September 17, 2025 • 17 mins
Ever wonder why you're constantly busy but your practice isn't growing? The answer lies in understanding the critical difference between maintenance work and true business building.
As dental practice owners, we often mistake activity for productivity. We spend countless hours handling payroll, ordering supplies, managing schedules, and answering endless staff questions. These tasks give us the satisfaction of checking boxes, but they're merely keeping the lights on rather than creating growth or freedom. They're what I call "playing office" rather than working on your business.
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https://www.dentalpracticeheroes.com/playbook
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Paul Etchison (00:02):
What's on your to-do list as a practice owner?
For most dentists, it's a mixof payroll, ordering supplies,
maybe fixing the schedule,chasing labs, answering staff
questions, responding to emails.
But here's the problem.
That's not the real to-do listof a business owner.
That's just the maintenancelist that keeps the lights on.
(00:23):
We've all been told work onyour business, just not in it.
But nobody actually teaches uswhat that means.
And when you're alreadyoverwhelmed, just keeping the
doors open, who has the time orthe clarity to even figure that
out?
See, the truth is most practiceowners confuse.
Being busy with building thebusiness, they spend hours upon
(00:45):
hours playing office and theywonder why they're still stuck.
Well, in today's episode, I'mgoing to break down what
actually belongs on your ownerto-do list the kind of work that
creates growth and freedom in apractice that makes money even
when you're not there.
So if you want a practice thatdoesn't depend on you for every
decision and every dollar, stickaround.
(01:06):
This episode is going to showyou how to get there.
Now you're listening to theDental Practice Heroes podcast,
the show that helps dentiststurn their practice into a true
business that works without them, a business that gives you more
income, more freedom and moretime to enjoy life, while still
delivering world-class care toyour patients and to your team.
(01:26):
I'm Dr Paul Etchison, apracticing dentist, a business
coach and author of two books ondental practice management.
I run an almost $6 milliongroup practice while working
just two or three clinical dayseach month, and I'm here to show
you how to step out of survivalmode, take control of your
practice and design a life thatyou love Now.
I remember those early days ofpractice ownership.
(01:48):
I remember we would see thelast patient, I would finish my
notes and I'm just sitting at mydesk in the back office Like
I'd shut off the overhead lights.
I just have a lamp it's justlike dimly lit and one by one,
my team would just come in thereand say, hey, good night, you
know, but I would stay there.
I had work to do.
That was my time to work on thebusiness.
And sometimes I'd open a beer,but I'd just be sitting there
(02:11):
and I'd start digging in.
I'd start doing the payroll,the invoices, I'd reconcile the
numbers, everything just to keepthat machine running.
And at first, dude, I loved it.
I felt proud.
I just loved everything aboutit.
I was just so fulfilled.
Here I was.
I had my own practice andpeople were paying me to do the
work that I enjoy and I thought,dude, I am successful, I've got
(02:34):
a successful practice.
This is so awesome.
I love running my business,feeling faded.
I mean that after hours grindof just sticking around every
night, it used to be exciting,but that started to feel heavy.
I'd start to procrastinatethese things, I'd start avoiding
them and eventually I startedresenting them, that I was the
(02:54):
one that had to do this stuff.
And it was not because I waslike too busy, but it was more
just because those tasks theyweren't exciting, they didn't
grow the business, they didn'tdo anything for me, they didn't
buy me more freedom, they didn'tmake me any more money, they
just kept me there, stuck doingthings that I didn't love doing.
And I remember one point.
It just hit me I'm like, dude,this isn't working on my
(03:17):
business, this is just playingoffice, and we're all guilty of
that.
Right, we convince ourselvesthat being busy equals being
productive.
And I want to tell you thoseare two very different things.
I mean, as clinicians, we love,love, love checking boxes.
It gives us that dopamine hit.
We clear that list.
We love lists and I love listsas well.
(03:37):
I'm not saying it's wrong tolove lists, but we like to
finish them.
We pat ourselves on the backand we say we had a great day,
what a productive day.
Like to finish them, we patourselves on the back and we say
we had a great day, what aproductive day.
But here's the challenge for youAsk yourself what does it
really mean to be productive?
Is it just like finishing tasks, or is it something more?
I think it is.
I think it's creating moreresults than you had before and
(03:59):
nowadays, at this point in mycareer, I believe that
productivity means doing thekind of work that moves you
forward, that grows you as aleader, grows your practice and
creates more freedom in yourlife.
It's tangible and the sad factis that most of what dentists
spend their owner time I'mthrowing up my air quotes their
owner time.
Doing it just doesn't do that.
(04:20):
I mean doing the payroll, doingthe bill of supplies, fixing
broken equipment, changing lightbulbs, dude.
I mean those things they feelurgent, they have to get done,
but they just don't move theneedle.
They just keep the practicemoving along.
Now, back in the day, somebodybought me a book by Chuck
Blakeman.
I love this book.
It's called Making Money isKilling your Business.
(04:41):
Highly recommend it.
In his book he calls this thetyranny of the urgent, and he's
right.
I mean the urgent.
It commands our attention.
It's the fires that we put outevery single day.
It's that little crying toddlerthat's sitting in the corner
that needs your attention rightnow.
And if you don't give it to him, man, he's gonna be relentless.
He's gonna let you know aboutit until you pay attention.
(05:04):
And there's a problem withattending to the urgent.
Yes, it's loud, yes, we have todo it.
We feel like we can't doanything else until we take care
of it, but it doesn't honorthat time that we should be
spending on things that are moreimportant, the things that we
could be doing that act likeinvestments, the tasks that give
us more time, gives more moneyand freedom, and that's what
(05:25):
Dental Practice Heroes is allabout.
We want to give you time, moneyand freedom, and that's why our
system teaches practice ownershow to do that.
So you might be asking well,how should I be spending my
owner time each day?
And I want to introduce you tosomething that I think is really
cool.
This is called the Eisenhowermatrix.
It comes from the old timepresident back in the day, and
(05:45):
this is how he said that hestayed productive.
So if you've never seen it, Iwant you to picture like a box
divided into four quadrants.
Remember those like punit orpunit squares, like from
genetics, kind of like somethinglike that?
Remember those like punit orpunit squares like from genetics
, kind of like something likethat?
Like it's a four quadrant box.
Now on one axis you've got theurgent versus non-urgent, and
(06:05):
then on the other axis you'vegot important versus not
important.
Now quadrant one that's the topleft one.
It's urgent and it's important.
Those are the fires you've gotto deal with.
You've got to do them right now.
That's like a broken compressor, that's x-rays aren't working.
That's like a patient emergency.
I'm talking like a medicalemergency.
Somebody needs you.
The server's down.
Those are the things that keepyou from practicing.
(06:28):
Those are the things you haveto take care of right now,
because if you don't addressthem, we can't keep operating as
a business.
So that stuff it can't wait.
You have to always take care ofit.
Now quadrant three that's theurgent but not important.
Those are those things likegetting pulled into an insurance
verification issue, or maybe astaff member is asking you where
(06:49):
do we keep the extra copy paper?
Or maybe you go into youroffice and then a team member
knock, knock, knock.
Hey, you got a minute.
Hey, I just want to talk to youabout this vacation that I was
thinking about taking.
I know there's already fourpeople off that week, but I
think I want to take it off too.
These are the things that landin your lap and they feel urgent
, but, honestly, nothing's goingto change if you don't attend
to them now, so you don't needto necessarily have to be
(07:12):
involved.
That's quadrant three.
Now let's talk about quadrantfour.
That's not urgent and notimportant.
These are the worst things.
These are the things youshouldn't even be doing.
These are the things,unfortunately, we kind of like.
It's like scrolling Facebook inyour office when you're taking
a break.
You know these time wasters.
You're on Instagram.
(07:32):
It's.
Oh my God.
My wife spends so much timefollowing these bloggers on
Instagram and what does she getout of it?
She spends a lot of money onclothes or something I don't
know.
These are time wasters and welove them because they're easy
to do, they're relaxing, they'renot challenging at all, but
sometimes we get stuck on them.
But here's the magic I skippedone.
Did you notice which one Iskipped?
(07:52):
I skipped quadrant two,quadrant two, that's the
important, but not urgent.
It is very important for us todo these tasks, but we rarely
spend time in this quadrantbecause it's not urgent.
But this is where the growthhappens, but so often we ignore
it.
Why?
Because this quadrant twodoesn't scream at you, it's not
tugging on your sleeve like thecrying toddler, it's just
(08:13):
sitting there in the corner.
It's okay and it's like youknow.
It'd be cool if you gave mesome attention, but if you don't
, I'm pretty cool, I'm content.
So let's talk about quadrant two.
What does that look like in adental practice?
I want to give you a fewexamples here, so that you can
go back to your practice and say, hey, I should spend some time
doing this.
Okay Now.
First one creating systems sothat your team can run things
(08:33):
without you.
That is so important.
And that's the stuff.
See how this is likeinvestments in time it gives you
back time.
Next one training your leads sothat they can solve problems
before they hit your desk.
You're training people to takecare of things without you.
You want to get to the pointwhere you don't even know these
things are happening becauseyour team's taking care of them.
Next, sitting down and refiningyour new patient experience so
(08:55):
that you have more patients thatare raving fans.
More of them are staying inyour practice, more of them are
referring other people, more ofthem are accepting treatment,
training and monitoring yourteam on the phone calls.
So what does this do?
Well, more phone calls withprospective new patients will
turn into new patients.
There's a return on investment.
(09:15):
Creating your block schedule Imean, this is what something we
work on for so long in our DPHcoaching programs is we teach
you how to create your blockschedule so that you hit your
production goals every singleday.
It's one of those things that'sso important to having this
type of practice Working onleadership, working on your
communication, working on yourculture so that your team is
motivated and that your team canbe consistent, mapping out your
(09:38):
growth strategy, sitting thereand saying what do I need to do
this quarter?
What's going to take me to thenext level?
Maybe that's adding anassociate.
Maybe it's expanding your hours.
Maybe it's increasing caseacceptance, I don't know.
Maybe and how does this sound?
Maybe it's you cutting someclinical days.
That sounds pretty good, right,but yeah, none of those things,
none of them are urgent.
Nobody's banging on your doorasking you to do them today and
(09:59):
most practice owners they'regoing to go their entire career
without ever doing them.
But they're so critical becausethink about this Once they're
done, they pay dividends forever.
These are investments with atrue lifelong career, long ROI.
Now you see, like if you'regoing to do one more crown,
you're going to prep one morecrown and you get paid once and
(10:22):
that's it.
Maybe $1,200, maybe $1,500.
I don't know.
Nice, but tomorrow you got togo do another crown.
But if you spend that same hourin quadrant two maybe building
a system, training a leader,delegating a responsibility,
creating a smoother patient flowor doing something so that you
get better case acceptance,that's something that's going to
(10:43):
pay you over and over again,not just today, not just
tomorrow, but for years, for therest of your career.
That is the return and that iswhat the real owner's to-do list
should be about.
It's not about the busy work,it's not about the urgent fires.
It's about those quadrant twoinvestments that make the
(11:03):
practice run without you,generate more profit and give
you more freedom.
That's what we all want, right?
I remember at one point in mypractice we really decided that
we wanted to get our caseacceptance up.
You know it wasn't bad, butwe're just like let's see what
we can do.
So we got our case acceptanceup by four percentage points.
Okay, now it sounds so small.
What do we do?
We trained our front end on howto present the finances and
(11:25):
made sure everybody knew how todo patient financing.
Big deal, right?
4%.
Who cares?
But I want you to realize thatat my practice we're treatment
planning around $15 million ofdentistry every year, so that 4%
translates into an additional$600,000 of treatment.
That's on my existing patientsthat I already have in my
practice.
That doesn't require newpatients.
(11:46):
They're already there, they'vealready shown up, they've
already got a treatment planpresented to them.
It really didn't require anyadditional resources.
So that's that dividend thatyou get paid off.
Let's do another example.
This one I loved when Idelegated the staffing to my
team, when I was no longer thatperson that people would text
when they weren't coming in orthey were sick or they went.
I was no longer the person thatpeople were putting in their
(12:08):
vacation requests with.
You know, now when somebodycalls off, it doesn't go through
me.
When somebody takes a vacation,I don't have to be the one
making sure that we havecoverage or asking other people
if they can cover for thisperson.
Now, how much time does thatsave me each month?
It's hard to quantify, but it'sa lot of time.
But how much time does thatsave me for the rest of my
career?
(12:29):
I never have to do that againat my practice.
I will never, ever have to doit again.
I hope you can understand theimportance of doing these things
.
So how can you make sure yourowner time is well spent?
Well, first, you've got tounderstand its importance, and
we should be there at this point.
I hope that from listening tome, you understand the
(12:50):
importance.
Step two you've got to committo it.
Even when the other things seemmore important, even when
they're screaming at you andthey're loud, you've got to
commit to spending some time onthese things, regardless of what
else is going on in yourpractice.
You may got to commit tospending some time on these
things regardless of what elseis going on in your practice.
You may have to lock youroffice door, you may have to
come in on the weekend when noone was there.
But if you want to create anamazing business at your dental
practice, you've got to findtime to spend time in that
(13:10):
quadrant to work, even when itfeels like you should be doing
something else.
So here is my challenge to youfor this week I want you to just
block off two hours of ownertime.
Do not fill it in with payroll.
Do not fill it in with thestuff stacking up on your desk
that you have to get caught upwith.
I want you to sit down in aquiet room and ask yourself what
(13:33):
is one quadrant two project?
That's the important, but noturgent, that I can make some
progress on today.
And then I want you to committo doing at least one of these
growth projects every singlemonth.
And if you can consistentlymake the time to do this and you
consistently show up to do it,you're going to slowly buy
yourself more and more time,more and more profit.
(13:54):
You're going to be making iteasier and easier every day, and
as you get more time and profit, it becomes easier to do this.
So this is something thatcompounds just like interest.
So another thing I want you todo is I want you to make a list
of the not my job stuff.
These are the things that youcontinue to do because you don't
want to train anyone else on it.
You don't want to take the timeto train somebody, but deep
(14:15):
down in your heart you know thatthey are not a good use of your
time.
So put those on a not my joblist and start delegating those
away.
And I want you to just do thosethings consistently.
You delegate away the thingsyou're putting in the good owner
time and then eventually youcan go and take three weeks off
in a row.
You go with your family toToronto for a week and then you
(14:36):
go spend Labor Day weekend atthe Lake House and then you're
off with your wife to a week forCalifornia.
And you come back and yourealize, dude, you were gone
like 26 full consecutive daysand not a single person at your
practice needed you.
Everything ran without you.
The practice still made money,the issues were attended to by
your team and you enjoyed somewell-deserved family time
(14:58):
because you've created thefreedom to do this.
So how do you get there?
You got to do the things thataren't urgent, but you recognize
them as important and I promiseyou that is the most important
thing that you can do.
That is the real owner's to-dolist, and if you need help with
those things that are not urgentbut important, check out our
coaching options atdentalpracticeheroescom.
(15:19):
We would love to help youprioritize taking care of these
things at your practice andreally getting the practice
growth and momentum that youdeserve.
So this week, evaluateeverything you do by the
Eisenhower Matrix, make thatcommitment to spend more time in
quadrant two and I hope, slowlybut surely it's going to make
all the difference in yourpractice and because of that,
it's gonna make all thedifference in the quality of
(15:41):
life that you live.
Thank you so much for listening.
I really appreciate you andwe'll talk to you next time.
What's on your to-do list as a practice owner?
For most dentists, it's a mixof payroll, ordering supplies,
maybe fixing the schedule,chasing labs, answering staff
questions, responding to emails.
But here's the problem.
That's not the real to-do listof a business owner.
That's just the maintenancelist that keeps the lights on.
(00:23):
We've all been told work onyour business, just not in it.
But nobody actually teaches uswhat that means.
And when you're alreadyoverwhelmed, just keeping the
doors open, who has the time orthe clarity to even figure that
out?
See, the truth is most practiceowners confuse.
Being busy with building thebusiness, they spend hours upon
(00:45):
hours playing office and theywonder why they're still stuck.
Well, in today's episode, I'mgoing to break down what
actually belongs on your ownerto-do list the kind of work that
creates growth and freedom in apractice that makes money even
when you're not there.
So if you want a practice thatdoesn't depend on you for every
decision and every dollar, stickaround.
(01:06):
This episode is going to showyou how to get there.
Now you're listening to theDental Practice Heroes podcast,
the show that helps dentiststurn their practice into a true
business that works without them, a business that gives you more
income, more freedom and moretime to enjoy life, while still
delivering world-class care toyour patients and to your team.
(01:26):
I'm Dr Paul Etchison, apracticing dentist, a business
coach and author of two books ondental practice management.
I run an almost $6 milliongroup practice while working
just two or three clinical dayseach month, and I'm here to show
you how to step out of survivalmode, take control of your
practice and design a life thatyou love Now.
I remember those early days ofpractice ownership.
(01:48):
I remember we would see thelast patient, I would finish my
notes and I'm just sitting at mydesk in the back office Like
I'd shut off the overhead lights.
I just have a lamp it's justlike dimly lit and one by one,
my team would just come in thereand say, hey, good night, you
know, but I would stay there.
I had work to do.
That was my time to work on thebusiness.
And sometimes I'd open a beer,but I'd just be sitting there
(02:11):
and I'd start digging in.
I'd start doing the payroll,the invoices, I'd reconcile the
numbers, everything just to keepthat machine running.
And at first, dude, I loved it.
I felt proud.
I just loved everything aboutit.
I was just so fulfilled.
Here I was.
I had my own practice andpeople were paying me to do the
work that I enjoy and I thought,dude, I am successful, I've got
(02:34):
a successful practice.
This is so awesome.
I love running my business,feeling faded.
I mean that after hours grindof just sticking around every
night, it used to be exciting,but that started to feel heavy.
I'd start to procrastinatethese things, I'd start avoiding
them and eventually I startedresenting them, that I was the
(02:54):
one that had to do this stuff.
And it was not because I waslike too busy, but it was more
just because those tasks theyweren't exciting, they didn't
grow the business, they didn'tdo anything for me, they didn't
buy me more freedom, they didn'tmake me any more money, they
just kept me there, stuck doingthings that I didn't love doing.
And I remember one point.
It just hit me I'm like, dude,this isn't working on my
(03:17):
business, this is just playingoffice, and we're all guilty of
that.
Right, we convince ourselvesthat being busy equals being
productive.
And I want to tell you thoseare two very different things.
I mean, as clinicians, we love,love, love checking boxes.
It gives us that dopamine hit.
We clear that list.
We love lists and I love listsas well.
(03:37):
I'm not saying it's wrong tolove lists, but we like to
finish them.
We pat ourselves on the backand we say we had a great day,
what a productive day.
Like to finish them, we patourselves on the back and we say
we had a great day, what aproductive day.
But here's the challenge for youAsk yourself what does it
really mean to be productive?
Is it just like finishing tasks, or is it something more?
I think it is.
I think it's creating moreresults than you had before and
(03:59):
nowadays, at this point in mycareer, I believe that
productivity means doing thekind of work that moves you
forward, that grows you as aleader, grows your practice and
creates more freedom in yourlife.
It's tangible and the sad factis that most of what dentists
spend their owner time I'mthrowing up my air quotes their
owner time.
Doing it just doesn't do that.
(04:20):
I mean doing the payroll, doingthe bill of supplies, fixing
broken equipment, changing lightbulbs, dude.
I mean those things they feelurgent, they have to get done,
but they just don't move theneedle.
They just keep the practicemoving along.
Now, back in the day, somebodybought me a book by Chuck
Blakeman.
I love this book.
It's called Making Money isKilling your Business.
(04:41):
Highly recommend it.
In his book he calls this thetyranny of the urgent, and he's
right.
I mean the urgent.
It commands our attention.
It's the fires that we put outevery single day.
It's that little crying toddlerthat's sitting in the corner
that needs your attention rightnow.
And if you don't give it to him, man, he's gonna be relentless.
He's gonna let you know aboutit until you pay attention.
(05:04):
And there's a problem withattending to the urgent.
Yes, it's loud, yes, we have todo it.
We feel like we can't doanything else until we take care
of it, but it doesn't honorthat time that we should be
spending on things that are moreimportant, the things that we
could be doing that act likeinvestments, the tasks that give
us more time, gives more moneyand freedom, and that's what
(05:25):
Dental Practice Heroes is allabout.
We want to give you time, moneyand freedom, and that's why our
system teaches practice ownershow to do that.
So you might be asking well,how should I be spending my
owner time each day?
And I want to introduce you tosomething that I think is really
cool.
This is called the Eisenhowermatrix.
It comes from the old timepresident back in the day, and
(05:45):
this is how he said that hestayed productive.
So if you've never seen it, Iwant you to picture like a box
divided into four quadrants.
Remember those like punit orpunit squares, like from
genetics, kind of like somethinglike that?
Remember those like punit orpunit squares like from genetics
, kind of like something likethat?
Like it's a four quadrant box.
Now on one axis you've got theurgent versus non-urgent, and
(06:05):
then on the other axis you'vegot important versus not
important.
Now quadrant one that's the topleft one.
It's urgent and it's important.
Those are the fires you've gotto deal with.
You've got to do them right now.
That's like a broken compressor, that's x-rays aren't working.
That's like a patient emergency.
I'm talking like a medicalemergency.
Somebody needs you.
The server's down.
Those are the things that keepyou from practicing.
(06:28):
Those are the things you haveto take care of right now,
because if you don't addressthem, we can't keep operating as
a business.
So that stuff it can't wait.
You have to always take care ofit.
Now quadrant three that's theurgent but not important.
Those are those things likegetting pulled into an insurance
verification issue, or maybe astaff member is asking you where
(06:49):
do we keep the extra copy paper?
Or maybe you go into youroffice and then a team member
knock, knock, knock.
Hey, you got a minute.
Hey, I just want to talk to youabout this vacation that I was
thinking about taking.
I know there's already fourpeople off that week, but I
think I want to take it off too.
These are the things that landin your lap and they feel urgent
, but, honestly, nothing's goingto change if you don't attend
to them now, so you don't needto necessarily have to be
(07:12):
involved.
That's quadrant three.
Now let's talk about quadrantfour.
That's not urgent and notimportant.
These are the worst things.
These are the things youshouldn't even be doing.
These are the things,unfortunately, we kind of like.
It's like scrolling Facebook inyour office when you're taking
a break.
You know these time wasters.
You're on Instagram.
(07:32):
It's.
Oh my God.
My wife spends so much timefollowing these bloggers on
Instagram and what does she getout of it?
She spends a lot of money onclothes or something I don't
know.
These are time wasters and welove them because they're easy
to do, they're relaxing, they'renot challenging at all, but
sometimes we get stuck on them.
But here's the magic I skippedone.
Did you notice which one Iskipped?
(07:52):
I skipped quadrant two,quadrant two, that's the
important, but not urgent.
It is very important for us todo these tasks, but we rarely
spend time in this quadrantbecause it's not urgent.
But this is where the growthhappens, but so often we ignore
it.
Why?
Because this quadrant twodoesn't scream at you, it's not
tugging on your sleeve like thecrying toddler, it's just
(08:13):
sitting there in the corner.
It's okay and it's like youknow.
It'd be cool if you gave mesome attention, but if you don't
, I'm pretty cool, I'm content.
So let's talk about quadrant two.
What does that look like in adental practice?
I want to give you a fewexamples here, so that you can
go back to your practice and say, hey, I should spend some time
doing this.
Okay Now.
First one creating systems sothat your team can run things
(08:33):
without you.
That is so important.
And that's the stuff.
See how this is likeinvestments in time it gives you
back time.
Next one training your leads sothat they can solve problems
before they hit your desk.
You're training people to takecare of things without you.
You want to get to the pointwhere you don't even know these
things are happening becauseyour team's taking care of them.
Next, sitting down and refiningyour new patient experience so
(08:55):
that you have more patients thatare raving fans.
More of them are staying inyour practice, more of them are
referring other people, more ofthem are accepting treatment,
training and monitoring yourteam on the phone calls.
So what does this do?
Well, more phone calls withprospective new patients will
turn into new patients.
There's a return on investment.
(09:15):
Creating your block schedule Imean, this is what something we
work on for so long in our DPHcoaching programs is we teach
you how to create your blockschedule so that you hit your
production goals every singleday.
It's one of those things that'sso important to having this
type of practice Working onleadership, working on your
communication, working on yourculture so that your team is
motivated and that your team canbe consistent, mapping out your
(09:38):
growth strategy, sitting thereand saying what do I need to do
this quarter?
What's going to take me to thenext level?
Maybe that's adding anassociate.
Maybe it's expanding your hours.
Maybe it's increasing caseacceptance, I don't know.
Maybe and how does this sound?
Maybe it's you cutting someclinical days.
That sounds pretty good, right,but yeah, none of those things,
none of them are urgent.
Nobody's banging on your doorasking you to do them today and
(09:59):
most practice owners they'regoing to go their entire career
without ever doing them.
But they're so critical becausethink about this Once they're
done, they pay dividends forever.
These are investments with atrue lifelong career, long ROI.
Now you see, like if you'regoing to do one more crown,
you're going to prep one morecrown and you get paid once and
(10:22):
that's it.
Maybe $1,200, maybe $1,500.
I don't know.
Nice, but tomorrow you got togo do another crown.
But if you spend that same hourin quadrant two maybe building
a system, training a leader,delegating a responsibility,
creating a smoother patient flowor doing something so that you
get better case acceptance,that's something that's going to
(10:43):
pay you over and over again,not just today, not just
tomorrow, but for years, for therest of your career.
That is the return and that iswhat the real owner's to-do list
should be about.
It's not about the busy work,it's not about the urgent fires.
It's about those quadrant twoinvestments that make the
(11:03):
practice run without you,generate more profit and give
you more freedom.
That's what we all want, right?
I remember at one point in mypractice we really decided that
we wanted to get our caseacceptance up.
You know it wasn't bad, butwe're just like let's see what
we can do.
So we got our case acceptanceup by four percentage points.
Okay, now it sounds so small.
What do we do?
We trained our front end on howto present the finances and
(11:25):
made sure everybody knew how todo patient financing.
Big deal, right?
4%.
Who cares?
But I want you to realize thatat my practice we're treatment
planning around $15 million ofdentistry every year, so that 4%
translates into an additional$600,000 of treatment.
That's on my existing patientsthat I already have in my
practice.
That doesn't require newpatients.
(11:46):
They're already there, they'vealready shown up, they've
already got a treatment planpresented to them.
It really didn't require anyadditional resources.
So that's that dividend thatyou get paid off.
Let's do another example.
This one I loved when Idelegated the staffing to my
team, when I was no longer thatperson that people would text
when they weren't coming in orthey were sick or they went.
I was no longer the person thatpeople were putting in their
(12:08):
vacation requests with.
You know, now when somebodycalls off, it doesn't go through
me.
When somebody takes a vacation,I don't have to be the one
making sure that we havecoverage or asking other people
if they can cover for thisperson.
Now, how much time does thatsave me each month?
It's hard to quantify, but it'sa lot of time.
But how much time does thatsave me for the rest of my
career?
(12:29):
I never have to do that againat my practice.
I will never, ever have to doit again.
I hope you can understand theimportance of doing these things
.
So how can you make sure yourowner time is well spent?
Well, first, you've got tounderstand its importance, and
we should be there at this point.
I hope that from listening tome, you understand the
(12:50):
importance.
Step two you've got to committo it.
Even when the other things seemmore important, even when
they're screaming at you andthey're loud, you've got to
commit to spending some time onthese things, regardless of what
else is going on in yourpractice.
You may got to commit tospending some time on these
things regardless of what elseis going on in your practice.
You may have to lock youroffice door, you may have to
come in on the weekend when noone was there.
But if you want to create anamazing business at your dental
practice, you've got to findtime to spend time in that
(13:10):
quadrant to work, even when itfeels like you should be doing
something else.
So here is my challenge to youfor this week I want you to just
block off two hours of ownertime.
Do not fill it in with payroll.
Do not fill it in with thestuff stacking up on your desk
that you have to get caught upwith.
I want you to sit down in aquiet room and ask yourself what
(13:33):
is one quadrant two project?
That's the important, but noturgent, that I can make some
progress on today.
And then I want you to committo doing at least one of these
growth projects every singlemonth.
And if you can consistentlymake the time to do this and you
consistently show up to do it,you're going to slowly buy
yourself more and more time,more and more profit.
(13:54):
You're going to be making iteasier and easier every day, and
as you get more time and profit, it becomes easier to do this.
So this is something thatcompounds just like interest.
So another thing I want you todo is I want you to make a list
of the not my job stuff.
These are the things that youcontinue to do because you don't
want to train anyone else on it.
You don't want to take the timeto train somebody, but deep
(14:15):
down in your heart you know thatthey are not a good use of your
time.
So put those on a not my joblist and start delegating those
away.
And I want you to just do thosethings consistently.
You delegate away the thingsyou're putting in the good owner
time and then eventually youcan go and take three weeks off
in a row.
You go with your family toToronto for a week and then you
(14:36):
go spend Labor Day weekend atthe Lake House and then you're
off with your wife to a week forCalifornia.
And you come back and yourealize, dude, you were gone
like 26 full consecutive daysand not a single person at your
practice needed you.
Everything ran without you.
The practice still made money,the issues were attended to by
your team and you enjoyed somewell-deserved family time
(14:58):
because you've created thefreedom to do this.
So how do you get there?
You got to do the things thataren't urgent, but you recognize
them as important and I promiseyou that is the most important
thing that you can do.
That is the real owner's to-dolist, and if you need help with
those things that are not urgentbut important, check out our
coaching options atdentalpracticeheroescom.
(15:19):
We would love to help youprioritize taking care of these
things at your practice andreally getting the practice
growth and momentum that youdeserve.
So this week, evaluateeverything you do by the
Eisenhower Matrix, make thatcommitment to spend more time in
quadrant two and I hope, slowlybut surely it's going to make
all the difference in yourpractice and because of that,
it's gonna make all thedifference in the quality of
(15:41):
life that you live.
Thank you so much for listening.
I really appreciate you andwe'll talk to you next time.
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