’s a dentist trainer right?
Claudia Lovato: She does train on denture software and she does Evolution Dental Coaching and she does …
Howard Farran: I’ve requested …
Claudia Lovato: She’s [crosstalk 00:53:56] training.
Howard Farran: I’ve tried to get her to podcast two or three times. Is Prescott, when you go to [inaudible 00:54:03] is it to the right, to the east or is it left?
Claudia Lovato: Prescott? I think it’s to the left. Danielle’s over in Fountain Hills.
Howard Farran: Okay, yeah, tell them both. That may be a good … Tell me how you’re working with those two?
Claudia Lovato: They’re part of my faculty. I created this dental academy, where we’re creating courses and programs to help … It’s all distance learning. You can go online and take these courses. I have the student portal that I’m using. It’s really neat. You do it on your time. This leadership series includes Suzanne. They’re my authors of two courses. They’re my faculty. They did introduction to front office. Suzanne did that one. Then Danielle did introduction to front office dental software, part of the hiring system.
Howard Farran: What’s Suzanne’s … Suzanne … What’s her …
Claudia Lovato: Robinson. Practice with Honor.
Howard Farran: Practice with Honor. I had just a year ago, president of my company, Lorie Xelowski, she had an HR dilemma and she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure and she kept coming to me and I just … I know what I’m good at, I know what I’m not good at. I love pulling wisdom teeth, I love root canals, but the soft, touchy, feely with the stuff, I think it’s not my strongest area.
Claudia Lovato: It’s not your thing.
Howard Farran: She kept asking me. After she asked me the third time about one deal. I said, “We’ll call Susan,” paid for her to come down and she said, “Really?” I said yeah, “It’s by you, you don’t know the answer so instead of just making shit up, call an outsider and they can …” I called Suzanne, she came down and she’s spent four hours in the office and basically go, she’s a lawyer, she goes, “You know the decision, you just not [crosstalk 00:55:47].”
Claudia Lovato: Sometimes you just need somebody to tell you that.
Howard Farran: She was literally starting to pull the trigger. Suzanne …
Claudia Lovato: That’s what I’m working with …
Howard Farran: I’m going to say what we did.
Claudia Lovato: Oh gosh.
Howard Farran: Here’s why it gets tough. It’s easy to sit there when someone’s been with you six months or three months and say, “You know what, this isn’t really working out. I’m going to give you the freedom to go find something that fits you more.”
Claudia Lovato: Spread your wings and fly.
Howard Farran: It’s always been with you 10 years. People change. People change. I got five sisters and you got kids. People change. I think your first impression of somebody around you, love somebody for years and years and years, but the last year or two, something’s totally not right and sometimes people change.
Claudia Lovato: Sometimes …
Howard Farran: I think there’s a song about that on iTunes somewhere.
Claudia Lovato: Sometimes, they just need to move on and you need to give them that opportunity to move on. Part of the thing that I address is the reason my dentists don’t let that person go, not only because of the history and the loyalty, but they don’t have the system in place to recruit, hire and train a new person with that all the frustration and headache that goes along with that. That’s what stops them from making that decision and pulling the trigger. What we did is we …
Howard Farran: The three of you, Danielle … what’s her …
Claudia Lovato: Purcella.
Howard Farran: Partella?
Claudia Lovato: Purcella with the C.
Howard Farran: Purcella. Danielle Purcella, is that Italian?
Claudia Lovato: Suzanne … I think it’s Italian. Suzanne Robinson.
Howard Farran: Suzanne Robinson, Practice with Honor.
Claudia Lovato: That’s not everybody though. I have pulled all of my dental superstar friends. Mary Beth Bajornas, Missy Fryer, all these people that know their stuff … We have …
Howard Farran: I have a podcast interview Missy Fryer. I did Mary Beth.
Claudia Lovato: I don’t think you did Missy, but I know you did Mary Beth.
Howard Farran: Will you tell Missy I want to podcast her?
Claudia Lovato: Sure.
Howard Farran: Those other two women are local, would you ever come back with them and we have a round table?
Claudia Lovato: Absolutely.
Howard Farran: You want me to podcast interview them each individually?
Claudia Lovato: It’s up to you.
Howard Farran: It’s up to you. Whatever you think would be better.
Claudia Lovato: I know they’re great resources. That’s why I chose them to work with and collaborate with. What I’ve done here is I’ve brought in some superstars instead. Let’s do this right. Let’s do it silent start to finish. No more band aids. Let’s tackle this problem from the inside out. That’s what we did. We’re just going to keep adding to that.
Howard Farran: That’s all on your website? All those superstars are on your website?
Claudia Lovato: Right now, what they’ve done is they’ve created courses within the hiring system. The hire … It’s a bad thing, I should do a contest name my course, because hiring system just doesn’t sell it. It’s way more than that. It’s the training and it’s the leadership. The leadership series has four courses on it that is going to teach a dentist or an office manager or both, anybody with a leadership role should take those four courses.
Howard Farran: I think the most interesting thing that you’re talking about today is people want to talk about, what’s difference of you managing boy or a girl or a girl managing a boy or … That’s a low hanging fruit, but what’s bizarre is how they think [inaudible 00:59:09]. You can’t see that. it’s not just a 53 year old dentist trying to relate to a 24 year old assistant, but it’s also 24 year old dentist abiding these practices and these ladies had been in this small town of Salina, Kansas and has practiced for 30 years and they’re all 50 to 65 year old women and they’re looking on this 25 year old dentist like it’s a freak.
Claudia Lovato: They eat him alive.
Howard Farran: The young dentist has to reverse engineer what they’re seeing and …
Claudia Lovato: They don’t even know what to do with that.
Howard Farran: The worst thing they did this together … We’re overtime, but the worst thing that happens in these offices, they go into this small town, they buy this nice practice for $400,000 or $600,000 and these three or four ladies have been there for 25 years and a month after, they buy the office, they all quit. That looks so bad.
Claudia Lovato: It’s terrible [crosstalk 01:00:04].
Howard Farran: They [crosstalk 01:00:05] like, “Oh yeah. Dr. [Good 01:00:08] retired and that new doc came in.”
Claudia Lovato: It all went to pot.
Howard Farran: Everyone quit in a week. They’re trying to build their practice on Facebook and Twitter …
Claudia Lovato: It's terrible.
Howard Farran: In a town of 5,000 where everyone knows that everyone quit the minute you walked in …
Claudia Lovato: Honestly …
Howard Farran: In fact, I would say that your value, I would say the most value of your courses would be if I’m going to buy this practice for 400,000 to 600,000, before I bought the Arizona cardinals football franchise, I want to know who my players were. Before I blob down $400,000 to $600,000 for an office, I’d like to add someone like you or Suzanne or any of these great people saying, who am I buying? The only relationships are these five ladies.
Those two girls in the front desk and those two assistant hygienists, they’re all 40 to 60 years old and we're in a small town, I think it’s twice as important a small town as it is in LA or Boston and if I was going to buy a little practice, I would want … I was under 30, I want someone that, I’ll just say over 30. Are you over 30 yet?
Claudia Lovato: 21.
Howard Farran: 21.
Claudia Lovato: Did you read my profile?
Howard Farran: She is 21 on her age. I would want to … If I was a 30 … If I was a young dentist buying a practice and a bunch of ladies have been there in 20 or 30 years, I’d want somebody in there saying these are the people you’re buying and these are the landmines and this is what you’re going to navigate, because everybody in this small rural community, they think those five ladies are greater than sliced bread.
Claudia Lovato: I make it easy for you. I don’t’ even have to come into your office. I created the tools online, the forms, the e-forms for you to do it yourself, for you to have the team do themselves. Anonymously, they’re going to speak openly without fear. Because everything were in a way that I can extract that information and get to know who they are and what makes them tick without having them be fearful that they’re going to lose their positions. These surveys are meant to do that.
Howard Farran: Email her Claudia@MaradoDentalAcademy.com. Claudia, seriously, it is an honor that you drove all the way from Gilbert today to …
Claudia Lovato: I went really far.
Howard Farran: Thank you very, very much and thanks for all the help you’ve given me over the last two decades. Thank you for all that you do for dentistry and you got to post that dance video. If you don’t, I’m going to post it on Dentisttown, just so we some classic. Good seeing you.
Claudia Lovato: Thanks Howard.