August 20, 2025 • 33 mins
Taking over a practice is hard, but a full overhaul is even harder. In this episode, hear how Dr. Rhonda Kalasho transformed a hygiene-only dental office into a modern, multi-location practice and retained most of the original patient base.
She shares how she pulled it off — from building trust with skeptical patients and getting case acceptance, to rebranding the practice and creating a team culture that supports her vision. Tune in to hear her take on female leadership, why delegation isn’t working for you (and how to fix it), and what it takes to grow a practice and a family!
Topics discussed in this episode:
- The pros and cons of acquisitions vs. startups
- Building trust with existing patients
- Must-have technology in a modern practice
- Establishing yourself as an affordable luxury brand
- TruGlo’s competitive membership model
- How to hire and lead for a strong team culture
- Balancing motherhood and entrepreneurship
- Challenges and solutions in female leadership
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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.
Paul Etchison (00:02):
Would you take over a practice that had a
completely different vision thanyour own?
What is the secret to makingbig changes without losing the
existing patient base?
Today, dr Rhonda Kalasho isback on the show, and this time
we're talking about how sheturned an office where patients
only came in twice a year forcleanings into an affordable
luxury brand.
(00:23):
Today, you'll learn how tobuild trust, starting at the
first appointment when youacquire the practice, why you
might be struggling to delegate,and the one thing that she says
every dental practice needs toinvest in.
You are listening to DentalPractice Heroes, where we help
you to create a team and systemdriven dental practice, one that
allows you to practice less andmake more money.
(00:43):
I'm Dr Paul Etcheson, a dentalcoach, author of two books on
dental practice management andthe owner of a five-doctor
practice in the south suburbs ofChicago.
I wanna show you how beingintentional about ownership can
create a practice that supportsyour life instead of consuming
it.
So if you're ready to create atrue business that runs without
you, you're in the right place.
Let's get started.
Without you, you're in theright place.
(01:10):
Let's get started.
Welcome back to the DentalPractice Heroes podcast.
I'm your host, dr Paul Etchison.
I got a repeat guest onsomebody who came on the show
man maybe about a year and ahalf ago, but just blew me away.
She was from the episode whereit was.
I think it was something aboutacquiring a practice and firing
the whole team.
I don't want to say much aboutthat, but it was one of those
titles that you had to click onbecause you're like what is this
about?
But you know, a multi-practiceowner in California.
(01:33):
She's got three soon to havefour practices.
Multi-practice owner, someonewho's still practicing a mom and
just doing it all.
So please welcome back to thepodcast, dr Rhonda Kalasho.
Welcome back.
How are you?
Rhonda Kalasho (01:47):
Thank you, paul.
Thank you for having me.
I'm great.
I'm 16 days after having mythird baby.
Congratulations, so I'm prettytired, but you caught me.
I'm here at the office.
Paul Etchison (01:59):
Well, funny story for the listeners is that I
texted Rhonda like last week andI said I really want to do an
episode with you.
And she's like well, you knowwhat?
I just had a baby and I'mlooking to get back into it, so
let's party.
And we scheduled this way.
Like three days later she wasready to go.
So, like I love I've always likewhen I met you the first time,
I was just blown away about yourleadership and just your
(02:19):
entrepreneurial, just prowess,just like how sure you were
about what you wanted with yourpractice.
And I won't give away much ofthe previous episode.
But Rhonda essentially said Iacquired a practice, I knew what
I wanted, I had my team and Iwent in and I didn't want to do
the old thing, I wanted to dothings my way.
So she was very clear on thevision and direction that she
took it in.
But before we talk about whereyou're at now, let's talk about
(02:40):
your practice journey, like whatbrought you into the first
practice and how did that turninto two and three and now soon
to be four?
Rhonda Kalasho (02:45):
Yeah, absolutely .
I actually knew I wanted to gointo owning my own dental office
.
I just didn't think it wasmulti-practice and that's
because my background was mostlybusiness.
That's not the story for a lotof people that come into dental
school.
I was very familiar withaccounting and all that stuff
too.
So when I got out I had an ideaI want to own my own practice.
(03:06):
I just didn't know how and Iturned to kind of podcasts and
reading some material that hadto do with not only owning a
dental office but owningbusiness.
Right, I pick up multiple booksand even marketing books or
whatever.
It is just kind of getting myfoot through the door on what it
took to open up a business andall that.
So I learned the trade and thenwhen I got it after my
residency, I actually went towork for a great office in
(03:30):
Orange County.
I loved it.
I was going to buy that one,but I understood at the time
that it was.
Once I started to understandwhat value what gives a value to
a practice I realized that thatactually was not the place for
me.
But an acquisition came up.
So an acquisition came up inHollywood, california.
I was connected with somebodythat didn't want to practice
(03:51):
dentistry anymore.
She was just kind of beat up,tired, because this job is
really not for everybody, butshe had a good hygiene program
so she had a lot of recalls thatwere in the chair but there was
no dentistry.
So that, if anybody knows, is agoldm right Like so there's a
bunch of people coming in butnobody is doing the exams.
I ended up getting that thatfor very affordable, owned that
about a year after graduatingfrom my residency program, which
(04:13):
was a GPR, and that GPR was soheavily intense in surgery and
endo and everything like that,so I came out being a very
intense super GP.
Also, I'm like a CE junkie too.
I still continue to get all theCEs and I kind of mastered the
craft in doing the moresurgically intense and difficult
procedures which really grew mypatient pool.
(04:34):
I didn't have to send outthings or refer out a lot, which
kept a lot of things in house.
And that acquisition, which wasessentially almost a bankrupt
practice, that acquisition endedup getting 10x in the first
year and so it was incredible,really eye-opening experience
for me too.
And you mentioned in thebeginning I fired everybody
during an acquisition.
You have an option of keepingthe team or letting them go.
(04:57):
I also had a vision, because Iwas telling you I was reading a
lot of marketing books and I wasreading business books and I
knew exactly what the kind offeel I wanted in that office
from the people to the smells,to everything in that, to the
aesthetics.
I knew what I wanted and when Iwent in there it wasn't there.
So I had to just gut the placeand then from there I thought my
(05:18):
acquisition was kind ofdifficult.
It was a little bit of adifficult turn because a lot of
times I found that the patientswere a little bit turned off
where they were so used to justkind of coming in for cleanings.
And then when somebody wouldcome in for an exam and that big
amalgam filling that's leakingand the tooth is gray and has a
crack and I'm taking a pictureof it and diagnosing it, they're
(05:39):
like who's this one, who's thislady?
Like that's never been wrongwith it the last 20 years, why
not, you know?
So I had to come in kind of onmy tippy toes but still super
confident.
I explained everything reallywell to patients.
I spent a lot of time with themso that they were able to
understand.
The treatment showed intraoralphotos, trained my staff really
well, where everybody was kindof repeating the same thing and
then patients would stay.
(06:00):
But the attrition rate and thentrying to kind of blend these
people to fit your mold getskind of hard right.
So sometimes a build out issometimes easier, but it's hard
in other senses because youdon't have the cashflow right
away.
So if you kind of can mitigateyour cashflow to be sustainable
(06:24):
for at least six months, abuildup is definitely something
that you can do.
Paul Etchison (06:28):
Now, what you did when you took over this
practice is you bought thispatient base, which I think a
lot of dentists can relate to,because a lot of people do
acquisitions.
But I'd love to hear your takeon.
How did you approach thatsituation when patients that
have been seen by a previousdoctor maybe watched a bunch of
giant amalgams and now?
here you are with a differenttreatment philosophy and you
(06:49):
have to gain the trust of thisperson because you don't want to
lose them, but at the same timeyou see some things in their
mouth that you're really notcomfortable watching, Like how
do you walk that line?
Rhonda Kalasho (06:57):
Yeah, I think it comes down to your confidence
and you're able to talk to themlike people and they really see
that you care.
It's your ability tocommunicate and I really think
that the best tool for a dentistif nobody has this, I think
every chair should becomeequipped with it is an intraoral
camera.
The intraoral camera is a must,an absolute game changer, and
if your monitor is not clearenough, like it looks kind of
(07:20):
blurry.
I've seen that too.
I've gone to dental offices myfriends of ours that they're
like oh you know, I just kind ofgo in sometimes, and not as a
consultant or anything, butthey'll kind of express some
issues and say, but I just wantto see their setup, but the
intraoral camera being connectedto a low scale monitor that
gives you blurry images is notgoing to help, right.
(07:40):
So sometimes you want to getone of those I'm not saying like
get an OLED, but you do want toget those high definition
monitors.
You can even get TB screens toattach and then get a mount and
attach it to directly to yourdental chair where it's like in
the patient's face and they cansee it.
You don't have to get theselittle small monitors.
Invest in like a 25 inch, likereally get it pretty good so
that when they're sitting up,have them sit up during their
(08:01):
treatment, their treatmentplanning.
Get them face to face with youso that they can see the
sincerity on your face.
Kind of pull your mask down anddon't talk to them with your
mask up.
Sit face to face with them,have a good conversation before
you delve into the dentistry,ask a little bit about them and
just kind of relate to them on apersonal level.
But then you go into thetreatment and also, how do you
(08:23):
build the rapport?
How do you make them feel likethey're competent in you?
Don't just go all right, mrsJones, you got three or four
cavities and I think we'regetting new fillings on this and
this and maybe a crown here andthe front will take care of you
If you have any questions.
It's just all jargon to them.
Instead, what I would recommendfirst is do a comprehensive
(08:44):
treatment plan.
That means go over theirmedical history before you even
talk about their dentistry andyou should know what the
different thyroid medicationsare.
You should know the diabeticmedications and all and being
able to kind of ask them abouttheir hypertensive medications.
And then you're not diagnosingthem.
But just know, they now know,oh, I'm sitting across from a
(09:06):
doctor, I'm not sitting acrossfrom the hygienist, right.
So they now feel like, okay,now you got the white coat on,
Now you got the white badge on,right.
So after that you can even startpalpating for any lymph nodes
or start clearing yourself there, check their TMJ, have them
open and close and really get aexternal visual and
(09:26):
understanding of them.
Hopefully you have like a iTero, which is the 5D scanner or
whatever 5D scan.
Those are awesome to alsodisplay right behind you too,
when you're talking about, maybeocclusion, because they're
going to wonder why do I havecracks there?
Maybe it's their occlusion andtheir grinding or parafunctional
habits, whatever it may be.
(09:47):
But the intraoral camera withthe background that you just
showed that you knew a lot morethan just dentistry.
You gave them a comprehensiveunderstanding of themselves and
you can always say I understandthe dentist before.
Maybe they didn't bring it up,but they might not have the tool
.
This is where it gets.
It will sell you.
You want to say something likethey might never dog that other
dentist.
That is the worst thing youcould do.
So now, that person justprobably didn't know what they
(10:10):
were looking at.
No, it's just, I always saythey probably didn't have the
technology available that wehave here.
That shows them, one, you'remodern.
Two, that, yeah, the otherpro-dentists are not dogging
them, and that actually justshow that, on a personal level,
that you're even, how relatableyou are, you know, they feel a
little bit more comfortable andconfident with you.
(10:30):
And then when you say that theyprobably didn't have the
technology, they now think, huh,what else can you find?
Right?
But now you took a treatmentplan that maybe somebody would
have been like, well, crown hereand a crown here.
And now you've comprehensivelytreatment plan them where you
fix their perio health.
Then you can go into occlusionand you can go into restore.
(10:50):
Of course you want to handleanything that's really bad first
, like abscesses or pain or anyof that, and then at the end you
want to say I know this seemslike a lot and you went to
someone that basically told youyou were good this whole time.
And then I'm coming here.
You got to say the obvious outloud.
You're coming here probablythinking that, oh, she's
diagnosing a lot, but justunderstand that they probably
didn't have this technology andI'm seeing these cracks and it
(11:13):
doesn't make me feel good tojust leave it there, so I would
recommend that you at leastrestore this.
What you should do is notcompletely not diagnose things,
diagnose it all, but then give.
Paul Etchison (11:27):
What I love what you said is that I think the
doctors that often have troublewith this is they walk in, they
meet a patient that's beenseeing a previous doctor for
many years and they don't reallydo anything different.
They just look at it and say,well, I know they didn't say
anything about this, but you'vegot this, this, this and this,
and there's no evidence tosupport where you're saying like
, hey, mr Jones, I don't want totell you that you have this
(11:48):
stuff, but I'm not comfortablewatching it.
Do that?
You have this stuff, but I'mnot comfortable watching it.
Do you see this?
Do you see what I have here?
Look, look, and I love thetechnology thing.
I use that all the timeWhenever I see a patient.
Well, why did my doctor sayanything about it last time?
And I say you know what?
I don't know what it lookedlike last time, but all I'm
saying is like these x-rays, thestuff we have here is state of
the art.
It talks up your own practice.
I love that.
I do something very similar tothat.
(12:08):
Now.
Talk about you'd have thisfirst acquisition, now your next
few practices, your next threepractices, startups.
So why the pivot fromacquisitions to startups going
forward?
Rhonda Kalasho (12:27):
Yeah, I was kind of tired of that, the trying to
unconvince someone of, oh, youonly need two cleanings a year
and it's only what insurancepays for, and they were
conditioned.
You can condition your patientpool and then it's also like I
wanted to.
I'm not entirely fee forservice but my associates are in
(12:47):
network, I am not right.
So I also wanted to have agroup of people who were okay of
being out of network in thefees.
Right.
So because we have so manyproviders, you could still be in
network with some providers,but out of network with mostly
me.
So when I wanted to go to mysecond location that one I
wanted to make sure that it wasspacious enough.
(13:08):
A lot of the acquisitions theywere like three or four chairs.
I just didn't also find theright fit.
So I wanted to make sure theyhad at least five to six chairs.
And all of our locations arenot super huge.
They're all kind of boutique-ybut at the same time they're not
the cheapest, right.
What I wanted to create as abrand for affordable luxury
right.
So it's affordable luxury.
(13:28):
You go to the dental office.
It's concierge.
There's somebody available tospeak to 24 hours of the day.
If you're having any problems,you can text directly and you
reach somebody.
He can call the office.
So you'll reach someone in 24hours of the day.
We have an answering service andthen that gets to one of the
main nurses that are theassistants that are on call for
that day, and that is because wehave a membership base.
(13:51):
So we're also.
We have membership options forpatients too that are really
competitive competitive almostwith insurance.
And how I was able to do thatis I have my own laboratory
right, and so with my ownlaboratory I'm able to kind of
the costs become little bit moredigestible, and insurance
(14:12):
doesn't pay for veneers orInvisalign and if it does, it
pays a percentage.
With our membership fee we'reable to include everything and
give them almost in some cases40% off UCR.
But 40% off UCR is still morethan insurance would have paid
us.
So I think that's why I wanted asecond location I didn't want
(14:33):
to come up with.
I buy a practice and theperson's sitting in the chair
and they were used to DrSo-and-so, and then I come in
and I'm like hey, welcome toTrulo.
It's like because it's a brandright.
Imagine you were drinkingArrowhead water all the time and
I'm coming in with sparklingPer Perrier.
It's like that you're going toget sticker shocked.
(14:54):
It's not what people came for,so I wanted people to come to me
Right, and so that's what thebuild outs and the startups came
from.
Paul Etchison (15:01):
Yeah, you know, it's interesting is like, what I
hear you saying is that you'veput a lot of thought into like,
what are the promises of thebrand?
Like, what is what does thisbrand stand for?
What do we do?
Or concierge, we're availableall the time.
So you've actually defined whoyou are, which is really cool,
and I think a lot of dentistscould benefit from doing so.
You know they feel like, well,I'm, I'm not the boutique-y like
(15:23):
spa-like that well, it doesn'tmatter.
I mean, who are you then?
I mean, even if you don'tdefine who you are, your
patients have a view of you andwho you are.
I'm curious to hear, like, howhas your leadership changed from
going to one to two, to three,to soon to four different
locations?
Rhonda Kalasho (15:42):
Yeah, a year ago , when you talked to me, I had.
A year ago I had two and then Ibuilt two in about a year and a
half, so it's pretty fast.
Paul Etchison (15:49):
How do you manage all that as well as like having
your third child, like being amom at the same time?
Rhonda Kalasho (15:56):
Yeah, it's a lot .
I mean, I really caution peoplewho romanticize owning a
business and also being a mom.
They're two of the mostdifficult jobs is motherhood and
being an entrepreneur right?
Because you're responsible forso many lives, not only your own
, but as an entrepreneur, you'reresponsible for all your
employees, not only your own,but as an entrepreneur, you're
(16:18):
responsible for all youremployees and their children.
So you have a lot ofresponsibility and that's a lot
of stress for a lot of people.
And so if you don't have a lotof mindfulness, you're not
mindfully secure, you know, likementally secure and being able
to really find joy in the chaos,because that's what it is.
Then it gets really stressfuland it can be kind of a lonely
world as well, because a lot ofpeople can't relate to you
(16:38):
completely.
They'll wonder like, especiallyfor me, I get who's watching
your kid?
And there's a really funny skitof she's a.
She's a comedian.
I had it on my Instagram butshe was.
She was like, well, the TV iswatching the baby.
But you know, luckily I havehelp.
I have my mom and mymother-in-law and then I have a
nanny, you know.
So it's all delegation.
(16:58):
Even in your work life youdelegate and in your private
life, you should delegate.
You shouldn't hold so muchweight on your shoulders.
But don't be surprised when theweight gets super heavy,
because it does.
It gets really, really hard andI think a lot of my strength
comes because and it could beanything but I meditate a lot,
(17:18):
but I'm religious, so, like I dopray a lot, so that does help.
I feel like I get a lot ofdivinity through that and divine
intervention.
Sometimes it feels like I feellike I have somebody on my side
and that, whatever that is, it'sreally important.
Whatever you can find, if it'sreligion or if it's someone
around you, Like I love podcastslike this because you can talk
(17:39):
to people who are in the same.
Some people may think like it'sall glamorous, right, and
they'll say, oh, wow, she's gotmultiple practices, she looks so
pretty and healthy and alive onInstagram, but they don't know
that there is a lot of timeswhere they're sleepless nights.
There is a lot of stress.
You're battling cashflow issuesand you're talking to your CFO
(18:01):
and trying to mitigate the nextcouple of months and you're
trying to find out how muchyou're gonna spend on marketing
in this location.
This location spent too much.
This one's too low.
You're looking at your KPIs.
You're looking at your KPIs.
You're constantly studying yournumbers and making sure that
you are playing 40 chess withall your practices.
You want to make sure that youknow exactly what's going to
happen in the next six months,because if you don't, you're not
(18:23):
going to have a problem in yourlife.
All these people that depend onyou are going to have an issue.
So there's so much stressthat's involved in the field.
But I like it.
So I really do like it.
I love dentistry.
I love it.
I think it's artistic, I thinkit's medicine and art and
science all meshed into one.
(18:43):
When you do these beautifulrestorative cases and, like I
said, I have my own laboratoryso I know dental materials
really well when you can pulloff these beautiful aesthetic
cases without having to cut downtoo much tooth structure but
they're very sound, very, verybeautiful and layered and
cosmetic and you got that andthe patient's super happy, your
staff is super happy becausethey have a job and people like
(19:04):
them, the patients feel good,they feel good and you just kind
of you create this environmentaround you that's positive, then
you start to really feel goodabout what you're doing, when
you're wearing all these hatsthe mommy hat, the entrepreneur
hat you can't try to balancethem all in one head because one
of them is going to fall offright.
When you're wearing your mommyhat, you wear it complete.
(19:24):
So that means don't pick up thephone for work and all that
kind of stuff and don't do ahundred other things while
you're with your kids.
Your kids should just be.
You set aside time for justyour children and just for your
husband, and you set aside timejust for them, and then when
you're at work, you're a hundredpercent at work, right, and so
you have to give yourself yougotta give everybody 110%, which
gets really hard.
(19:45):
But at the same time,understand that the way that you
come in to present yourself, ifyou are presenting yourself
just a little bit slower, moremindful, more collected and
ready to problem solve, you'regoing to notice there's going to
be a change in the atmospherearound you.
Paul Etchison (20:03):
I love that analogy.
Yeah, you know I'm curious.
I mean you mentioned thatyou've delegated a little bit on
the home front with.
I mean you've got help withyour mother-in-law and your mom
and a nanny as well.
Do you have that person on thebusiness front?
I mean you've got almost fourpractices.
Rhonda Kalasho (20:16):
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
How does?
Paul Etchison (20:18):
that look like for your leadership team for
running the businesses.
Rhonda Kalasho (20:22):
Yep.
So for leadership, we're reallyhighly into making sure that we
understand the person'spersonality, like if they are a
extrovert, then they would begood in post-op calls right,
post-op calls how are you?
You had an extraction yesterday.
We're just making sure thatyou're doing okay, you're taking
all your medication.
They're talking to them,they're on the up and up Anytime
(20:43):
we do any invasive procedures,we do post-op calls for them and
sometimes a doctor can alsopick that up too.
But we really like that.
We think that that's beenreally helpful.
Patients appreciate it as wellwhen it comes to, for instance,
the manager.
The manager is a leader.
They are not introverts.
They are also not too social,like you know.
They don't want to beeverybody's friend, but at the
(21:04):
same time they don't makeenemies.
So we use something calledculture index, which is a
personality, but called cultureindex, which is a personality,
but it's a personalized test,but not really it's a job
behavior, it's for job behavior,and then, when they are they
fit the kind of characteristicsyou want for a particular job.
You put them in that role andthen that's how you delegate
appropriately, because you candelegate.
(21:26):
But you can delegate somethingto someone and it will never get
done, because they're not meantfor that.
You're going to be, even ifit's something as small as I'm
delegating you to clean theentire storage cabinet.
But that person is sluggish,not really organized you should
probably see their own bedrooms.
It's probably not that clean,right?
So, like you want to make surethat the person that you're
choosing to organize isorganized right, so like they
(21:50):
have to exactly do what you'reexpecting of them.
They're going to be more happy,you're going to be happy, but
at the same time, they also aregoing to feel fulfilled in their
job, because a lot of jobfulfillment comes from feeling
as though their personalattributes are being displayed
appropriately at work.
So you get some people who arereally logical or some people
who are really creative, butthey're in the back sterilizing.
(22:13):
You know they may be better forlead positions and you just may
not know that.
And if you didn't test that out, yeah, so I love you.
Paul Etchison (22:21):
using the personality test it reminds me
of, dr Henry Ernst is a DPHcoach and a regular on the
podcast and that's somethingthat he very much does, and I
forget which one he does itmight have been Colby or
something like that yeah, but hetalks about that often and he
says it's been a game changerfor his practice.
Now I'm curious if you've gotany listeners and they're
listening to you and they'resaying I'm just curious, what
(22:43):
specific challenges have youfelt as far as leading a large
team as a female and have youhad to approach anything
different?
Because this is something Ioften hear with my coaching
clients.
A lot of them are female andthey'll ask me like, well, how
do I do that as a female, andsometimes I don't think I have
the best answer for them.
So I'm curious, like, what youthink about a big team and any
(23:06):
specific challenges to femaleleadership?
Rhonda Kalasho (23:09):
I know that men have been deemed the
non-communicative ones, but Idon't think that's always the
case.
I noticed that, also, femaleslike to bottle things up,
especially the ones that are inthe leadership position.
They don't like when someonedoes something and then they're
like I just don't want to.
They're too afraid to bring upsomething that they've seen that
they don't like, right.
They don't know how to do it,they don't know how to go about
(23:31):
it, and then they get.
They almost become introvertedin their own little niche, and
they shouldn't, because they are.
They're big kahunas, right.
So if something is nothappening that you want to see
done in your practice and it isnot being done, you have to
bring it up immediately, right?
And it's something like thisLike, let's say that I'll give
(23:52):
you a example the office manageris a little too lenient on
people coming in late, right,and by late I mean if you're not
five minutes before schedule,you're late, right, like.
So if they are always late,they're coming past the time.
You're already in huddle andpeople are kind of running in
(24:13):
with their Starbucks cup andthey're throwing things down and
you're noticing that manager isnot reprimanding that or in
being too lenient on that thatis something where you have to
now question your manager's role.
So a manager needs to call outstuff like that.
They need to hold peopleaccountable.
You should not feel that youare the person that has to talk
(24:36):
to them.
See, if you're the leader andyou're the owner, you don't tell
the dental assistant hey,you're always late, that's not
your job.
That's where delegation comesthrough, and so communicate that
to your office manager.
Hey, I need you to be on top ofyour team, because if one
person comes in late and thatperson gets the A-OK, then
(25:01):
another person comes in late.
We've set a precedent that it'sokay to roll in five minutes
into the huddle and they'vemissed everything, right.
And then you reiterate what wasimportant about the huddle.
The huddle talked about pendingtreatment that was there that
has yet to be had by thosepatients.
It talked about deductiblesthat a patient may owe, or if
they have another cleaning, orif they have a waiting period or
(25:21):
whatever it is.
And now that person doesn'tknow.
And then the way that youshould communicate that to your
office manager is you make themfeel like they gave themselves
more work because you're goingto say now you have to explain
it to the dental assistant, passyour time and you got a lot of
things to do and always ask them.
(25:41):
Do you feel like that degradesyou a little bit?
Do you think that they'retaking advantage of you?
Always ask them.
So how do you want to fix that?
That's how a leader talks.
You let them do the work.
Don't ever dictate anything,don't tell them.
I want you to fire them, I wantyou to give them a warning.
I want you to don't do any ofthat.
And then you gave them morefeeling like they have more of a
(26:02):
say in your practice.
They now feel like leadersbecause you gave them a
leadership role.
And now you have also acompanion, because that's really
hard to find someone that youcan also run your team with.
If you feel like you're theonly person that's telling
everyone what to do, that worldis lonely and inefficient.
Paul Etchison (26:23):
Yeah, very much and I love, like what I heard
you say was that, dr Rhonda?
It is important to Dr Rhondathat people come in on time and
myself, as the office manager,that's my responsibility to make
sure that they do it.
And I think what we often do iswe let things slide, like you
say, and then more people do it,and then one day we decide I'm
not going to tolerate thisanymore and we go say, hey, you
(26:45):
show up late all the time andthey say well, so does someone
else, you never yelled on oneother and now we're inconsistent
.
But I love that you broughtthat up because I think that's a
lot of times me personally.
I've noticed that with myselfthat the situations that have
got to big, colossal proportionsat the office like big things
where there's a lot of emotionsriding on the situation, the
(27:06):
conversation were always thingsthat I didn't address when they
were very small and they arealways things that I just cared
about, just not enough to sayanything, but enough to say
anything after it's happened somany times, because I just
expect that everybody has thesame expectations as me and it's
not the case.
Rhonda Kalasho (27:24):
Being a leader is.
It's all about communication.
I almost feel like my job atthis point in my career is I
manage people.
I manage human beings.
That's all I do.
It's like I have a chess boardof humans and I'm moving them
Like okay, this one goes herenow.
But it's not even that I'mmoving them myself.
I'm whispering and I'm tellingwhere do you think you should go
(27:46):
?
Go to space of the head, becauseif you allow people some
autonomy, you'd be surprised youget a really good turnout of
people.
They feel more fulfilled intheir job too.
Also, I should mention, likesometimes when you see even an
employee so I make every littlewin for somebody a big deal,
that's another thing.
(28:06):
So like the office gets twofive-star reviews in one week,
and maybe that's not somethingyou guys get right.
Like maybe you guys get onefive-star reviews in one week,
and maybe that's not somethingyou guys get right.
Like maybe you guys get onefive-star review every like
three weeks, I don't know.
Or like hey guys, you did soawesome.
I can't believe that you guyshave five five-star reviews, and
it's only you know, it's onlyThursday.
That's insane.
I'm going to send you guyslunch.
(28:27):
You do stuff like that that'ssuper, super important.
It builds office culture andoffice culture is felt
everywhere.
Even the patient feels officeculture.
So people are happy, satisfied,smiling, giggling Dentists are
not passing by each other's inthe hall.
They look like they don't wantto be there and everybody's just
(28:47):
positive.
Patients feel it too.
Paul Etchison (28:50):
Love it, you know .
Final question is what do yousee for yourself in the future
and what do you see for reallytrue Globe, Modern Dental, Like
I mean, are you guys going tocertain amount of locations Like
what do you want?
Rhonda Kalasho (29:01):
Yeah, I'd like to open a couple more locations.
One of my really good friendsasked me he has a great podcast
too but he was like how many doyou want?
I?
Honestly, at one point I said Iwanted 10, but I think it's
getting to be, because if I wantall of them to be five stars
and I want them all to be likethis, it's very hard to find the
(29:22):
people.
So the biggest thing and I knowthis is true for everybody it's
hard to find good employees andso I have to keep that level.
I have to replicate it everysingle time.
Once Starbucks opens, it's like50th location.
They're not all five starsanymore, right, and so there
becomes a point where it getsreally difficult to manage that
and maintain that.
So if I wanted to create thataffordable luxury unfortunately
(29:43):
it's not going to be 50, right,it's going to probably be less
than 10, but I'm thinking morealong the lines of about six so
I think two more after thisshould be good.
I just want to build out mybrand, provide great dentistry,
have amazing staff that loveworking here and love what they
do.
Hopefully they stay for a longtime.
(30:04):
We incentivize them enough tomaybe stay around, and you know,
I don't have a lot of turnover.
I get good practices that arewell-rated and well-respected
and then I can die happy.
Yeah, I get good practices thatare well-rated and
well-respected and then I candie happy.
Paul Etchison (30:16):
Yeah, no, I love that, and I think it's perfect
to have a good idea of what isenough, because I think a lot of
us do go into it like, oh, Iwant 10, I want 20.
But gosh, you know what?
Thanks so much for coming backon the podcast.
Congrats to you having anotherchild.
Thank you so much and being ableto juggle it all and just be a
good just, you know, arepresentative of what we really
can aspire to and so manydentists can aspire to, not so
(30:38):
much just like more and morebusiness, but finding exactly
what it is that is the rightamount for you and your comfort
level, while still managingfamily and the things that light
you up and make you happy.
So I think this was a reallygreat episode for all the
listeners and for management andjust.
I love hearing you.
I'd love to get you on thepodcast again, maybe a year from
(30:59):
now, and just check in, butthanks again for coming on.
Rhonda Kalasho (31:02):
Then that time I'll probably be on the fifth
one.
Paul Etchison (31:05):
Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Rhonda Kalasho (31:07):
We'll see.
Paul Etchison (31:07):
Thank you so much , Rhonda.
Rhonda Kalasho (31:09):
Okay, my dear, thank you so much.
Would you take over a practice that had a
completely different vision thanyour own?
What is the secret to makingbig changes without losing the
existing patient base?
Today, dr Rhonda Kalasho isback on the show, and this time
we're talking about how sheturned an office where patients
only came in twice a year forcleanings into an affordable
luxury brand.
(00:23):
Today, you'll learn how tobuild trust, starting at the
first appointment when youacquire the practice, why you
might be struggling to delegate,and the one thing that she says
every dental practice needs toinvest in.
You are listening to DentalPractice Heroes, where we help
you to create a team and systemdriven dental practice, one that
allows you to practice less andmake more money.
(00:43):
I'm Dr Paul Etcheson, a dentalcoach, author of two books on
dental practice management andthe owner of a five-doctor
practice in the south suburbs ofChicago.
I wanna show you how beingintentional about ownership can
create a practice that supportsyour life instead of consuming
it.
So if you're ready to create atrue business that runs without
you, you're in the right place.
Let's get started.
Without you, you're in theright place.
(01:10):
Let's get started.
Welcome back to the DentalPractice Heroes podcast.
I'm your host, dr Paul Etchison.
I got a repeat guest onsomebody who came on the show
man maybe about a year and ahalf ago, but just blew me away.
She was from the episode whereit was.
I think it was something aboutacquiring a practice and firing
the whole team.
I don't want to say much aboutthat, but it was one of those
titles that you had to click onbecause you're like what is this
about?
But you know, a multi-practiceowner in California.
(01:33):
She's got three soon to havefour practices.
Multi-practice owner, someonewho's still practicing a mom and
just doing it all.
So please welcome back to thepodcast, dr Rhonda Kalasho.
Welcome back.
How are you?
Rhonda Kalasho (01:47):
Thank you, paul.
Thank you for having me.
I'm great.
I'm 16 days after having mythird baby.
Congratulations, so I'm prettytired, but you caught me.
I'm here at the office.
Paul Etchison (01:59):
Well, funny story for the listeners is that I
texted Rhonda like last week andI said I really want to do an
episode with you.
And she's like well, you knowwhat?
I just had a baby and I'mlooking to get back into it, so
let's party.
And we scheduled this way.
Like three days later she wasready to go.
So, like I love I've always likewhen I met you the first time,
I was just blown away about yourleadership and just your
(02:19):
entrepreneurial, just prowess,just like how sure you were
about what you wanted with yourpractice.
And I won't give away much ofthe previous episode.
But Rhonda essentially said Iacquired a practice, I knew what
I wanted, I had my team and Iwent in and I didn't want to do
the old thing, I wanted to dothings my way.
So she was very clear on thevision and direction that she
took it in.
But before we talk about whereyou're at now, let's talk about
(02:40):
your practice journey, like whatbrought you into the first
practice and how did that turninto two and three and now soon
to be four?
Rhonda Kalasho (02:45):
Yeah, absolutely .
I actually knew I wanted to gointo owning my own dental office
.
I just didn't think it wasmulti-practice and that's
because my background was mostlybusiness.
That's not the story for a lotof people that come into dental
school.
I was very familiar withaccounting and all that stuff
too.
So when I got out I had an ideaI want to own my own practice.
(03:06):
I just didn't know how and Iturned to kind of podcasts and
reading some material that hadto do with not only owning a
dental office but owningbusiness.
Right, I pick up multiple booksand even marketing books or
whatever.
It is just kind of getting myfoot through the door on what it
took to open up a business andall that.
So I learned the trade and thenwhen I got it after my
residency, I actually went towork for a great office in
(03:30):
Orange County.
I loved it.
I was going to buy that one,but I understood at the time
that it was.
Once I started to understandwhat value what gives a value to
a practice I realized that thatactually was not the place for
me.
But an acquisition came up.
So an acquisition came up inHollywood, california.
I was connected with somebodythat didn't want to practice
(03:51):
dentistry anymore.
She was just kind of beat up,tired, because this job is
really not for everybody, butshe had a good hygiene program
so she had a lot of recalls thatwere in the chair but there was
no dentistry.
So that, if anybody knows, is agoldm right Like so there's a
bunch of people coming in butnobody is doing the exams.
I ended up getting that thatfor very affordable, owned that
about a year after graduatingfrom my residency program, which
(04:13):
was a GPR, and that GPR was soheavily intense in surgery and
endo and everything like that,so I came out being a very
intense super GP.
Also, I'm like a CE junkie too.
I still continue to get all theCEs and I kind of mastered the
craft in doing the moresurgically intense and difficult
procedures which really grew mypatient pool.
(04:34):
I didn't have to send outthings or refer out a lot, which
kept a lot of things in house.
And that acquisition, which wasessentially almost a bankrupt
practice, that acquisition endedup getting 10x in the first
year and so it was incredible,really eye-opening experience
for me too.
And you mentioned in thebeginning I fired everybody
during an acquisition.
You have an option of keepingthe team or letting them go.
(04:57):
I also had a vision, because Iwas telling you I was reading a
lot of marketing books and I wasreading business books and I
knew exactly what the kind offeel I wanted in that office
from the people to the smells,to everything in that, to the
aesthetics.
I knew what I wanted and when Iwent in there it wasn't there.
So I had to just gut the placeand then from there I thought my
(05:18):
acquisition was kind ofdifficult.
It was a little bit of adifficult turn because a lot of
times I found that the patientswere a little bit turned off
where they were so used to justkind of coming in for cleanings.
And then when somebody wouldcome in for an exam and that big
amalgam filling that's leakingand the tooth is gray and has a
crack and I'm taking a pictureof it and diagnosing it, they're
(05:39):
like who's this one, who's thislady?
Like that's never been wrongwith it the last 20 years, why
not, you know?
So I had to come in kind of onmy tippy toes but still super
confident.
I explained everything reallywell to patients.
I spent a lot of time with themso that they were able to
understand.
The treatment showed intraoralphotos, trained my staff really
well, where everybody was kindof repeating the same thing and
then patients would stay.
(06:00):
But the attrition rate and thentrying to kind of blend these
people to fit your mold getskind of hard right.
So sometimes a build out issometimes easier, but it's hard
in other senses because youdon't have the cashflow right
away.
So if you kind of can mitigateyour cashflow to be sustainable
(06:24):
for at least six months, abuildup is definitely something
that you can do.
Paul Etchison (06:28):
Now, what you did when you took over this
practice is you bought thispatient base, which I think a
lot of dentists can relate to,because a lot of people do
acquisitions.
But I'd love to hear your takeon.
How did you approach thatsituation when patients that
have been seen by a previousdoctor maybe watched a bunch of
giant amalgams and now?
here you are with a differenttreatment philosophy and you
(06:49):
have to gain the trust of thisperson because you don't want to
lose them, but at the same timeyou see some things in their
mouth that you're really notcomfortable watching, Like how
do you walk that line?
Rhonda Kalasho (06:57):
Yeah, I think it comes down to your confidence
and you're able to talk to themlike people and they really see
that you care.
It's your ability tocommunicate and I really think
that the best tool for a dentistif nobody has this, I think
every chair should becomeequipped with it is an intraoral
camera.
The intraoral camera is a must,an absolute game changer, and
if your monitor is not clearenough, like it looks kind of
(07:20):
blurry.
I've seen that too.
I've gone to dental offices myfriends of ours that they're
like oh you know, I just kind ofgo in sometimes, and not as a
consultant or anything, butthey'll kind of express some
issues and say, but I just wantto see their setup, but the
intraoral camera being connectedto a low scale monitor that
gives you blurry images is notgoing to help, right.
(07:40):
So sometimes you want to getone of those I'm not saying like
get an OLED, but you do want toget those high definition
monitors.
You can even get TB screens toattach and then get a mount and
attach it to directly to yourdental chair where it's like in
the patient's face and they cansee it.
You don't have to get theselittle small monitors.
Invest in like a 25 inch, likereally get it pretty good so
that when they're sitting up,have them sit up during their
(08:01):
treatment, their treatmentplanning.
Get them face to face with youso that they can see the
sincerity on your face.
Kind of pull your mask down anddon't talk to them with your
mask up.
Sit face to face with them,have a good conversation before
you delve into the dentistry,ask a little bit about them and
just kind of relate to them on apersonal level.
But then you go into thetreatment and also, how do you
(08:23):
build the rapport?
How do you make them feel likethey're competent in you?
Don't just go all right, mrsJones, you got three or four
cavities and I think we'regetting new fillings on this and
this and maybe a crown here andthe front will take care of you
If you have any questions.
It's just all jargon to them.
Instead, what I would recommendfirst is do a comprehensive
(08:44):
treatment plan.
That means go over theirmedical history before you even
talk about their dentistry andyou should know what the
different thyroid medicationsare.
You should know the diabeticmedications and all and being
able to kind of ask them abouttheir hypertensive medications.
And then you're not diagnosingthem.
But just know, they now know,oh, I'm sitting across from a
(09:06):
doctor, I'm not sitting acrossfrom the hygienist, right.
So they now feel like, okay,now you got the white coat on,
Now you got the white badge on,right.
So after that you can even startpalpating for any lymph nodes
or start clearing yourself there, check their TMJ, have them
open and close and really get aexternal visual and
(09:26):
understanding of them.
Hopefully you have like a iTero, which is the 5D scanner or
whatever 5D scan.
Those are awesome to alsodisplay right behind you too,
when you're talking about, maybeocclusion, because they're
going to wonder why do I havecracks there?
Maybe it's their occlusion andtheir grinding or parafunctional
habits, whatever it may be.
(09:47):
But the intraoral camera withthe background that you just
showed that you knew a lot morethan just dentistry.
You gave them a comprehensiveunderstanding of themselves and
you can always say I understandthe dentist before.
Maybe they didn't bring it up,but they might not have the tool
.
This is where it gets.
It will sell you.
You want to say something likethey might never dog that other
dentist.
That is the worst thing youcould do.
So now, that person justprobably didn't know what they
(10:10):
were looking at.
No, it's just, I always saythey probably didn't have the
technology available that wehave here.
That shows them, one, you'remodern.
Two, that, yeah, the otherpro-dentists are not dogging
them, and that actually justshow that, on a personal level,
that you're even, how relatableyou are, you know, they feel a
little bit more comfortable andconfident with you.
(10:30):
And then when you say that theyprobably didn't have the
technology, they now think, huh,what else can you find?
Right?
But now you took a treatmentplan that maybe somebody would
have been like, well, crown hereand a crown here.
And now you've comprehensivelytreatment plan them where you
fix their perio health.
Then you can go into occlusionand you can go into restore.
(10:50):
Of course you want to handleanything that's really bad first
, like abscesses or pain or anyof that, and then at the end you
want to say I know this seemslike a lot and you went to
someone that basically told youyou were good this whole time.
And then I'm coming here.
You got to say the obvious outloud.
You're coming here probablythinking that, oh, she's
diagnosing a lot, but justunderstand that they probably
didn't have this technology andI'm seeing these cracks and it
(11:13):
doesn't make me feel good tojust leave it there, so I would
recommend that you at leastrestore this.
What you should do is notcompletely not diagnose things,
diagnose it all, but then give.
Paul Etchison (11:27):
What I love what you said is that I think the
doctors that often have troublewith this is they walk in, they
meet a patient that's beenseeing a previous doctor for
many years and they don't reallydo anything different.
They just look at it and say,well, I know they didn't say
anything about this, but you'vegot this, this, this and this,
and there's no evidence tosupport where you're saying like
, hey, mr Jones, I don't want totell you that you have this
(11:48):
stuff, but I'm not comfortablewatching it.
Do that?
You have this stuff, but I'mnot comfortable watching it.
Do you see this?
Do you see what I have here?
Look, look, and I love thetechnology thing.
I use that all the timeWhenever I see a patient.
Well, why did my doctor sayanything about it last time?
And I say you know what?
I don't know what it lookedlike last time, but all I'm
saying is like these x-rays, thestuff we have here is state of
the art.
It talks up your own practice.
I love that.
I do something very similar tothat.
(12:08):
Now.
Talk about you'd have thisfirst acquisition, now your next
few practices, your next threepractices, startups.
So why the pivot fromacquisitions to startups going
forward?
Rhonda Kalasho (12:27):
Yeah, I was kind of tired of that, the trying to
unconvince someone of, oh, youonly need two cleanings a year
and it's only what insurancepays for, and they were
conditioned.
You can condition your patientpool and then it's also like I
wanted to.
I'm not entirely fee forservice but my associates are in
(12:47):
network, I am not right.
So I also wanted to have agroup of people who were okay of
being out of network in thefees.
Right.
So because we have so manyproviders, you could still be in
network with some providers,but out of network with mostly
me.
So when I wanted to go to mysecond location that one I
wanted to make sure that it wasspacious enough.
(13:08):
A lot of the acquisitions theywere like three or four chairs.
I just didn't also find theright fit.
So I wanted to make sure theyhad at least five to six chairs.
And all of our locations arenot super huge.
They're all kind of boutique-ybut at the same time they're not
the cheapest, right.
What I wanted to create as abrand for affordable luxury
right.
So it's affordable luxury.
(13:28):
You go to the dental office.
It's concierge.
There's somebody available tospeak to 24 hours of the day.
If you're having any problems,you can text directly and you
reach somebody.
He can call the office.
So you'll reach someone in 24hours of the day.
We have an answering service andthen that gets to one of the
main nurses that are theassistants that are on call for
that day, and that is because wehave a membership base.
(13:51):
So we're also.
We have membership options forpatients too that are really
competitive competitive almostwith insurance.
And how I was able to do thatis I have my own laboratory
right, and so with my ownlaboratory I'm able to kind of
the costs become little bit moredigestible, and insurance
(14:12):
doesn't pay for veneers orInvisalign and if it does, it
pays a percentage.
With our membership fee we'reable to include everything and
give them almost in some cases40% off UCR.
But 40% off UCR is still morethan insurance would have paid
us.
So I think that's why I wanted asecond location I didn't want
(14:33):
to come up with.
I buy a practice and theperson's sitting in the chair
and they were used to DrSo-and-so, and then I come in
and I'm like hey, welcome toTrulo.
It's like because it's a brandright.
Imagine you were drinkingArrowhead water all the time and
I'm coming in with sparklingPer Perrier.
It's like that you're going toget sticker shocked.
(14:54):
It's not what people came for,so I wanted people to come to me
Right, and so that's what thebuild outs and the startups came
from.
Paul Etchison (15:01):
Yeah, you know, it's interesting is like, what I
hear you saying is that you'veput a lot of thought into like,
what are the promises of thebrand?
Like, what is what does thisbrand stand for?
What do we do?
Or concierge, we're availableall the time.
So you've actually defined whoyou are, which is really cool,
and I think a lot of dentistscould benefit from doing so.
You know they feel like, well,I'm, I'm not the boutique-y like
(15:23):
spa-like that well, it doesn'tmatter.
I mean, who are you then?
I mean, even if you don'tdefine who you are, your
patients have a view of you andwho you are.
I'm curious to hear, like, howhas your leadership changed from
going to one to two, to three,to soon to four different
locations?
Rhonda Kalasho (15:42):
Yeah, a year ago , when you talked to me, I had.
A year ago I had two and then Ibuilt two in about a year and a
half, so it's pretty fast.
Paul Etchison (15:49):
How do you manage all that as well as like having
your third child, like being amom at the same time?
Rhonda Kalasho (15:56):
Yeah, it's a lot .
I mean, I really caution peoplewho romanticize owning a
business and also being a mom.
They're two of the mostdifficult jobs is motherhood and
being an entrepreneur right?
Because you're responsible forso many lives, not only your own
, but as an entrepreneur, you'reresponsible for all your
employees, not only your own,but as an entrepreneur, you're
(16:18):
responsible for all youremployees and their children.
So you have a lot ofresponsibility and that's a lot
of stress for a lot of people.
And so if you don't have a lotof mindfulness, you're not
mindfully secure, you know, likementally secure and being able
to really find joy in the chaos,because that's what it is.
Then it gets really stressfuland it can be kind of a lonely
world as well, because a lot ofpeople can't relate to you
(16:38):
completely.
They'll wonder like, especiallyfor me, I get who's watching
your kid?
And there's a really funny skitof she's a.
She's a comedian.
I had it on my Instagram butshe was.
She was like, well, the TV iswatching the baby.
But you know, luckily I havehelp.
I have my mom and mymother-in-law and then I have a
nanny, you know.
So it's all delegation.
(16:58):
Even in your work life youdelegate and in your private
life, you should delegate.
You shouldn't hold so muchweight on your shoulders.
But don't be surprised when theweight gets super heavy,
because it does.
It gets really, really hard andI think a lot of my strength
comes because and it could beanything but I meditate a lot,
(17:18):
but I'm religious, so, like I dopray a lot, so that does help.
I feel like I get a lot ofdivinity through that and divine
intervention.
Sometimes it feels like I feellike I have somebody on my side
and that, whatever that is, it'sreally important.
Whatever you can find, if it'sreligion or if it's someone
around you, Like I love podcastslike this because you can talk
(17:39):
to people who are in the same.
Some people may think like it'sall glamorous, right, and
they'll say, oh, wow, she's gotmultiple practices, she looks so
pretty and healthy and alive onInstagram, but they don't know
that there is a lot of timeswhere they're sleepless nights.
There is a lot of stress.
You're battling cashflow issuesand you're talking to your CFO
(18:01):
and trying to mitigate the nextcouple of months and you're
trying to find out how muchyou're gonna spend on marketing
in this location.
This location spent too much.
This one's too low.
You're looking at your KPIs.
You're looking at your KPIs.
You're constantly studying yournumbers and making sure that
you are playing 40 chess withall your practices.
You want to make sure that youknow exactly what's going to
happen in the next six months,because if you don't, you're not
(18:23):
going to have a problem in yourlife.
All these people that depend onyou are going to have an issue.
So there's so much stressthat's involved in the field.
But I like it.
So I really do like it.
I love dentistry.
I love it.
I think it's artistic, I thinkit's medicine and art and
science all meshed into one.
(18:43):
When you do these beautifulrestorative cases and, like I
said, I have my own laboratoryso I know dental materials
really well when you can pulloff these beautiful aesthetic
cases without having to cut downtoo much tooth structure but
they're very sound, very, verybeautiful and layered and
cosmetic and you got that andthe patient's super happy, your
staff is super happy becausethey have a job and people like
(19:04):
them, the patients feel good,they feel good and you just kind
of you create this environmentaround you that's positive, then
you start to really feel goodabout what you're doing, when
you're wearing all these hatsthe mommy hat, the entrepreneur
hat you can't try to balancethem all in one head because one
of them is going to fall offright.
When you're wearing your mommyhat, you wear it complete.
(19:24):
So that means don't pick up thephone for work and all that
kind of stuff and don't do ahundred other things while
you're with your kids.
Your kids should just be.
You set aside time for justyour children and just for your
husband, and you set aside timejust for them, and then when
you're at work, you're a hundredpercent at work, right, and so
you have to give yourself yougotta give everybody 110%, which
gets really hard.
(19:45):
But at the same time,understand that the way that you
come in to present yourself, ifyou are presenting yourself
just a little bit slower, moremindful, more collected and
ready to problem solve, you'regoing to notice there's going to
be a change in the atmospherearound you.
Paul Etchison (20:03):
I love that analogy.
Yeah, you know I'm curious.
I mean you mentioned thatyou've delegated a little bit on
the home front with.
I mean you've got help withyour mother-in-law and your mom
and a nanny as well.
Do you have that person on thebusiness front?
I mean you've got almost fourpractices.
Rhonda Kalasho (20:16):
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
How does?
Paul Etchison (20:18):
that look like for your leadership team for
running the businesses.
Rhonda Kalasho (20:22):
Yep.
So for leadership, we're reallyhighly into making sure that we
understand the person'spersonality, like if they are a
extrovert, then they would begood in post-op calls right,
post-op calls how are you?
You had an extraction yesterday.
We're just making sure thatyou're doing okay, you're taking
all your medication.
They're talking to them,they're on the up and up Anytime
(20:43):
we do any invasive procedures,we do post-op calls for them and
sometimes a doctor can alsopick that up too.
But we really like that.
We think that that's beenreally helpful.
Patients appreciate it as wellwhen it comes to, for instance,
the manager.
The manager is a leader.
They are not introverts.
They are also not too social,like you know.
They don't want to beeverybody's friend, but at the
(21:04):
same time they don't makeenemies.
So we use something calledculture index, which is a
personality, but called cultureindex, which is a personality,
but it's a personalized test,but not really it's a job
behavior, it's for job behavior,and then, when they are they
fit the kind of characteristicsyou want for a particular job.
You put them in that role andthen that's how you delegate
appropriately, because you candelegate.
(21:26):
But you can delegate somethingto someone and it will never get
done, because they're not meantfor that.
You're going to be, even ifit's something as small as I'm
delegating you to clean theentire storage cabinet.
But that person is sluggish,not really organized you should
probably see their own bedrooms.
It's probably not that clean,right?
So, like you want to make surethat the person that you're
choosing to organize isorganized right, so like they
(21:50):
have to exactly do what you'reexpecting of them.
They're going to be more happy,you're going to be happy, but
at the same time, they also aregoing to feel fulfilled in their
job, because a lot of jobfulfillment comes from feeling
as though their personalattributes are being displayed
appropriately at work.
So you get some people who arereally logical or some people
who are really creative, butthey're in the back sterilizing.
(22:13):
You know they may be better forlead positions and you just may
not know that.
And if you didn't test that out, yeah, so I love you.
Paul Etchison (22:21):
using the personality test it reminds me
of, dr Henry Ernst is a DPHcoach and a regular on the
podcast and that's somethingthat he very much does, and I
forget which one he does itmight have been Colby or
something like that yeah, but hetalks about that often and he
says it's been a game changerfor his practice.
Now I'm curious if you've gotany listeners and they're
listening to you and they'resaying I'm just curious, what
(22:43):
specific challenges have youfelt as far as leading a large
team as a female and have youhad to approach anything
different?
Because this is something Ioften hear with my coaching
clients.
A lot of them are female andthey'll ask me like, well, how
do I do that as a female, andsometimes I don't think I have
the best answer for them.
So I'm curious, like, what youthink about a big team and any
(23:06):
specific challenges to femaleleadership?
Rhonda Kalasho (23:09):
I know that men have been deemed the
non-communicative ones, but Idon't think that's always the
case.
I noticed that, also, femaleslike to bottle things up,
especially the ones that are inthe leadership position.
They don't like when someonedoes something and then they're
like I just don't want to.
They're too afraid to bring upsomething that they've seen that
they don't like, right.
They don't know how to do it,they don't know how to go about
(23:31):
it, and then they get.
They almost become introvertedin their own little niche, and
they shouldn't, because they are.
They're big kahunas, right.
So if something is nothappening that you want to see
done in your practice and it isnot being done, you have to
bring it up immediately, right?
And it's something like thisLike, let's say that I'll give
(23:52):
you a example the office manageris a little too lenient on
people coming in late, right,and by late I mean if you're not
five minutes before schedule,you're late, right, like.
So if they are always late,they're coming past the time.
You're already in huddle andpeople are kind of running in
(24:13):
with their Starbucks cup andthey're throwing things down and
you're noticing that manager isnot reprimanding that or in
being too lenient on that thatis something where you have to
now question your manager's role.
So a manager needs to call outstuff like that.
They need to hold peopleaccountable.
You should not feel that youare the person that has to talk
(24:36):
to them.
See, if you're the leader andyou're the owner, you don't tell
the dental assistant hey,you're always late, that's not
your job.
That's where delegation comesthrough, and so communicate that
to your office manager.
Hey, I need you to be on top ofyour team, because if one
person comes in late and thatperson gets the A-OK, then
(25:01):
another person comes in late.
We've set a precedent that it'sokay to roll in five minutes
into the huddle and they'vemissed everything, right.
And then you reiterate what wasimportant about the huddle.
The huddle talked about pendingtreatment that was there that
has yet to be had by thosepatients.
It talked about deductiblesthat a patient may owe, or if
they have another cleaning, orif they have a waiting period or
(25:21):
whatever it is.
And now that person doesn'tknow.
And then the way that youshould communicate that to your
office manager is you make themfeel like they gave themselves
more work because you're goingto say now you have to explain
it to the dental assistant, passyour time and you got a lot of
things to do and always ask them.
(25:41):
Do you feel like that degradesyou a little bit?
Do you think that they'retaking advantage of you?
Always ask them.
So how do you want to fix that?
That's how a leader talks.
You let them do the work.
Don't ever dictate anything,don't tell them.
I want you to fire them, I wantyou to give them a warning.
I want you to don't do any ofthat.
And then you gave them morefeeling like they have more of a
(26:02):
say in your practice.
They now feel like leadersbecause you gave them a
leadership role.
And now you have also acompanion, because that's really
hard to find someone that youcan also run your team with.
If you feel like you're theonly person that's telling
everyone what to do, that worldis lonely and inefficient.
Paul Etchison (26:23):
Yeah, very much and I love, like what I heard
you say was that, dr Rhonda?
It is important to Dr Rhondathat people come in on time and
myself, as the office manager,that's my responsibility to make
sure that they do it.
And I think what we often do iswe let things slide, like you
say, and then more people do it,and then one day we decide I'm
not going to tolerate thisanymore and we go say, hey, you
(26:45):
show up late all the time andthey say well, so does someone
else, you never yelled on oneother and now we're inconsistent
.
But I love that you broughtthat up because I think that's a
lot of times me personally.
I've noticed that with myselfthat the situations that have
got to big, colossal proportionsat the office like big things
where there's a lot of emotionsriding on the situation, the
(27:06):
conversation were always thingsthat I didn't address when they
were very small and they arealways things that I just cared
about, just not enough to sayanything, but enough to say
anything after it's happened somany times, because I just
expect that everybody has thesame expectations as me and it's
not the case.
Rhonda Kalasho (27:24):
Being a leader is.
It's all about communication.
I almost feel like my job atthis point in my career is I
manage people.
I manage human beings.
That's all I do.
It's like I have a chess boardof humans and I'm moving them
Like okay, this one goes herenow.
But it's not even that I'mmoving them myself.
I'm whispering and I'm tellingwhere do you think you should go
(27:46):
?
Go to space of the head, becauseif you allow people some
autonomy, you'd be surprised youget a really good turnout of
people.
They feel more fulfilled intheir job too.
Also, I should mention, likesometimes when you see even an
employee so I make every littlewin for somebody a big deal,
that's another thing.
(28:06):
So like the office gets twofive-star reviews in one week,
and maybe that's not somethingyou guys get right.
Like maybe you guys get onefive-star reviews in one week,
and maybe that's not somethingyou guys get right.
Like maybe you guys get onefive-star review every like
three weeks, I don't know.
Or like hey guys, you did soawesome.
I can't believe that you guyshave five five-star reviews, and
it's only you know, it's onlyThursday.
That's insane.
I'm going to send you guyslunch.
(28:27):
You do stuff like that that'ssuper, super important.
It builds office culture andoffice culture is felt
everywhere.
Even the patient feels officeculture.
So people are happy, satisfied,smiling, giggling Dentists are
not passing by each other's inthe hall.
They look like they don't wantto be there and everybody's just
(28:47):
positive.
Patients feel it too.
Paul Etchison (28:50):
Love it, you know .
Final question is what do yousee for yourself in the future
and what do you see for reallytrue Globe, Modern Dental, Like
I mean, are you guys going tocertain amount of locations Like
what do you want?
Rhonda Kalasho (29:01):
Yeah, I'd like to open a couple more locations.
One of my really good friendsasked me he has a great podcast
too but he was like how many doyou want?
I?
Honestly, at one point I said Iwanted 10, but I think it's
getting to be, because if I wantall of them to be five stars
and I want them all to be likethis, it's very hard to find the
(29:22):
people.
So the biggest thing and I knowthis is true for everybody it's
hard to find good employees andso I have to keep that level.
I have to replicate it everysingle time.
Once Starbucks opens, it's like50th location.
They're not all five starsanymore, right, and so there
becomes a point where it getsreally difficult to manage that
and maintain that.
So if I wanted to create thataffordable luxury unfortunately
(29:43):
it's not going to be 50, right,it's going to probably be less
than 10, but I'm thinking morealong the lines of about six so
I think two more after thisshould be good.
I just want to build out mybrand, provide great dentistry,
have amazing staff that loveworking here and love what they
do.
Hopefully they stay for a longtime.
(30:04):
We incentivize them enough tomaybe stay around, and you know,
I don't have a lot of turnover.
I get good practices that arewell-rated and well-respected
and then I can die happy.
Yeah, I get good practices thatare well-rated and
well-respected and then I candie happy.
Paul Etchison (30:16):
Yeah, no, I love that, and I think it's perfect
to have a good idea of what isenough, because I think a lot of
us do go into it like, oh, Iwant 10, I want 20.
But gosh, you know what?
Thanks so much for coming backon the podcast.
Congrats to you having anotherchild.
Thank you so much and being ableto juggle it all and just be a
good just, you know, arepresentative of what we really
can aspire to and so manydentists can aspire to, not so
(30:38):
much just like more and morebusiness, but finding exactly
what it is that is the rightamount for you and your comfort
level, while still managingfamily and the things that light
you up and make you happy.
So I think this was a reallygreat episode for all the
listeners and for management andjust.
I love hearing you.
I'd love to get you on thepodcast again, maybe a year from
(30:59):
now, and just check in, butthanks again for coming on.
Rhonda Kalasho (31:02):
Then that time I'll probably be on the fifth
one.
Paul Etchison (31:05):
Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Rhonda Kalasho (31:07):
We'll see.
Paul Etchison (31:07):
Thank you so much , Rhonda.
Rhonda Kalasho (31:09):
Okay, my dear, thank you so much.
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