September 10, 2025 • 13 mins
What if you could dramatically improve your dental practice without working harder or longer hours? The secret lies in understanding the butterfly effect – how small, strategic changes create massive ripple effects throughout your practice.
Most dentists make the same critical mistake: believing that increased production requires more patients, more procedures, or more associates. They chase these "big wins" while overlooking dozens of small levers hiding in plain sight – levers that could multiply profitability with minimal effort.
Take Control of Your Practice and Your Life
We help dentists take more time off while making more money through systematization, team empowerment, and creating leadership teams.
Ready to build a practice that works for you? Visit www.DentalPracticeHeroes.com to learn more.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
All right, I want to talk about a movie that dude.
I loved this movie when I wasin college.
It was called the ButterflyEffect with Ashton Kutcher.
I was never a big AshtonKutcher fan, I don't know why.
I just didn't really like himon that 70s show.
But anyway, I really like thismovie and here's what it's about
.
It's about this guy.
He's having headaches and everytime he has like a headache, he
blacks out and he goes back intime to like formidable, like
(00:26):
moments in his childhood or whenhe was growing up, and he
changes what he did in that timeand then when he comes out of
the headache, his life iscompletely different.
The idea being, if you've everheard about the butterfly effect
, it's saying that, like abutterfly, flapping their wings
across the world, can create atsunami on the other side of the
world.
Just how these little, tinythings over time, and just they
(00:52):
set off this chain of eventsthat has really big effects.
So I was thinking about this inthe realm of practice ownership
and I said, dude, what arethose like small things that we
can do in the practice that havethese huge butterfly effects on
our quality of life and ourprofitability, and the way that
we can do in the practice thathave these huge butterfly
effects on our quality of lifeand our profitability and the
way that we run our practices.
And I think there are thesethings.
There are these little, smalllevers that we can just crank
(01:15):
down and they make a big effect,and that's what I want to share
with you today.
So we're going to figure outwhat are these small little
levers in dentistry that we canpull that have big effects.
Let's do it.
All right, you are listening tothe Dental Practice Heroes
podcast.
Thank you so much for joiningme today.
I'm your host, dr Paul Etcheson.
I am the author of two books ondental practice management, I'm
(01:38):
a dental coach and I'm theowner of a large five-doctor
group practice in the southsuburbs of Chicago.
Now we want to teach you how tohave a better life by creating
a team-driven practice that runswithout you, that is high
profit and requires very littleof your time.
So if that's something you'relooking for, you are in the
right place.
All right, let's jump into it.
(01:59):
We're talking about leverstoday.
Now, the first point I want youto understand is that these
levers there aren't just a few,they are everywhere.
We often think, as practiceowners, that we need these
massive overhauls, we need tochange everything, and what I
want you to realize is that inreality, these small little
(02:22):
tweaks, they can add up if wecan create like a tighter script
with our team, maybe a betterhandoff, maybe we do some things
with our block scheduling.
There's tons of these things.
I'll give you an example.
In my practice we dropped Deltalike two years ago and guess
what?
We stopped seeing new patientsfor Delta.
What happened?
(02:42):
Did they stop calling?
No, we stopped converting them.
So what did we do?
We looked into it, we createdan action plan and a lot of it
was training with the team.
But essentially, if I had tosay what did we do?
We used to just say, hey, we dotake your insurance, but
unfortunately we are an out ofnetwork provider.
And then we would just sitthere and the patient would
(03:03):
pause and they'd say, oh okay,thanks, see ya, and they would
hang up.
That would be it.
After we say that now we justkeep going and we say, but if
you have a PPO, you still getbenefits at this office.
I can look at your plan andtell you what those benefits are
.
If you would like me to.
Can I do that for you?
(03:27):
And oh man, we changed onelittle thing that we said and
now we see out of network newpatients from Delta.
So we're seeing more newpatients, and guess what?
These are great patientsbecause they're out of network.
They're not on that stupidDelta PPO fee schedule that you
can't even pay your team with.
I mean, these are greatpatients.
So what a little tiny lever topull to make a big difference.
Okay, let's talk about why youmight miss these things as an
(03:49):
owner.
Often you want to chase thesebig wins.
You want to say moreoperatories, let's do more
marketing, let's add associatesthe associate fallacy, as I like
to call it.
We just have to add associatesand everything gets better Wrong
.
Now see, you are overlookingall these little leaks that are
right under your nose in yourpractice, and I can tell you
(04:12):
from experience, it is so common, we all do this stuff.
I remember when we first openedlike we started getting some
momentum with new patients.
I was a solo doc, four days aweek.
We were seeing 80 new patientsa month and, my God, everything
was so efficient and so greatuntil we looked at the numbers.
(04:33):
But guess what?
We didn't look at the numbers.
So we didn't know.
So we were happy.
Because when we looked at thenumbers, we realized we had a
big cancellation problem.
We realized we had a bigattrition problem.
We realized we had a big caseacceptance problem.
But guess what, when you don'tlook at those things, you don't
know.
Because you're seeing so manydamn new patients, all that
(04:55):
stuff doesn't matter because itmakes up for that.
But the thing is, as soon as Istarted doing things for the
attrition, for the cancellationsand for the case acceptance
damn dude, we ran out of spaceso fast.
So everything was fine.
Ignorance is bliss, but it'sone of those things that we miss
them because we're not payingattention, we're not looking for
(05:16):
them.
So you've got to look, you'vegot to be checking your numbers
and you've got to be seeing,talking to your team, finding
out what are these little leversthat you can pull, what are the
little tiny things you canoptimize and make more efficient
, and I promise you you're goingto get big results from it.
Now I want to share a storywith you.
When I had my first associatecome on, I cannot remember what
(05:37):
the reason for us hiring aconsultant was.
I think it was my first bout ofoverwhelm.
This was like the first timethat I was like okay, I have an
associate.
It was supposed to make my lifebetter.
I doubled the size of my teamand life is now worse.
What the hell is going on?
I need some help.
And I had this associate,lorraine, and she came in.
She observed us for like a fulltwo days.
(06:02):
It was a really valuable twodays.
I really liked having her inthere.
She was great and I rememberher and I were sitting in my
office and she's asking me a lotof questions.
So we're sitting there.
She's sitting across the deskfrom me and she's asking me a
bunch of questions, she's takinga bunch of notes and she's
telling me things that sheobserved.
And I kept making excuses forthis and that and this, and she
stopped me in the middle of asentence at one point and she
(06:22):
said you know what, if you getone thing from me during this
visit, this is what I want it tobe and I'm just like okay, like
what's that she's like?
I want you to realize that youhave an associate and that
you're the leader of thispractice and that you are so
much more valuable to your teamand to the profitability of this
practice as a trainer and aleader and not as a dentist.
(06:46):
You need to stop being adentist so much.
And I was just like holy shitlike, but I'm really good at
being a dentist, I like being adentist.
I can't stop being a dentist.
But she was right.
The thing is, is we default asdentists?
We say if I want more money, Ihave to do more procedures.
That is the thing in mypractice that I can do that.
No one else can, because I'mlicensed to do it.
(07:07):
But what I want you to see isthat the biggest ROI is not from
squeezing in one more fillingor one more crown or one more
hygiene visit.
It's from fixing the systemsthat make every single filling,
every single crown and everysingle hygiene visit more
profitable.
And owners are so much morevaluable as lever pullers, not
(07:32):
as extra producers.
So when you're looking at yourpractice and you're thinking,
how can I get more out of what Ialready have?
It's not in cramming morepatients, it's not in seeing
more new patients, it's not indoing more crowns.
It's in pulling the smalllevers that work within your
existing systems and your.
So what are some of theselevers that we can pull.
(07:58):
I'm going to give you a fewexamples.
One big one case acceptance.
If we can just change the waywe talk about procedures, that's
a big lever to pull.
If you can build rapport withevery new patient before you
talk about dentistry, that's ahuge one.
If you can train your team onhow to simply talk about every
(08:18):
procedure, there's a big one.
If you can train your front endteam how to present treatment
as a treatment coordinator andhow to utilize all their
financial tools, that's anotherbig one.
There are so many things thatwill help case acceptance, all
the way down to the way youanswer your phone affects it.
Everything affects caseacceptance.
All right, let's talk aboutcancellations.
(08:39):
That's another one.
Everything affects caseacceptance.
All right, let's talk aboutcancellations.
That's another one.
Creating a cancellation policythat your team can follow and
hold them to be accountable toactually following it.
I talked to a lot of practiceowners and they say, yeah, we
get cancellations, but we fillthem really fast.
Cool, I'm happy you fill them,but what would be nicer would be
if you didn't have to fill themat all, if people just didn't
cancel or you didn't let thosetype of people get on your
(09:00):
schedule in the first place.
So there's ways to do that.
What about scheduling?
There's so much we can do aboutscheduling and I think that's
one of the things that DentalPractice Heroes really stands
out in with our training is man.
We will create a schedule inyour practice that will make you
hit your goals and it becomesthe barometer for everything
else.
When you get that scheduletemplate set up the right way,
(09:23):
it just becomes a matter of howdo we fill these blocks in our
schedule and what can we do tomake sure that it happens?
Let's talk about team trainings.
I mean, nobody trains theirfront end.
Nobody does it.
If you tell me you do it, I'llsay what do you do?
What did you do?
Phone training, like four yearsago.
Most people don't pour intotheir front end team and it's
such a missed opportunity.
(09:43):
Team trainings, even justsimple huddles at the beginning
of the day to put everybody onthe same page there are so many
little trainings you can do andthis is what we do with Dental
Practice Heroes.
I mean, we just started thismastermind.
I got 15 dentists with me, wejust kicked it off and we are
going through my seven phaseOmni practice program, start to
finish.
We are going to optimize everylittle thing in our practice.
(10:06):
We're going to pull everysingle lever.
We're going to do it.
What do you think is going tohappen to these people after 12
months of doing this?
Are their practices going to bedifferent?
Hell yeah, and there's going tobe echoes.
There's going to be echoesthroughout their family, through
their life, through theirrelationships, because of how
their practice runs.
So let's give you some tacticaltakeaways here from me.
The first thing I want you todo is you got to invest some
(10:29):
owner time in what I call thescaling work.
I call this deep work, I callthis acceleratory work.
This is the stuff that is noturgent, but it is super
important to take you to thenext level.
So invest that time.
It doesn't take a lot, maybe ahalf an hour, an hour every week
.
Just sit down and block out sometime to plan, to say what am I
(10:51):
going to do, and audit all ofyour practice systems for leaks.
Where are you losing time?
Where are you losing patience?
Where are you losing dollars?
Where are you screwing up caseacceptance?
Look at all these leaks andthese levers that you can pull
and then just choose one.
Say this is the one I'm going totackle this month.
Pick one, commit to improvingit for 30 days, get your team
(11:15):
involved, ask some input what todo and then, after 30 days,
measure that impact andcelebrate.
Because guess what, if you putthe time into it and you can
inspire your team to do it,you're going to have some nice
results to celebrate with yourteam and stack those wins, just
like I mentioned, with these 15dentists who joined my
mastermind this year.
It's a 12 month program.
We are going to stack win afterwin over 12 months, so these
(11:39):
people are going to get some bigresults.
So, in closing, I want you tosee that your highest value as
an owner is not just doingdentistry.
It is pulling those levers thatmultiply everyone's efforts.
So what is that one lever thatyou can pull this week that
would pay you back far more thandoing one more crown, because
it wouldn't be just thatshort-term one more crown, it
(12:01):
would be the value of one morecrown for the future of your
career at your practice.
I want you to think like thatway and if you need some help
pulling those levers, findingthose levers, guiding your team,
inspiring them for it, creatingthe systems of leadership in
your practice.
Please check out our website,dentalpracticeheroescom.
We are happy to work with you.
We will have a free strategycall and I will at least talk to
(12:24):
you about what's possible and,at the bare minimum, you're
going to learn something.
So set up a call with me, allright.
Thank you so much for listeningand spending some time of your
day with me.
I will talk to you next time.
All right, I want to talk about a movie that dude.
I loved this movie when I wasin college.
It was called the ButterflyEffect with Ashton Kutcher.
I was never a big AshtonKutcher fan, I don't know why.
I just didn't really like himon that 70s show.
But anyway, I really like thismovie and here's what it's about
.
It's about this guy.
He's having headaches and everytime he has like a headache, he
blacks out and he goes back intime to like formidable, like
(00:26):
moments in his childhood or whenhe was growing up, and he
changes what he did in that timeand then when he comes out of
the headache, his life iscompletely different.
The idea being, if you've everheard about the butterfly effect
, it's saying that, like abutterfly, flapping their wings
across the world, can create atsunami on the other side of the
world.
Just how these little, tinythings over time, and just they
(00:52):
set off this chain of eventsthat has really big effects.
So I was thinking about this inthe realm of practice ownership
and I said, dude, what arethose like small things that we
can do in the practice that havethese huge butterfly effects on
our quality of life and ourprofitability, and the way that
we can do in the practice thathave these huge butterfly
effects on our quality of lifeand our profitability and the
way that we run our practices.
And I think there are thesethings.
There are these little, smalllevers that we can just crank
(01:15):
down and they make a big effect,and that's what I want to share
with you today.
So we're going to figure outwhat are these small little
levers in dentistry that we canpull that have big effects.
Let's do it.
All right, you are listening tothe Dental Practice Heroes
podcast.
Thank you so much for joiningme today.
I'm your host, dr Paul Etcheson.
I am the author of two books ondental practice management, I'm
(01:38):
a dental coach and I'm theowner of a large five-doctor
group practice in the southsuburbs of Chicago.
Now we want to teach you how tohave a better life by creating
a team-driven practice that runswithout you, that is high
profit and requires very littleof your time.
So if that's something you'relooking for, you are in the
right place.
All right, let's jump into it.
(01:59):
We're talking about leverstoday.
Now, the first point I want youto understand is that these
levers there aren't just a few,they are everywhere.
We often think, as practiceowners, that we need these
massive overhauls, we need tochange everything, and what I
want you to realize is that inreality, these small little
(02:22):
tweaks, they can add up if wecan create like a tighter script
with our team, maybe a betterhandoff, maybe we do some things
with our block scheduling.
There's tons of these things.
I'll give you an example.
In my practice we dropped Deltalike two years ago and guess
what?
We stopped seeing new patientsfor Delta.
What happened?
(02:42):
Did they stop calling?
No, we stopped converting them.
So what did we do?
We looked into it, we createdan action plan and a lot of it
was training with the team.
But essentially, if I had tosay what did we do?
We used to just say, hey, we dotake your insurance, but
unfortunately we are an out ofnetwork provider.
And then we would just sitthere and the patient would
(03:03):
pause and they'd say, oh okay,thanks, see ya, and they would
hang up.
That would be it.
After we say that now we justkeep going and we say, but if
you have a PPO, you still getbenefits at this office.
I can look at your plan andtell you what those benefits are
.
If you would like me to.
Can I do that for you?
(03:27):
And oh man, we changed onelittle thing that we said and
now we see out of network newpatients from Delta.
So we're seeing more newpatients, and guess what?
These are great patientsbecause they're out of network.
They're not on that stupidDelta PPO fee schedule that you
can't even pay your team with.
I mean, these are greatpatients.
So what a little tiny lever topull to make a big difference.
Okay, let's talk about why youmight miss these things as an
(03:49):
owner.
Often you want to chase thesebig wins.
You want to say moreoperatories, let's do more
marketing, let's add associatesthe associate fallacy, as I like
to call it.
We just have to add associatesand everything gets better Wrong
.
Now see, you are overlookingall these little leaks that are
right under your nose in yourpractice, and I can tell you
(04:12):
from experience, it is so common, we all do this stuff.
I remember when we first openedlike we started getting some
momentum with new patients.
I was a solo doc, four days aweek.
We were seeing 80 new patientsa month and, my God, everything
was so efficient and so greatuntil we looked at the numbers.
(04:33):
But guess what?
We didn't look at the numbers.
So we didn't know.
So we were happy.
Because when we looked at thenumbers, we realized we had a
big cancellation problem.
We realized we had a bigattrition problem.
We realized we had a big caseacceptance problem.
But guess what, when you don'tlook at those things, you don't
know.
Because you're seeing so manydamn new patients, all that
(04:55):
stuff doesn't matter because itmakes up for that.
But the thing is, as soon as Istarted doing things for the
attrition, for the cancellationsand for the case acceptance
damn dude, we ran out of spaceso fast.
So everything was fine.
Ignorance is bliss, but it'sone of those things that we miss
them because we're not payingattention, we're not looking for
(05:16):
them.
So you've got to look, you'vegot to be checking your numbers
and you've got to be seeing,talking to your team, finding
out what are these little leversthat you can pull, what are the
little tiny things you canoptimize and make more efficient
, and I promise you you're goingto get big results from it.
Now I want to share a storywith you.
When I had my first associatecome on, I cannot remember what
(05:37):
the reason for us hiring aconsultant was.
I think it was my first bout ofoverwhelm.
This was like the first timethat I was like okay, I have an
associate.
It was supposed to make my lifebetter.
I doubled the size of my teamand life is now worse.
What the hell is going on?
I need some help.
And I had this associate,lorraine, and she came in.
She observed us for like a fulltwo days.
(06:02):
It was a really valuable twodays.
I really liked having her inthere.
She was great and I rememberher and I were sitting in my
office and she's asking me a lotof questions.
So we're sitting there.
She's sitting across the deskfrom me and she's asking me a
bunch of questions, she's takinga bunch of notes and she's
telling me things that sheobserved.
And I kept making excuses forthis and that and this, and she
stopped me in the middle of asentence at one point and she
(06:22):
said you know what, if you getone thing from me during this
visit, this is what I want it tobe and I'm just like okay, like
what's that she's like?
I want you to realize that youhave an associate and that
you're the leader of thispractice and that you are so
much more valuable to your teamand to the profitability of this
practice as a trainer and aleader and not as a dentist.
(06:46):
You need to stop being adentist so much.
And I was just like holy shitlike, but I'm really good at
being a dentist, I like being adentist.
I can't stop being a dentist.
But she was right.
The thing is, is we default asdentists?
We say if I want more money, Ihave to do more procedures.
That is the thing in mypractice that I can do that.
No one else can, because I'mlicensed to do it.
(07:07):
But what I want you to see isthat the biggest ROI is not from
squeezing in one more fillingor one more crown or one more
hygiene visit.
It's from fixing the systemsthat make every single filling,
every single crown and everysingle hygiene visit more
profitable.
And owners are so much morevaluable as lever pullers, not
(07:32):
as extra producers.
So when you're looking at yourpractice and you're thinking,
how can I get more out of what Ialready have?
It's not in cramming morepatients, it's not in seeing
more new patients, it's not indoing more crowns.
It's in pulling the smalllevers that work within your
existing systems and your.
So what are some of theselevers that we can pull.
(07:58):
I'm going to give you a fewexamples.
One big one case acceptance.
If we can just change the waywe talk about procedures, that's
a big lever to pull.
If you can build rapport withevery new patient before you
talk about dentistry, that's ahuge one.
If you can train your team onhow to simply talk about every
(08:18):
procedure, there's a big one.
If you can train your front endteam how to present treatment
as a treatment coordinator andhow to utilize all their
financial tools, that's anotherbig one.
There are so many things thatwill help case acceptance, all
the way down to the way youanswer your phone affects it.
Everything affects caseacceptance.
All right, let's talk aboutcancellations.
(08:39):
That's another one.
Everything affects caseacceptance.
All right, let's talk aboutcancellations.
That's another one.
Creating a cancellation policythat your team can follow and
hold them to be accountable toactually following it.
I talked to a lot of practiceowners and they say, yeah, we
get cancellations, but we fillthem really fast.
Cool, I'm happy you fill them,but what would be nicer would be
if you didn't have to fill themat all, if people just didn't
cancel or you didn't let thosetype of people get on your
(09:00):
schedule in the first place.
So there's ways to do that.
What about scheduling?
There's so much we can do aboutscheduling and I think that's
one of the things that DentalPractice Heroes really stands
out in with our training is man.
We will create a schedule inyour practice that will make you
hit your goals and it becomesthe barometer for everything
else.
When you get that scheduletemplate set up the right way,
(09:23):
it just becomes a matter of howdo we fill these blocks in our
schedule and what can we do tomake sure that it happens?
Let's talk about team trainings.
I mean, nobody trains theirfront end.
Nobody does it.
If you tell me you do it, I'llsay what do you do?
What did you do?
Phone training, like four yearsago.
Most people don't pour intotheir front end team and it's
such a missed opportunity.
(09:43):
Team trainings, even justsimple huddles at the beginning
of the day to put everybody onthe same page there are so many
little trainings you can do andthis is what we do with Dental
Practice Heroes.
I mean, we just started thismastermind.
I got 15 dentists with me, wejust kicked it off and we are
going through my seven phaseOmni practice program, start to
finish.
We are going to optimize everylittle thing in our practice.
(10:06):
We're going to pull everysingle lever.
We're going to do it.
What do you think is going tohappen to these people after 12
months of doing this?
Are their practices going to bedifferent?
Hell yeah, and there's going tobe echoes.
There's going to be echoesthroughout their family, through
their life, through theirrelationships, because of how
their practice runs.
So let's give you some tacticaltakeaways here from me.
The first thing I want you todo is you got to invest some
(10:29):
owner time in what I call thescaling work.
I call this deep work, I callthis acceleratory work.
This is the stuff that is noturgent, but it is super
important to take you to thenext level.
So invest that time.
It doesn't take a lot, maybe ahalf an hour, an hour every week
.
Just sit down and block out sometime to plan, to say what am I
(10:51):
going to do, and audit all ofyour practice systems for leaks.
Where are you losing time?
Where are you losing patience?
Where are you losing dollars?
Where are you screwing up caseacceptance?
Look at all these leaks andthese levers that you can pull
and then just choose one.
Say this is the one I'm going totackle this month.
Pick one, commit to improvingit for 30 days, get your team
(11:15):
involved, ask some input what todo and then, after 30 days,
measure that impact andcelebrate.
Because guess what, if you putthe time into it and you can
inspire your team to do it,you're going to have some nice
results to celebrate with yourteam and stack those wins, just
like I mentioned, with these 15dentists who joined my
mastermind this year.
It's a 12 month program.
We are going to stack win afterwin over 12 months, so these
(11:39):
people are going to get some bigresults.
So, in closing, I want you tosee that your highest value as
an owner is not just doingdentistry.
It is pulling those levers thatmultiply everyone's efforts.
So what is that one lever thatyou can pull this week that
would pay you back far more thandoing one more crown, because
it wouldn't be just thatshort-term one more crown, it
(12:01):
would be the value of one morecrown for the future of your
career at your practice.
I want you to think like thatway and if you need some help
pulling those levers, findingthose levers, guiding your team,
inspiring them for it, creatingthe systems of leadership in
your practice.
Please check out our website,dentalpracticeheroescom.
We are happy to work with you.
We will have a free strategycall and I will at least talk to
(12:24):
you about what's possible and,at the bare minimum, you're
going to learn something.
So set up a call with me, allright.
Thank you so much for listeningand spending some time of your
day with me.
I will talk to you next time.
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The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Charlie is America's hardest working grassroots activist who has your inside scoop on the biggest news of the day and what's really going on behind the headlines. The founder of Turning Point USA and one of social media's most engaged personalities, Charlie is on the front lines of America’s culture war, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of students on over 3,500 college and high school campuses across the country, bringing you your daily dose of clarity in a sea of chaos all from his signature no-holds-barred, unapologetically conservative, freedom-loving point of view. You can also watch Charlie Kirk on Salem News Channel